Far Away

4

I sit on the edge of my bed, my legs dangling off of the side as I stare down my phone. I feel nervous butterflies in the pit of my stomach, the same ones I always felt before Edward called me. 

Finally, after what seems like forever, my phone lights up and I answer it with lightening speed.

"Hello?"

"Hey, Mace. I got your text. You wanted me to call?" Edward says. On his end of the phone I can hear a mixture of sounds. Drums, very loud drums. And different voices talking over microphones. 

"Are you at a party?" I ask, trying to listen to what the voices were talking and laughing about. "Or watching a band or something?" 

"What?" Edward asks. The background sound changes until it drowns out completely. "Sorry, ignore all that... Are you okay?" 

I was curious, but I didn't want to interrogate him. I still felt bad about last night, and didn't want to push it any further by questioning him about something as silly as background noise.

"Yeah, yeah I'm good. I just wanted to talk about the Facetiming later..." 

Edward pauses, and it's in the silence that I get nervous all over again. "Right." He says. "What about it?" 

I shrug, and then fall back onto my bed. I stare up at my ceiling and try to think of the proper way to word myself. "I just feel like you have high expectations about it. I know you're really nervous for me to see you and I feel nervous too. I'm scared you've seen that picture of me and I'm afraid that I'll look less then what you see in that photo, if that makes sense..." 

"Macy..." Edward says. His tone is low, and I could picture him shaking his head.

"I've gotten in my head a bit." I admit. "But it's true. That was just a nice photo of me and I don't look like that all of the time, face to face."

"I have no doubt in my mind that you're even more beautiful face to face then you are in that photo, Mace." 

Edward says it so matter-of-fact that I almost believe him. I stay quiet for a while, my brain thinking of a million different things at once. 

"Thank you for always being sweet to me." I say, my thoughts spilling out of my lips. 

Edward lets out a breathy laugh. "It's never hard to do with you." 

I smile and close my eyes, trying to imagine him here with me. Trying to imagine someone. I couldn't quite put a picture to him yet. Was he blonde or brunette? Tall or short? Stocky or slim? I really had no idea. 

"So, what are you thinking?" Edward asks. "Would you still like to Facetime me later?" 

"Would you?" I ask. "I don't ever want you to feel forced to, Edward. If you're not ready for me to see you then that's okay." 

Edward clears his throat and thinks for a second. "I am nervous, just because I know that as soon as you see me things will change between us-"

"No, they won't!" 

"Trust me, they will Macy. It's inevitable. But I don't know how anything will progress between us if I can't even show you who I am. So yes, I'm scared to Facetime you, but I do want to. I have to." 

I wanted to know what he was so insecure about that he really believed it could possibly ruin our friendship, or any feelings that may be shared between us. 

"Maybe this call will be really helpful for us both to break out of our shells more and face our insecurities." I say to him. 

Edward laughs. "Yeah. I guess you can say that.