Thanks, @andrea-lyn for tagging me on Sunday for the Seven Sentence Meme. I didn’t have anything then, but I do now!
(This is from the same story as the WIP Wednesday excerpt I posted yesterday).
He still remembers the number by heart as he dials.
All at once, he realizes that he’s never called Alex from this number. Gloria had bought him a nice, new iPhone a few years back. It had made it easy to actually abide by all the internet break-up articles that advised cutting off all contact with one’s ex.
Michael opens a text box, begins to type.
He lets his fingers hover over the screen. For an instant, his mind goes to places it shouldn’t. Alex, in bed with some other guy, pissed at the interruptions. He imagines him getting the text, reading it, and ignoring it. Laughing at it, making a crack about his loser ex.
Michael accepts the call immediately, holds the phone to his ear. “Alex?”
He hears breathing, and then a familiar voice. “Michael.”
Michael closes his eyes at the sound. “Yeah. It’s me.”
There’s a pause. “It’s been a while.”
“Yeah. I know.” A little over three years. Of course he knows.
It sounds like an accusation, and Michael doesn’t know how to respond to that. “Yeah,” he finally says.
Alex makes a quiet little noise that Michael can’t even interpret. “I, um, I actually tried to reach you not too long ago. Ended up asking around, at the Pony. Maria said you left town a few years ago.”
Alex had asked about him. Had cared enough to break his wall of secrecy and silence to actually ask about him… Michael is almost annoyed at the hope that’s bubbling up. “I did leave,” he says carefully. “I’m near Taos now.”
The silence stretches out between them, and Michael itches to fill it. He wants to ask about Alex. Where he is, what he’s doing.
Alex sighs, suddenly. “Why did you call me, Michael?”
Michael swallows. “It’s about your dad.”
