One in a Million

An entire week went by and there was no call from the Mystery Boy. Aalia tried not to be excruciatingly disappointed, but it was difficult. She wondered if she’d said something wrong. Maybe he got bored of her. Maybe he just had better things to do. Maybe, finally, he’d realized the silliness of calling her every night and moved on. Either way, she was affected far too much by his sudden silence. Every evening, she sat alone on her porch with her untouched glass of lemonade, awaiting the familiar ring of her phone and his gentle voice on the other end for hours. Every evening, she stared at that phone endlessly, hoping she’d get lucky.

But every evening, she was left disappointed.

She tried to tell herself that it truly was a matter of time before this happened. She scolded herself for getting so wrapped up in him. But still, behind it all, her heart was hurting. And she felt stupid. Absolutely stupid.

Aalia made an attempt to get her mind off the Mystery Boy and logged onto her laptop, opening up her email and composing a new message for Caroline. Even she hadn’t emailed her in days.


Dear Caroline,
I haven’t heard from you in a few days. I hope everything’s alright. Send me an email when you get the chance so I know you’re alright. My phone’s acting up again, so don’t call.
Love,
Aalia


She conjured up a random excuse about her phone so that she could keep her line free, just in case he decided to call her once more. The faith she’d instilled in him was still alive, but it was fading fast.

Suddenly, there was a firm knock at the door.

“It’s me!” Aalia heard a familiar voice say from the other side. She wondered why she hadn’t given Dylan a key to the apartment yet.

She reluctantly stopped staring at her phone and pried herself from the couch, walking to the front door and letting her friend inside.

Dylan jogged inside and threw down her gym bag, bouncing the entire time.

“What’s going on?” Aalia asked after shutting the door.

“I got a new job!” Dylan exclaimed excitedly.

Aalia smiled lightheartedly. “Congrats, Dyl.”

“Thanks,” Dylan grinned, “There’s only one downside though…” She trailed off.

“What?” Aalia asked, afraid of even more bad news.

“Come sit,” Dylan murmured.

The pair walked into the living room that was freshly painted and sat down on the plastic-covered couch.

“You know you can take the plastic off now, right? The paint’s dry,” Dylan said, making a face as the plastic squeaked under her bare legs.

“Oh, yeah,” Aalia said, “I know. I just haven’t gotten around to it, I guess.”

Dylan eyed her suspiciously. “Are you alright?”

“Yeah,” she lied, “I’m fine.”

“You don’t seem fine. What’s up?”

“Um, just cramps.”

“Oh, okay,” Dylan nodded, seeming to buy the lie.

“So, um, what’s the bad news?”

Dylan waited a few short moments before speaking. “The job is in Florida.”

“Florida?” Aalia repeated in disbelief, “That’s across the country!”

“Yeah, I know,” Dylan said sadly.

“When are you leaving?” Aalia tried to ignore the hollow feeling in her stomach.

“My flight’s tomorrow.”

Aalia suddenly felt exhausted and painfully upset. When Dylan noticed her distraught expression, she rushed to comfort her.

“It’s only for two weeks though,” she continued, “I’m just training in Florida for a while. And we have all of today. Let’s go shopping or something. We’ll spend the day together.”

“Yeah, alright…” Aalia agreed, trying her best not to seem too sad and ruin Dylan’s obvious excitement for her new job. Besides, she figured a shopping trip would do her some good. And two weeks wasn’t that long anyway, or so that’s what she told herself to calm down.

The two girls drove to the community mall in Dylan’s Honda. They parked near the entrance to one of the department stores and entered the mall. Aalia kept her phone tightly gripped in her hand, just in case.

“I need one of those bags with little compartments for my carry-on,” Dylan said, “Wanna help me look for one?”

“Yeah, sure,” Aalia agreed, “The handbag section is over here.”

She motioned her towards the far end of the store where countless leather handbags of various colors were displayed on wooden shelves with concerning price tags. Aalia helped Dylan find the perfect one, not too girly even for her.

“Thanks, dude,” Dylan said, smiling.

“Anytime.”

Dylan swung her arm around Aalia’s shoulders and led her back to one of the cashier desks. On the way there, Aalia saw something that almost made her legs completely give out.

She froze in her tracks.

Dylan took notice and stood in front of her with a worried expression. “What?” she asked, “What’s wrong?”

Aalia began to hyperventilate. “We have to go. Now.”

“What happened, Aalia?” Dylan demanded an answer.

“Please, Dylan. Let’s go,” she begged, bordering tears.

Aalia turned away and hid her face in her hand as Dylan looked in the direction she’d been looking in moments before. It took a moment, but she finally saw it.

It was Aiden. He was with his new perky blonde girlfriend, who was nearly six months pregnant, in the baby clothes section of the store. They were shopping for the baby boy they were expecting, and they were laughing and smiling, the seemingly perfect little family.

“Oh, shit…” Dylan sighed. She rushed to intertwine her fingers with Aalia’s and led her away from the store, as far from Aiden as possible. The bag she was going to buy was thrown carelessly on the floor, unimportant to the heartache that Aalia was feeling.

Everything that could possibly go wrong was going wrong.

--------------------------------------------------

The next day, Aalia accompanied Dylan to the airport by the underground train. They figured it was the best way to travel, since the airport was far and Dylan’s luggage wouldn’t fit in Aalia’s tiny car. Dylan was constantly eying Aalia to make sure she was alright. After a rough night of crying and lots of Ben & Jerry’s, Aalia had settled on silence to cope with her feelings. She couldn’t manage the stress she was feeling that day, especially when she was about to lose Dylan for two weeks.

When they got to the airport, a long goodbye was made between the two friends and Aalia looked on sadly as Dylan went down the escalator towards her gate to board her plane to Orlando, Florida. Aalia felt so alone. She still held onto her phone tightly in her hand, still keeping the faith.

She caught a taxi back to the train station and waited for her train home to arrive. The terminal was completely empty, supporting how she truly felt inside.

She figured she had nothing left to lose, so she took a blind chance.

She looked down at her phone and searched “Mystery Boy” in her contact list, bringing up his number and pressing TALK. She didn’t expect him to answer, but she had to call.

She hoped that she’d at least get to hear his sweet voice from the answering machine, but instead the message with automated and all she heard was a long beep before she began to talk, her voice shaking the entire time.

“Hey, um…It’s me. It’s Aalia. I don’t know if you remember me, but we used to talk. A lot. Every night, actually…Look, I know this is really weird. I know we’re complete strangers and it makes absolutely no sense for us to talk like this or anything and I know you probably have way more better things to do than talk to some random girl every night…But I can’t explain it. I…need this. Caroline’s gone. I just left Dylan at the airport, so she’s gone. And…I saw Aiden…at the mall…buying baby clothes. God, this is ridiculous. You don’t care about my stupid problems. But the point is that I just need to know. I just want to know, that’s all. I’ll understand if you don’t want to talk to me anymore. I’ll understand. But you can’t just leave me with nothing. I…I sound so dumb. I don’t even know what I’m saying anymore! What is this!? Ugh. I’m losing it, okay? I’m losing everything and it’s not even like I had anything in the first place. And talking to you was the only thing I’d ever look forward to in my day. I know it’s pathetic and I know you probably think I’m stupid, but I made this promise to myself that I would be honest with you and stay true to you. I don’t even know who you are. But I have this feeling. It’s weird, I know…I don’t know what I’m saying. I just wanted you to know this and yeah. That’s all…”

And with that and a few stray tears, she hung up.