“Hi. It’s me. Please don’t hang up. I need to say this from beginning to end, otherwise, I’ll just…I’ll just keep having the same conversation in my head, over and over until it throttles me down the neck of another bottle. So please…just let me say what I need to say. After that, you never have to hear from me again.”

Source: Shutter Sisters

‘OK...’, I thought. This is not how I expected my morning to start, but whatever this guy’s going through, it sounds like he needs to say something important to the person he thinks he just called.

Yes, I admit it. As I let him paint the picture of his pain with the strokes of his tormented thoughts, there was a part of me that considered telling him he had the wrong number, but the procrastinator in me enjoyed the creatively colorful excuse this could turn into, so I let him go on.

“I know you said you never wanted to hear from me again and I know you meant it this time because…this time you weren’t screaming. When someone says something that final that calmly, it’s difficult to convince yourself it was in the heat of the moment. And I understand. It’s been hard, this relationship’s been really heavy on you, and I get it. You want a break. You want life to be as easy as it is for everyone around you. You didn’t sign up for all this shit when you met me and I get it. I care about you too much to push it on you anymore, even though I never really meant to push anything on you in the first place. It just happened. Life…just…happened.

”I don’t even know how we let things get so off course. Everything was going so well. We had plans. We spent so much time talking about what we wanted, mapping out our next moves, making calls, asking questions, getting all the information. What more could we have done? How much more could we possibly have done to make sure we weren’t making the wrong choice?

“But you were there. It’s not like you need me to bring all this up again. The reason I’m calling is because I…too much…there’s just been too much that’s gone on between us for me to let go of you without…I don’t know, without a fight…without trying one last time. I don’t even know what words to use to get across to you how sorry I am. We were doing everything right. We followed the rules. We followed them so closely we started rewriting them for God’s sake. And you know that these things take time – the dust needed to settle before we could really make up our minds about what to do next, about how to make sense of the situation. It wasn’t your fault, it wasn’t mine. It was nobody’s fault. I get that. But it doesn’t mean I can accept the way things turned out.”

I have no idea what this guy is going on about but by the time he starts talking about faults, I’m pressing my phone into my ear and feeling sharp pains shooting into my neck. I just don’t want to miss what he has to say next. I have no idea who this person is or what he’s even talking about, but I’ve totally forgotten what I was doing before the phone rang and I couldn’t care less about anything expect what he has to say next.

“I spent a lot of time thinking about you last night. I thought about how you’ve changed over the years and how I must have done some changing too. We’ve basically grown up together. I tried to pinpoint the one thing that changed the most in you, and all I could come up with was what hasn’t changed at all. You’re just as beautiful as you were the moment I first saw you, and I’m not just talking about your body. There was always this light in your eyes. If I’m totally honest with myself, I think it’s been the single most important thing in my life. Your light was what got me through all those times when the world just seemed so cold, people were so cruel and everything just turned out totally the opposite of how it was supposed to.

Source: Shutter Sisters

“You always had something about you. Whenever I looked into your eyes, I saw what I thought the world was supposed to be like. I felt warm, and safe and…I don’t know, it’s amazing how just by looking into your eyes I knew that there was something more out there – something that would save us or make things better in the end or…I don’t know…

”You know how I’ve always been afraid of death? Well, you were my lifesaver. You were that piece of floating wood in the middle of the ocean that I could grab onto to keep me from drowning. No matter how heavy the anchor felt, or how furiously it was pulling me down, the wood was always there keeping me above water. And I know that it’s not your responsibility to hold me up or to lead me through this insane mess of a life but…I need you to know what you did for me. You were my lifesaver. All those times when I just didn’t know if I could take one more blow to the gut, when I didn’t know whether there was even a point in trying to keep going…just looking into your eyes was enough.

“And I think people should know that. I think that if someone has the ability to help someone else take that next step, to keep them from drowning, then they should know. And you were that person for me. And I’ve always been grateful. I’ve always wanted to give something back to you, to somehow let you know how much you’ve done, how much you’ve given me. And I never really knew how to show you…but last night, I realized something.

”It’s not fair of me to ask you to stay. You’ve done enough. God! You’ve done so much more than enough for me. And now I know what I can do for you. I can give you what you want from me. I can let you go, without any strings, without any guilt or anything to weigh you down. I can let you go even though it breaks me into more pieces than I can count when I imagine living without you. I’m going to stop pulling at your sleeve and tugging at your collar and begging you to stay. I realize that it’s not your job to hold me up anymore. If I haven’t gotten the lesson by now, I’m not sure I ever will but I guess it’s time I try it on my own.

“So I’m calling to thank you because I finally figured out what you meant about needing to have faith. I know that it’s so much more than just about planning and taking precautions and thinking that we have control over any part of any of this. But anyway, I’m starting to ramble and I’m sure you were in the middle of something so…I’m sorry for bothering you. I just…I just wanted you to know what you gave me. That’s all. K. So, good bye then. Have the most amazing life…cause if you can’t, then…fuck! What hope do the rest of us have?! K…well…good bye.”

I knew all those tissue boxes from Costco would come in handy one day! But I can only manage to blow my nose with one hand because I don’t want to put the phone down. I mean, I already heard the click. He hung up. Call over. But how can it be over just like that? I mean, I didn’t even know it was starting, and now, whatever just happened seems too big to just be finished so suddenly.

Caller ID. Redial. Should I redial? Should I let this guy know that the person he so desperately wanted to talk to one last time wasn’t actually the person he just poured his heart out to? Should I tell him? Is that something you can tell to a complete stranger? And doesn’t the person he thought I was deserve to hear what I can’t believe I just heard?

Maybe I should meet him. Maybe we should meet. He doesn’t have to know what just happened. I could pretend to be her, give him a time and place to meet, and then when she doesn’t show up, I could casually start up a conversation.

Yeah. That’s what I’ll do. Redial. Just first, let me blow my nose again.

Source: Shutter Sisters

Author: Kat Kiddles

• Short Stack