Kids.

"You're an ass!" she screamed.  There was a long silence on the other end of the line, on the other end of this mistake of a phone call, on the other end of this drunken stupor.  She looked at the phone to make sure she still had service.  Yup, he was still there.  She just shut him up.

She looked around at the room she'd locked herself in.  Her best friend's room, hundreds of miles from her hometown.  She was in this room because she was on vacation.  Well, technically she was in this room because everyone except her knew this phone call was a mistake, and her persistence had led to her locking the door and somehow taking her friend's phone hostage.  What had happened to hers?

"Why am I an ass?" he replied.

She sifted through melted thoughts and painful memories for an answer.  Here she was: on the phone with the boy who took over her life for years, the boy she was never good enough for, the boy who...was still on the phone.  Why was he still on the phone.  Why hadn't he run.

She knew what she wanted to say to him and began with a holler, only to find that she'd lost service.  There was no one on the other line listening her venting, her feelings unleashed.  She could hear her friends in the other room discussing the situation.  They didn't approve.  Of course they didn't, the situation was ridiculous in all honesty.  Here she was on vacation, in the beautiful city of San Francisco, surrounded by some of her closest friends, drinking beer and not having to worry about anything except for maybe the hangover tomorrow, and she decides to call her ex-boyfriend and scream about their issues?  It didn't add up.  Most situations involving an ex-boyfriend don't, though.  I think we can accept this as a universal truth.

She walked over to the window and opened it, staring out at the fire escape.  The cool air felt good against her warm face filled with pent-up emotion and growing frustration towards cell phone service.  She looked down at her friend's phone (still wondering where hers was), and hit redial.

"Hello." he said quietly.

"Hi." she replied softly.

"What were you saying?"  His reply was calm.  It inspired her to react the same.  For a few short moments anyway.

"Why won't you look at my art?" she asked.  The words fell out her mouth with no control.  Really?, she thought, This is the pressing issue?

"I'm looking at your art right now." he replied.  Right.  The paintings she'd given him.  How could she have forgotten?  Four of them.  Two of them were her best work.  All four didn't make it into her portfolio application for art school.  She had asked to borrow them, and he refused.  He thought she wouldn't give them back, flattering and cruel at the same time.  Obviously he had an attachment to them, but she was disgusted that he would think that of her.  Through a small maze of meandering and drunken thought, a recap of this story came pouring out into the conversation at hand as well, just to fill you in.

More silence.

Or so she thought.

In her tipsy state, she had actually mistaken herself rambling for silence.  She'd been talking and talking and talking, saying thought after thought after thought; everything was candid, no censors, no edits.  Finally she stopped.  And then there was silence.

"Are you going to say anything?" she asked timidly.

"No.  I just want to hear you talk." he replied, in a sincere and soft tone. "I'll be your punching bag if you need one."

Amazingly enough, after he said that, she had nothing to say.  It was then she realized she was crying.  Slowly she was falling out of her inebriated state.  Slowly she was starting to realize where she was and what she was doing and it was scaring her.  Slowly she was coming back to a place of uncertainty and non-clarity.  The alcohol got rid of all those filters; would she be able to hold up this conversation?

She fought, crying all the while.  He listened, patiently.  A lot more patiently than she'd expected.  She told him she had hope for their friendship, but told him it wasn't going to be easy.  He said he figured since it'd been about three years.  She told him that they can't deny what they were, because that's cheating and blatant ignorance.  He never actually agreed, but he understood.

"I just want to get to a point where we're ok.  Where I don't think everything is your fault, because it is definitely not." she blurted out.

"It's not your fault either." he said.

She'd been able to hold in her tears for almost three minutes until he said that.

"Yes it is." she replied through a high-pitched whimper.

A sigh came through the other line.  Not an exasperated sigh, more of an apologetic sigh, a sigh saying "you're wrong, but I know I can't convince you otherwise."

"Why am I still talking to you?  I could've stopped calling you.  I could've stopped talking to you after you got a girlfriend.  But I didn't." she said, again through a whimper.

"I could've done the same.  I like talking to you.  I like what we had, what we have, and most of the time I look forward to what's ahead.  I need you.  Maybe not as much as you need me, but there's still a need there that I can't deny.  And a lot of the time I feel horrible because I know it's not the same need that you have."

There was a lot said in that response, but the only thing she completely took in was when he said "I need you."  It had been a phrase she had wanted to hear since the day she'd met him.  And there it was.  She felt a small chapter close; something had finally been resolved.  There were still several other issues, but at least this conversation hadn't been a complete waste.  Sure the phrase had been watered down with other thoughts, but it was still there, right?  He'd said it, right?  At the root of it all, he did need her.

As the conversation wore on, her sleep deprivation became clearer and clearer.  Towards the end of the phone call she was tempted to apologize.  After all, who in their right mind likes to hear from their drunken ex-girlfriend on a Tuesday night?  But she held off.  Did she really have anything to apologize for?

"Well, I think I'm going to drink a tall glass of water and then go to bed." she said.

"That sounds like a good idea." he replied.

They both didn't entirely know what to say.  Neither wanted to apologize, neither wanted to say thank you, neither had any idea what would happen after this phone call.

"Well, maybe I'll talk to you later, I guess." she mumbled.

"Yeah, of course." he said.

"And maybe I'll see you when you're in town, or something." she mumbled again.  She didn't entirely mean it.  By this point, she hardly wanted to see him.  It was more by force of habit and politeness than anything.  But his answer surprised her all the same.

"You will."

A small smile brushed across her face for what could've only been a millisecond, but there was no denying it was there.  And she knew that answer was going to haunt her in the weeks to come.

She hung up the phone, stared out the window for a minute, and then fell onto the bed, soaking the white pillow with her mascara diluted tears.