Young Writers Society

This piece is fairly emotional for me, as you could guess if you've heard anything about what has been going on for me lately. I hadn't ever expected to add this to the VOICES series, but somehow it just came out tonight... Comments are, as always, welcome and appreciated.

VOICES III: The Break-up

The phone rang and I jumped a little, shaken out of the trance of the television screen.

“Jenn… I really need to talk to you,” came his whispered voice over the answering machine.

Four sat up straight, rushing over to my eyes, staring intensely at the phone. The others looked over, concerned as well.

“Jenn… please, if you’re there… pick up…”

I jumped up and raced to the phone. “What’s wrong?” I asked as soon as I’d picked up the receiver.

“Hey…” he said, his voice dangerously low. “I need to talk for a while. And I need you to listen. Will you just let me monologue for a while?”

“Of course,” I said. My mind wasn’t even on the words. I needed to know what was wrong. I needed to know so that I could help him.

One looked over at Two. “Uh-oh…” she said, as if sensing something was about to happen.

Two was staring straight ahead, her face blank. She knew it too.

Three glanced over at them and then turned her attention back to the phone.

“You know I’ll always love you,” he was saying. “I meant that when I said it. But things…” he paused… “haven’t exactly been going the way we’d hoped.”

He trailed off again and I could tell that he was searching for the way to say whatever it was. I’d promised to just let him talk, so I kept silent.

“No…” Three murmured. “No…”

“I think you know it too,” he went on. “Things just… aren’t what they used to be.”

I swallowed. “What are you saying?”

“Jenn… I think… whatever we had… is gone.”

“NO!” Three slammed her fist against the wall beside my eyes.

Four slowly rested her face in her hands, her breath beginning to come in raggedly as if she were fighting back tears. Two dropped a comforting hand on her shoulder while One came forward to the front of my mind.

“What do you mean?” As hard as I was trying, I knew that my voice hardly sounded calm. And tears were threatening to run down my cheeks.

His voice sounded strangely broken on the other end of the line as he heard me. “I just… I feel like I’m dating my best friend,” he whispered.

“What?” I nearly choked over the words. “I thought that was what we wanted…”

“That was what we wanted,” Two insisted. “That was what we’d always agreed on.”

One stared at the phone hard. “What are you saying, boy?”

Three stared at the phone too, her tears beginning to come just as quickly as Four’s did.

“Jenn…” he replied. “Please…”

“Please what?”

Four looked up, hoping, praying for him to say something to make this seem like less of a blow.

“Please… please don’t pull a Kate on me…” he begged.

One blinked. “He didn’t.”

“He did,” Two whispered.

Four got up and ran to the back of my head, trying to shut out his voice.

He was still talking, but I wasn’t hearing. His point was all too clear: he wanted to break up with me. After all the things we’d said and done, he wanted things to be over.

“Things won’t change much,” he said, recalling my attention. “I’m still going to call you most nights… and you’re still the best friend I’ve ever had… We’re just… taking a step back…” He stopped, realizing that I didn’t want to hear it right then.

Four curled up into a corner. “Stop. Just stop it all,” she whispered through her tears.

“We can’t deal with this right now,” One said levelly, almost coldly in comparison to the emotion in Four’s voice. “End the conversation.”

“NO!” Three raged. “Don’t let him go! If you hang up you miss any opportunity of getting him back!”

“Is…” I stopped, trying to wipe the tears from my face even though they were still flowing freely. “Is there any way I can change your mind?”

“Jenn… I’m sorry… but I can’t…” he stopped. “WE can’t…”

“Hang up,” One said. “Hang up now.”

“No…” Three protested feebly.

“I… I have to go,” I said quickly.

He seemed taken aback. “Okay… Are you going to be all right?”

“What do you think?” One asked sadly.

Four shook her head. “Of course we aren’t. Of course we aren’t.”

Three stormed off across my mind rather than answer.

Two just stood there, looking between Four and the phone. “How could he?” she whispered.

“Tell him something,” One gently urged. “You can’t just leave him hanging, no matter what he’s just said.”

“I’m always all right,” I said taking a deep breath.

“Don’t use one of my own lines on me,” he said. “Are you going to be all right?”

I paused. “I have to go,” I said.

“Okay…”

I hurried to hang up the phone and then turned around to look at the empty room.

“It’s over,” Four whispered. “All over…”

I drew a chair up and slowly sat down. And then I simply began to cry. It was over…