Waiting For The Phone To Ring [BXB]

28

Jaylen's POV
Three months later
I groan loudly and I get up, walking around the apartment. I then come back to my room with a bottle of water. I sit at my desk and slam my head on the table. I mumble "god, I miss him so much" resting my arms on the desk and I rest my head on my arms. I grab a notebook, keeping my phone face up next to me.

I feel so paranoid. My paranoia only goes up the longer he's gone. The thing is, I may never hear if he dies. Maybe I'd hear he went missing, or was captured. Killed and the body was never recovered. Anything could happen and that's what is scary. I don't know if he's active duty. I just know where he is. I don't know anything else. I stare at my phone for awhile and I mumble "just write it down." It'll make me feel better if I write and I know that.

I write a letter to Ethan. I don't know if I'll send it but I'm going to write it in hopes of going to sleep. At least at some point tonight. I write a letter saying:

I wish to feel your blush lips once again, in hopes to never forget you. I would never forget you but that is the thing I worry about. I worry about waking up every morning and forgetting your existence. I just wake up with the satisfying dread that you're gone but not forgotten.

I talk like you're dead but I feel like I'm mourning. I can't speak to you, I miss your voice, I can't see you, I miss staring at your lips for hours. Your picture is always in my mind and it's always what I'm thinking about. I don't talk about you cause it makes me sad, but it makes me seem to have ideas limited.

It's selfish to say these things, but I don't speak for you to feel sorry for me. I don't speak for you to regret your decision. I speak to show you my love and how it only hurts me until I hear from you again.

My undying love, Jaylen

I sigh and I fold the paper up, grabbing an envelope, and sticking the letter in. I bite my lip and I grab a couple Polaroids off my wall. One of all our friends and one of me and Ethan's mom. I write on the bottom of them with sharpie. On the one with his mom and I, I draw a heart. On the friends one I write, we miss you, sweetie.

I smile and I see the sun starting or come up outside the window. I mumble "guess I'm not sleeping tonight" grabbing my notebook and a pencil, then I put on some shorts. I then go out to the tiny balcony we have. I sit and I say "wow" and I go back inside to grab my Polaroid. I take a picture of the sunset over all the buildings in New York. I pull the picture out of the slot and I let it process.

I hear the door slide open and Mikey sits in the chair next to me. I say "hey" and he smiles saying "good morning. Did you sleep?" I say "no" sighing and he says "what's up?" I say "I was just paranoid and I miss him." Mikey says "I get it" quietly and I say "I just feel like shit." Mikey says "what can I do to help you?" I say "want to do a coffee run with me? Since we all chose to take an eight AM." Mikey says "I love our eight AM cause we look so cute going in there. It's also the easiest class I've ever taken. Let's get coffee."

I get up and I go shower, putting on my cute slutty outfit for my eight AM. I put on ripped jeans and a tight tee shirt with a zip up sweatshirt over it. I put a necklace on and finish up getting ready while Mikey just steps out of the shower. Mikey finishes getting ready and we put our shoes on, Mikey saying "ready to go?" I say "yeah" smiling and we walk to Starbucks. We order drinks for us, Trent, and Eliza. We also buy premade coffee for the afternoon drag.

We go back to the apartment and Trent and Eliza are talking while they eat. Mikey makes himself a bowl of cereal and he also makes me one. He says "eat" and I say "I'm not hungry." Mikey says "I don't care. Eat." I roll my eyes and I eat and we all walk to the same eight AM we all have. Abnormal Psychology. We go into class and our professor says "and I wonder how you freshman got into my class." I say "you love us, Curtis" and he chuckles saying "go sit down."

We go to take our seats and once the clock hits eight AM, our Professor starts teaching. He says "today, we will be covering trauma and stress disorders. As always, if you need to step out for a second, step on out. The lecture will be posted as always or you can read it if you want since I have it transcribed." There's like fifteen of us in the class and Curtis says "to start with, we're going to cover PTSD. The history of PTSD is it was originally called shell shock because it is typically experienced by people that were apart of the war. Can anyone name the symptoms that make up Post Traumatic Stress Disorder?"

I say "depression, agitation, irritability, fear, flashbacks, severe anxiety, detachment, easily jumped, and self destructive behavior. Oh, and insomnia" yawning. Curtis says "you don't have to share, but do you have experience with PTSD?" I say "I don't have it, but I know some people." Curtis says "what's the experience like?" I say "Mikey can probably account a bit more for this than I can. My boyfriend is from a military family, so his father and his fathers father. My boyfriends dad ran a tight ship at home I would think because of his PTSD from being in the military. Everyone gets the rundown before they go into the house you can't yell, no running, and absolutely most definitely do not slam doors. He's a chill guy most of the time but there are some days that he's quite off."

Curtis says "why did I not know you had a boyfriend?!" I say "I don't really talk about him anymore." Mikey says "I remember when we were younger, before any of you were in the picture, his dad was barely human. He seems like an old military guy now, but he barely talked. He barely ate. He drank a lot. He was barely a dad till Jen was maybe eleven years old."

I say "I have never been told that one." Mikey says "he doesn't feel the need to bring it up. It was seven years ago. He had a dad when he really needed one and that's what counts is what he tells me." I say "that's fair" shrugging and Curtis says "we gotta get going again before we all start crying" making me chuckle.