12 missed calls.
I click the messages app, and I’m not surprised they aren’t all from her. She wasn’t the only one I got rid of when I switched numbers.
This is the last number my father and my ex, Rebecca, had for me.
Father had only sent 7 messages, and it didn’t take more than a glance to see the nature of them. I don’t even bother clicking on it; the preview is more than enough.
If you don’t get back here…
Threats, his favorite.
The last timestamp was over six months ago, and while I’d hope that means he gave up, I know better. That only means he’s given up texting me, not that he’s willing to let us go.
I know better than that.
He’d done his damnedest to get the perfect kids, going so far as to mold me into the perfect gopher, even if that meant getting caught could have landed me in prison.
I also don’t dare click on Rebecca’s; the last thing I need is for her to see that I’ve read anything from her, and knowing my luck, she probably still looks.
Her last message was last week.
Baby, please answer me. I miss...
The preview cuts off, but I get the idea. We’d broken up just after Gavin and I had made a break for it, so I’d gotten a fair share of those messages before I changed my number.
She just didn’t know what the meaning of “over” was, even a year later, it would seem.
300 of the texts and all 12 missed calls are from her, which means 80 are from Wren.
I sit staring at the preview, chewing my lip as I debate what to do.
She’s my student now… as if I needed another reason to stay away from her. My brother already hated her, but somehow that didn’t stop me.
I didn’t know who else to…
The preview of her message taunts me as I remember the way she went tense at the mention of talking.
It was like a punch to the gut knowing she’d turned to me and I’d let her down. My stomach drops, and for the first time in nearly a year, I let the bond open fully as I click on the thread and read back through all eighty messages.
She’d needed me, needed someone when there was nobody else, and she’d turned to me…
And I’d let her down.
Worse still, she doesn’t even know it was me.
I had to trade in my leather jacket, piercings, and colorful hair to look the part of a professional. Not that I minded; that other version of me was fun, but it was also a part of my father's world. I’d fit in there; I never wanted that again.
Most don’t even know that version of me ever existed, and if they do, they look at me differently now.
As if I’m better somehow, and while I agree, I’m biased.
Wren is the exception, though, as she often seems to be.
She looked at me as if I were someone back then, whereas now I’m just another face.
It’s strange if I’m being honest. Most girls and even some guys her age, at the very least, eye-fuck me when I’m not looking, if not outright offering to blow me during office hours.
Wouldn’t it be my damn luck that the first girl I might have caved for can’t even manage to look me in the eye?
