Page 15 of Below the Shadow of the City

“So, you’re saying I’m an imposter?” I joke.

“Only a little bit, but you have the comfort of knowing that I am too.” His voice is warm and effervescent.

I dip a toe into even riskier waters. “Only one of us is hiding our identity from the other, so who’s the real imposter here?”

“Touché,” he chuckles.

There’s a beat of quiet on both ends. I have to bring up the inevitable. I’m craving having these kinds of conversations with him walking arm in arm on the street or curled up on my couch. “Will I ever actually get to meet you, or is this the best I’ll get?”

The silence extends, I can almost hear him thinking. I know my answer, it’s precisely how he’s going to reject the notion this time that is unknown. “I want to, Sigrid, I really do. I just have some…stuff I need to work through first.”

“So, let me guess, you’re married.” I laugh it off and pretend that him dodging the prospect of meeting me doesn’t send a small knife through my heart. Maybe it’s a sign that I shouldn’t let this drag on any longer.

“No, definitely not,” he catches himself at how quickly he wrote off the very idea of marriage, “I mean, I’d like to be, someday, but my twenties have been enough of a mess without a spouse involved.”

“Aren’t all of our twenties a bit of a mess?” The last decade has gone by in almost a blur. I feel simultaneously eighteen, twenty two, and twenty eight, age hasn’t caught up with me yet.

“Yeah, mine consisted of a lot of superficial soul searching by way of late nights at bars and not knowing what I wanted to do with my life.”

“Very typical early twenties, no? Hell, I’m still like that sometimes,” I nervously laugh, he hasn’t given me an exact age but if I had to guess he’s likely also hovering somewhere around late twenties, too.

“Me too, on occasion, but years ago it was much different,” his voice has grown softer and wistful, “I was angry and bitter and asking questions that the universe didn’t have answers to, so I’d drown in alcohol instead to dull the thoughts.”

I sit silently, it seems like he has more he wants to say, but he’s hesitant. He’s shockingly open about his feelings, sharing equally as much as he has pulled from me. It’s been a while since I’ve spoken to a guy who hasn’t flippantly brushed over their emotions. His vulnerability is heartwarming, as much as I hate to reduce it to something so simple.

“I harbored a lot of jealousy,” he continues, “and I practically threw tantrums about life not being fair. I had to step back and take a look at things from a higher viewpoint to realize I had it pretty damn good, even if I felt like I was shortchanged in some aspects.” I want to know this younger iteration of him, and all the other messy, cobbled together pieces of him that made him into who he is today. Each piece of information I get is another limb for the Frankenstein’s monster of a man I’m stitching together to occupy the “Adam” shaped hole in my head.

“And do you think you’re happy now?”

“I know I am,” another staticky crackle, “happier now that I’m getting to talk to you.”

“Gross,” I snap, then dissolve any tension with a light chuckle.

“Clearly you hate it,” I can practically hear his eye roll when he replies, “I’ve kept you trapped on the phone for an hour, you must be getting conversational Stockholm Syndrome or something.”

“That’s exactly right, I’m a prisoner to my phone.”

“How tragic for you.”

“Maybe a handsome prince will rescue me.”

“Doubtful, you’ll probably rot away in the castle dungeon until you’re a toothless skeleton.”

“A prince could very well fall for the toothless skeleton, stranger pairings have happened.”

He laughs dismissively. “They certainly have.”

I’m aimlessly wandering through the apartment while we find our way back to talking about nothing. I rearrange knick knacks on the bookshelf and fluff pillows for no reason. When I meander back into my room, I lay my phone beside me and begin rifling through my nightstand. I extract a shameful number of candy bar wrappers and empty chip bags and ball them up, my phone lays beside me as useless relics emerge from within the drawers.

He’s still talking, smooth and low, our conversation is casual and easy, mindless, even. It’s like we’re living in the other’s subconscious. My fingers fumble through cast off charging cords and junk items, then I extract a hot pink cylindrical piece of silicone and hold it in my hands. It’s been a minute since it’s been put to use. I have no clue if it’s even charged or not. Curiously, I hit the power button.

The vibrator flicks on with a much louder buzz than I was expecting. Panicking, I stuff it under my leg to quiet it for a second. He stops speaking. A deep chuckle rumbles from the other end of the line.

“Am I interrupting something?” he laughs a bit more. Fuck.

“I was—I was just needing to do something with my hands.”

“Oh?” He sounds startled. I don’t think he actually thought I was holding my vibrator.