I click on the voicemail and can’t believe the words coming from the other end. “Hey Danny, I know it’s been a while. I’ve been thinking about you a lot lately. In fact, I’ve never fully stopped thinking about you these last few years. I miss you, baby. Just give me a call back, okay? Maybe we can meet up for lunch or something.”
The phone drops from my hands onto the bed. Melanie has a look of worry on her face. “What? What is it? Was it Cole? Don’t tell me the asshole canceled the date.”
I shake my head with my eyes still on the phone. “No, it wasn’t Cole. It was Patrick.” I swallow hard, still unable to move as my body is filled with fury. He has some nerve calling me after all this time, telling me he missed me.
Where was he all those nights while I was crying in pain and agony and needing someone to be there to offer comfort? His attempt at trying to be with me after the accident was pathetic. I loved him for who he was on the inside. He left when he was no longer satisfied with how I looked on the outside. He said it was hard to continuously be my support system on the days I felt like my life was falling to pieces, which was most of that year as I took time trying to accept the new me while my boyfriend and some of my friends didn’t.
Melanie's gasps bring me out of my head. “Wait, Patrick? As in your ex, Patrick?”
“What other Patrick would it be?”
“What does he want? Is he finally apologizing for being a coward? Took him long enough.”
My eyes fall back to the phone. “No—well, I don’t know. He says he misses me and never stopped thinking about me. He wants to meet for lunch and talk but didn’t say about what.”
Her eyes go wide. “You've got to be kidding me. Hasn’t it been like two years? Where the hell has he been this whole time? Does he know that you moved far away from that shit town?”
Melanie and Vivian were the only two people in my new life who knew about Patrick, but they were kind of the only two people I knew, period. Sure, I had a few acquaintances at the local coffee shop I usually popped in a few times a week to work on one of my stories. But no one I actually hung out with or talked to as much as I did with Vivian and Melanie.
I breathe in deeply and slowly release it as I pick my phone back up. “Yeah, I haven’t heard from him since last year when he called me drunk one time saying he wanted to come over and visit. I didn’t hear anything after that, so I assumed he had the wrong number. Figured he probably wouldn’t even remember making the call the next day. Turns out I must have been right since he doesn’t recall me telling him that I no longer live there.”
I throw my hands up in defeat after sliding my phone in my back pocket and head to the kitchen. I pull out a bottle of champagne and a jug of orange juice out of the fridge. “I think I need a drink now.”
"Now you’re speaking my language. A fashion show and mimosas sound like my kind of hang out.” She takes a seat at the table as I pour her orange juice and champagne into a glass. “So are you going to call him back? Please tell me you aren’t.”
I take a sip of my drink. “No, I think I’ll ignore it. The past should stay in the past. What was the point of me getting away to try and move forward if I’m just going to take two steps backward? Besides, I have no interest in seeing him. There was a time where I would have done anything for that call, but not now.”
