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My heart started to pound. I imagined her reading it line by line, word by word. I waited with baited breath as I stared at the message and waited desperately to see her name switch to Brooke is typing a message. It didn't happen. She’d had to have finished reading it; five minutes had passed, at least. That was plenty of time to read it.
And then, finally, it happened. She started typing.
The suspense was killing me. I couldn’t help but wonder what she was going to say. What she was going to tell me. And as if the universe wanted to torture me, my phone's screen went black.
“What?” I yelled, my voice echoing around the empty room. “No! No, no, no, no, no. Not now, not now!”
I ran around trying to locate my phone charger. When I did, I quickly plugged it in thinking the battery had died. However, instead of the “charging” icon that should have shown up on the screen when I plugged in the charger, the screen simply remained black.
With desperate, fumbling fingers I opened the back of the phone and pulled the battery out, checking for something… anything. Wondering if maybe there was some sort of obvious problem with the way it was plugged in. Everything seemed fine. I cursed under my breath and put the battery back in, then tried the charger again.
It was still dead.
The timing sucked and the scenario was maddening, infuriating, and frustrating. Brooke had typed out a reply, but I couldn’t access it! What the hell? The cellphone store where I'd gotten the phone wasn’t open at this time on a Friday night.
What options did that leave me? None. At least, not until the next morning when the phone store opened its doors. I leaned against the wall and slid to the floor, my hands running roughly through my hair.
It was going to be a long night.
***
I hardly slept all night. I was feeling pretty haggard as I stood outside the phone store, checking my watch, waiting for the associate to open the doors. Finally, the shop associate showed up and unlocked the door, giving me a strange look as he did. The plump computer nerd guy with thick glasses and expressionless face shuffled in, taking his sweet time as he went over and started unlocking counters, drawers, and things while I stood tapping my foot impatiently.
“Alright sir,” he said eventually. “How can I help you?”
I took my phone and charger out and put it on the counter. “I bought this from you guys just a few days ago and it suddenly won’t turn on or charge. I have a twenty-four month warranty.”
The guy remained expressionless as he picked up my phone and looked it over. “Yeah, we've been having a few problems with this model. One of the battery connecting wires on the circuit board...”
“Look, I don't need to know all the technical stuff. Can you fix it or not?”
“It'll take about half an hour. I'll have to open it up and do some soldering.”
“Okay, can you like, get on that now?”
“Uh, alright. You wanna have a seat? Or maybe go walk around the mall or something while I fix this?”
“I'll go get a coffee,” I informed him.
“Cool. Like I said, it'll probably take me about half an hour to sort this out.”
I nodded and walked briskly out of the store. My ability to maintain patience was at an all-time low. I'd waited all night to get the phone sorted out and having to wait another half an hour. It seemed everything was working against me.
I ambled through the mall in a trance-like state. Time itself seemed to have slowed down. I wandered along halfway looking for a place to get coffee, but also kind of walking just for the sake of walking. Eventually, I came across a place and ambled to the counter to order a cup of coffee, checking my watch every few minutes to see when the half hour would be up.
When my thirty minutes was nearly up, I practically ran to the phone store hoping there hadn’t been any setbacks in repairing my phone. I was greatly relieved when I realized the shop assistant did, in fact, have my phone waiting for me.
“Here you go,” he said as he handed it to me already turned on. “I even out a fresh battery in it for you so you wouldn’t have to wait for it to charge. Shouldn't give you any more problems. If it does, just bring it back.”
“Thanks so much,” I said as I rushed out of the shop and headed straight for a quiet alcove to sit and check my texts. Sure enough, the message Brooke had sent me the night before was there just waiting to be read. With trembling fingers, I opened it.
Hey, Emerson. I'm glad to hear your dad is better and going to make a full recovery. That's great news. However, regarding the other stuff you messaged me… I'm sorry, but I couldn't even get through all of it. First of all, I can't believe you genuinely thought I’d have called the cops on you guys. Seriously? I’m insulted.
But that’s not what has me so heartbroken. That would be your lying to me this whole time. And not about who your mom is; that’s understandable. What isn’t understandable is you trying to play me. And you did a pretty damn good job. But I’m done.
I know what's been going on with you and Melissa. Or is it her and multiple other girls? Whatever. The point is I can hear you and whoever when you're participating in your extra-curricular activities. Yes. I can hear you through the wall into my room. And just let me say how classy it was that you started going at it with some bimbo only a few minutes after sending me this message. Just classy, Emerson, real classy.
Also, you’re gonna need a new lab partner. I've arranged with our professor for Garrett to be my new partner. I cited “irreconcilable differences” as the reason I needed a change.
