Relapse

Chapter 2

~~10:33 pm~~

 

o   Dante

 

I felt my phone vibrating next to my pillow as I lay in bed in the darkness of my room. Reaching for it, I looked at the screen.

‘Ced Rodriguez calling…’

I gave a sigh. Ced had been trying to reach me since early this evening. Was he really that desperate to rub it in, how I fell for his prank – hook, line, and sinker?

After maybe a minute, the vibrations stopped. I let out a breath of relief, then closed my eyes again.

Some time later, my phone was vibrating again. Annoyed, I turned my back on my phone, determined to ignore Ced.

After another minute, the phone stopped, only to begin vibrating once more after several seconds.

Unable to stand it, I picked up my phone and answered the call, not sparing a glance at the caller’s name.

“Damn it, Ced, just leave me alone—” I said irritably.

“Um, Dante?”

That voice could not have been Ced’s. In an instant, I knew.

“Carol?” I said, my voice softening.

“Yes, it’s me, Dante,” Carol replied promptly.

“I’m sorry…I didn’t mean to swear at you…I thought it was Ced calling—

“It’s okay, I understand you’re upset,” she said gently, “and it’s why I called.”

“What?”

“I wanted to check on you. And to tell you that I’m sorry about earlier today.”

I rolled over a bit in bed so that I was lying on my back again. “Yeah, you told me that this afternoon.”

“I just wanted to make sure you knew. Really, I’m so sorry. I talked to Ced about it after school. He won’t try anything like that anymore.”

“Good,” I said fervently.

There was a brief period of silence, then—

“I’m sorry, too,” I mumbled.

“Huh? What for?” Carol asked.

I inhaled deeply, then exhaled. “For…for what I said back there.”

Carol did not say anything at first, then she spoke in a small, quiet voice:

“Is it true, though? What you sent?”

I hesitated, afraid to answer. My silence did not deceive her.

“I thought you said you would let it go,” she went on, and I could not tell whether she was just surprised or disappointed that I had not stopped loving her yet, even as I told her before that I would.

I gave a grunt instead of an apology, my face burning in the darkness.

“Dante, please…you have to forget about me. It’s really hard for me…I just want to be friends.” she told me.

I had heard all this before. I didn’t believe a rerun of it would work.

I could not bring myself to say anything. I couldn’t promise her anything.

“Dante? Are you still there?”

“Yeah.”

“Please let me go,” she was pleading now, “Be happy for yourself. I don’t want to avoid you anymore.”