Abstract Sincerity

Kennedy hadn’t gone into work in over a week. Luckily, her presence wasn’t required and everything she needed to get done could be sent in via-email. Her boss didn’t really care, the only reason she’d been staying late in the first place was because she needed to get things done on the computer that she could get done at home but she was too nervous that Mike would distract her from doing her work so she’d just stay at work and get it done.
Kennedy hadn’t talked to anybody since her breakup and she had at least 30 missed calls.
Her phone started ringing where it sat on her coffee table in her living room and made this really obnoxious noise. She grabbed it and saw that it was from an unknown number; her curiosity was peaked.
She didn’t answer it, but she was hoping that the mysterious caller would leave a message. He did. Kennedy flipped open her phone and skipped through all the other missed calls to listen to the most recent of them.
“Kennedy? I really hope this is your number; I’d be really embarrassed if it wasn’t. Anyway, hi, it’s Alex. I saw you almost a year ago and I know that we said we’d keep in contact but we never did and, well, this is me keeping in contact. I’d love to hear back from you and get to know what you’re doing. Give me a call, bye.”
Kennedy was dumbstruck. What a coincidence that Mike would break up with her the week before Alex had made contact with her in nearly a year.
She decided that she should call him back but she didn’t know what she’d say. She dialed without thinking and listened to the ringing.
“Hello?” his voice answered. Kennedy’s heart stopped and she had to catch her breath.
“Alex?” she asked.
“Yes? Who’s this?” he asked even though he’d been the one to call her a few minutes prior.
“It’s Kennedy. You just called me. Sorry I missed your call, I was in the kitchen,” total lie. She was sitting on her couch hidden underneath four blankets and her down comforter, wearing a sweater and a pair of fuzzy slippers while a mug of hot chocolate sat on her coffee table.
“Oh, hi. I wasn’t expecting you to call me back,” he said, sounding pleasantly surprised.
“Really?” she asked, not understanding why he didn’t think she’d call him back.
“I didn’t mean that. I meant that I wasn’t expecting you to call me back so soon after I’d called you,” he explained even though Kennedy could tell he was lying. She was an interning lawyer after all – she’d learned tricks to tell when people were lying.
“Well, I did,” she said with a shrug of her shoulders even though he couldn’t see her.
“Yes, you did,” he said, sounding calmer.
“So what were you calling for?” she asked. She hated it when people called her without a purpose and she was forced to be on an awkward phone conversation with them.
“I just wanted to see how you were doing. I haven’t talked to you in a while and I was serious when I said I wanted to keep in contact with you,” he told her, his voice muffled against the phone.
“I’m doing fine,” she told him, lying.
“What are your plans for the holidays?” he asked her and it felt really sudden to her, but maybe that’s why he’d been calling in the first place – not just to see how she’d been doing.
“Um, well, we’re nowhere close to them yet, so I don’t know,” she told him honestly. All she knew was that she had no intention of seeing her mother.
“We just passed Halloween so Thanksgiving is next. It’s in a few weeks,” he told her.
“It’s in, like, a month,” she told him with a little giggle.
“I’m just saying, we’re home for Thanksgiving this year,” he told her.
“Why are you telling me this?” she asked him, flirtatiously. She always managed to be flirtatious with Alex no matter what was going on in her life.
“Well, I figured that you weren’t going to be going to Montana to see your mother and, well, I don’t know what your boyfriend has planned, but I thought you might want to come down here for the holidays and spend it with people who you once considered to be your family,” he told her.
“I don’t have a boyfriend, anymore,” she told him softly, tightening her leg muscles.
“Oh. What happened?” he asked.
“He broke up with me a few weeks ago,” she told him, wishing she’d never opened her mouth – now Alex was just going to pity her.
“How come?”
“He said I worked too much and that he couldn’t handle it,” she told him.
“I’m sorry,” he said, sounding sincere.
“It’s fine, anyway, how long?” she asked, wanting to move on from the topic.
“How long what?” he asked.
She giggled. “How long would you want me to stay down there?”
“Oh, well, as long as you want or as long as your job will allow. We’re here all through the holidays until March when we start another tour, so you can stay with me at my house so you won’t have to pay for a hotel and you can stay with me until then,” he offered.
“Are you sure?” she asked, unsure of how she felt about staying with someone she hadn’t really talked to in nearly five years.
“I’m positive. If your work –”
She cut him off. “I can work from home. Most of it’s done via-email,” she told him.
“Really? Great! Yeah, come stay with me and we can have a real Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years. Just us old friends,” he told her and the way he said it made her smile.
“Are you sure it won’t be awkward?” she asked, biting her bottom lip – a habit she’d never been able to break.
“What do you mean?” he asked, genuinely confused.
“I mean, we haven’t really seen or talked to each other in five years. I’m sure all of us have changed and I’m just worried that it will be an awkward situation,” she told him.
“I think we’ll be fine. And if you really feel awkward then you can lie to us and tell us that you need to get back for work,” he told her.
She laughed. “Okay,” she conceded.
“Really?” he asked.
She nodded, “Yeah,”
“Great! When will you fly out?” he asked.
“Is Friday too soon?” she asked. It was Wednesday now, but she didn’t have to worry about rush flight tickets because her work would pay for it.
“Not at all, I’ll have Matt pick you up at the airport, just send me your flight information and I’ll pass it on, okay?” he asked.
“Alright,”
“Will you feel weird?” he asked.
“About what?”
“About being alone with Matt in the car? Would you rather me or Jack pick you up?”
“No, Matt will be fine,” she told him.
“Alright, I guess I’ll see you on Friday then,” he said.
“Yes, you will,” she told him.
They hung up the phone. She couldn’t believe that that conversation actually just happened. In nearly five years they hadn’t really talked and now, out of nowhere, she was going back to Maryland and staying at his house for the holidays. It seemed so fast and so unreal, but on the other hand, she was glad she was going to get to spend time with all of her old friend again.