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A Quarter After One

The numbers of the digital alarm clock glow red in the darkness, 1:14am flipping over to 1:15am as she watches.

Every night now, since he left, she lies in bed, never sleeping. She watches mindless reality shows and so-so comedies numbly, paying it minimal attention. The TV networks show movies, formulaic rom-coms and action movies that, to her, are all the same.

Some nights she sits down with a beer or two, feeling the slight alcohol-induced haze before watching another romantic-comedy about how the girl overcomes all adversity to get her happy ending. It seems to her now that she needs to take the edge off somehow before watching a rom-com. Before, with him, she would watch it, and they would mock it. Every time they were going to watch one, they made a game of guessing what would happen next. Nine times out of ten, they were right.

Then, that would eventually devolve into a drinking game, where they had to drink as punishment for not correctly predicting the next scene or event.

Now though, she palms her cell phone and watches the display of the numbers on the screen. Sometimes, she pays more attention to the screen than whatever’s on TV, and she adopts a new game. This time, the game is that by the time she checks her cell phone again, five minutes will have passed.

Patience was never her strong suit though, and she loses the bet she makes with herself every time.

As the time passes, she tosses the cell phone up and down, from one hand to the other, letting the rhythm soothe her, and fantasizing about throwing the gadget at the wall. She wonders how it would break if she did throw it, or if it would just fall to the ground still intact.

At any rate, she’s never inclined to try it.

The crappy movies generally finish around eleven, and she watches the news to return to reality-it’s a sort of anchor, reminding her that life still exists.

By midnight she’s thinking about going to bed, maybe, except that she doesn’t want to just lie awake. The buzz from the alcohol is still there, faded now but still present, and once in bed she lies there, silent and dreamy. She never gets too drunk-she makes sure of it, in case she ever has to take care of some important, unexpected thing-but she wishes she could call him, and doesn’t want to sound drunk if she does get the courage to call.

The haze allows her to reminisce all she likes, which always results in her stifling her tears before finally letting them fall. She remembers the good, and the bad rarely come to mind. Sober, she tries to recall something bad between them, but can’t, and it occurs to her that she let go of the best thing she ever had.

He’s been gone for months now, living hours away in some city that he always wanted to live in (she didn’t), and she knows that rationally she should try to get over him. Move on, maybe find a new guy. Rationality though, is like patience for her: not her strongest characteristic.

Sleep always evades her though, and every night at around 1am she finds herself dialling his number. Her thumb always hovers over the green button, before moving to the red one and clearing the screen.

After this, she finally falls asleep, but wakes too soon and has to rise, face the world again.

~~~~~~~~~~

He lies awake, missing her more than he ever thought he would.

When he left, he told her that he wanted to live in a new city. He wanted a change of pace, a new scenery, and he wanted to go it alone.

Six months later, he has got what he wanted. When they rowed over his moving, she accused him of deliberately picking a place he knew she didn’t want to live in. She was right, he admitted. He wanted space away from her-they’d been together seven months, and it wasn’t like they were getting married. Stupidly, he’d thought they could do the long-distance thing. She wasn’t having any of that though-if they weren’t in the same city, she wasn’t going to sit around and wait for him.

Every night, after he gets home from work, he watches the news and wonders briefly if she’s watching the same news bulletin. Doubtful, he reminds himself. When they were together she had never been interested in the news, preferring instead what was going on in her own circles.

Watching the news, he gets out a glass of wine. It’s become something of a habit to have a glass of wine while watching the news; he always loves setting up for himself a new ritual.

Over dinner, he’ll sometimes get a second glass, or a beer. By midnight, he’s only a tiny bit drunk-he never has been a lightweight.

He always wants to call her, but always changes his mind before he finishes dialling her number. Instead of letting the call connect, he holds down the button to clear the screen, watching the numbers disappear.

~~~~~~~

She falls out of the habit of watching movies, preferring now to listen to the radio. Something about the radio guy talking calms her, and she feels slightly less like she’s alone. A new habit forms, of murmuring what she thinks as if he can hear her, and she begins calling in with a song request.

Unconsciously, she always requests a song that reminds her of him.

Eight months after they split up, and two months after she began calling the radio station, she realizes the song she requested is the one that was playing when he first asked her out.

The song finishes at 1:13am, according to her alarm clock, and she digs around for her mobile.

Finally at 1:14am she finds it, and dials the number she’s been dialling every night for the past months. She pauses, sipping a beer in an effort to calm her nerves, but she hasn’t had alcohol in a few months and it takes less than it used to for her to relax.

The clock changes to 1:15am, and she is reminded of the task at hand. Shoving the beer aside, she grabs her phone and hits the Send button. Admittedly, it’s a risk-he could have changed numbers long ago, or he could have a new girlfriend who will answer.

Pressing the phone against her ear, she listens to it ring.

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