Through the Screen

The light from my phone lit up my darkened room as a text vibrated it’s way through, and I knew it was him. I didn’t have to look, I just knew. I had expected that sometime within the last six weeks, the time apart would have forced us to quit these nightly phone calls, or at least, that one of us would get tired of dragging out our impending first ever – get to see each other in person – meeting.

I grabbed the little palm sized rectangle off my bedside table and read the message that said he would call in five minutes if I wanted to talk. He was such a gentleman, making sure I wanted the conversation before he just went ahead and called. I shouldn’t be this excited to talk to someone I never even met, but I couldn’t help myself. I waited for ten at night, every night, just to hear his voice.

While I waited, I thought of all the imaginary things we might talk about tonight.

“Hey how was your day? Yeah, same here, I didn’t really do much either. Just watched a lot of t.v. and made some more bread. Yeah some more, but you know, it’s really easy once you learn how. Ha ha, right, I won’t ever have to buy it again. I know, I heard another 5000 people just in our area. It’s really getting scary out there. Some dr. or someone said that they don’t know if we’ll ever get out of this quarantine. Maybe this is just how we live now.”

The few minutes passed quickly, and I was surprised out of my pretend conversation by the actual ring tone that alerted me to his call.

“Hey, how was your day?” I began, just like I had been thinking, as soon as I answered.

“Hey. It was good. Boring but good. Listen, there’s some things I wanted to talk to you about.” His voice crinkled through the speaker. It was a beautiful combination of harsh masculinity and soft kindness. As he talked, I sat on the bed to keep my knees from giving out from underneath me. I could listen to him talk forever, that unique ribbon of warmth washing over my ears.

Even though I found his voice so appealing, his words frightened me. Our usual nightly talks consisted of what we had done during the day, any plans we had coming up, and how we couldn’t wait until people started feeling better so the stay at home order could be lifted. Once that happened, we could make the plans to finally meet somewhere.

The words he spoke now reminded me of what I had been thinking when the quarantine started.

'Well now that we have no chance of meeting up, at least anytime soon, he’ll probably stop calling. Soon I’ll just be a girl he met online. Maybe we could’ve made a real run at things, he’s so nice. Not what I was expecting at all. Just my luck, something like this happens. Right when I find someone worth it, I can’t even try.'

None of that had happened though. Night after night, I called him or he called me. Little by little, we got to know each other. Before I knew it, I really liked this man. I liked the way he put on silly voices while telling me about his day. I liked the way he insincerely complained about the heat, even though we were all locked away inside our houses, with the AC running all day. I liked the way he asked about me and my family, or if I knew anyone that had been effected by the virus? I liked that he always sounded genuinely happy to hear from me. I liked how he asked questions to see what kind of person I was. Not just what my hobbies were and where I liked to go, but what things were important to me? Mostly, I liked that I had found someone that I wanted to get to know as much as they seemed to want to get to know me.

I feared that after six weeks of being stuck like this, especially because we had never seen each other, it might be too much for him to continue carrying out whatever this was. I didn’t want to call this thing a relationship, but it was the closest thing I had to one.

I jumped back into our talk with overwhelming apprehension. “Yeah, of course. What’s on your mind?”I tried my best to sound indifferent, but I knew the shakiness of my voice gave me away. 

“Ok. Listen.” He paused in between his first words and I knew he didn’t want to say them. This was it. Quarantine was going to get so much worse. I would be completely alone, with nobody to talk to. 

With my heart sinking to my stomach, I realized how much I liked him. I really didn’t want this to come to an end. I wanted to be able to go out with him and see how he was in person. As much as I wanted the things I did, I couldn’t blame him for wanting the opposite. It sucked not being able to see the person you were falling for. Maybe I could suggest that when this was all over, we could try again. 

He started again, this time more steady. “I know this started out kind of normal, but it’s at a place that’s really weird. In any other situation, we would’ve met by now and had the time to determine if we wanted to continue what we could’ve had.”

The long silence that followed his words echoed the rejection that I had felt from the beginning of the call.

“I’m sorry, this is difficult for me. Mostly because I can’t see your reaction and I’m unsure if this is the right thing to do.”

I didn’t want to hear what he had to say. I wasn’t going to encourage what I didn’t want to happen, so I sat there, quiet, waiting for him to finish.

“I like you. I mean, I really like you. I know I told you that I tried the online thing before, and it didn’t really go anywhere, but with you….” He let the words trail into nothing before started on a different path.

“It’s not fair that we can’t have a normal relationship, or at least try to. I mean, if that’s what we both wanted. I just mean, like, how is anyone supposed to start something new, if they’re not allowed to meet anyone new? I guess, what I’m trying to say, is that, I think even though we’re not supposed to, we should meet up, to really get to know each other. What do you think?” 

This is not what I expected. Not at all. I thought he wanted to end things so we didn’t waste our time. Of course I wanted to see him, but his words shocked any kind of response from me. Still, I tried to speak, but no words formed.

“I don’t mean to be so forward. I just thought we had something good between us. I’m sorry if I overstepped my bounds or I’m asking for something you don’t want. Or maybe you don’t feel the same as me. I was just thinking that there would really only be two outcomes of our relationship as it is now. Either we carry on with just talking until we’re either able to see each other or we don’t want to talk anymore. If we just quit talking, then maybe we start this whole process up with other people, only to have it not work or not be able to see those people. I really do like you and I just figured, if we have something special, then we owe it to ourselves to see where it goes.” 

He mistook my silence for disagreement and as he explained, his words rolled one after the other until he was barely stopping to breath. I could understand, as I thought he was going to say something completely different and had nothing prepared to reply. I could just imagine being caught off guard, thinking the person I was talking to didn’t want to talk to me. I would do the same thing and try my best to finish speaking as quickly as possible.

I didn’t want him thinking I didn’t like him as much as he liked me, if not more, so I just yelled the first thing that came to me.

“Of course I want to meet you. Are you kidding me? I thought you were gonna say you didn’t want to talk to me anymore. That it was too much of a hassle to get to know someone over the phone without seeing them in person. I completely agree with you. Of course we have something special.” The volume of my voice looped back through the phones speaker and hurt my ears. I tried talking quieter.

“When would you like to meet? Where would you like to meet? Somewhere public and during the day would be great. I know a few places that people still gather at, especially now that it’s getting warmer out.”

Now that I knew we both wanted that same things, it was easy to plan for the immediate future. Quarantine wasn’t so bad. The virus that forced us into it, didn’t seem to hold as much power as it used to. Even not knowing how things would ultimately work out was not an issue. Maybe I would never go back to work or barely see my friends and family, but that was all ok.

With a sigh of happiness, I fell back into the softness of my bed, which matched the softness of his voice, as I listened to him describe the places we could go and the things that we could do.

At least for the night, everything was ok with the world.