Signals

Tom straightened his tie in the mirror before he picked up his buzzing phone. He was surprised to see that it wasn’t from Annie, his girlfriend of three months that he was about to go on a dinner date with, but was in fact Louise. She had been ecstatic that her advice had been working, and was nothing but supportive of his girlfriend, but at the same time Tom felt as though their relationship had become a bit weird ever since he had obtained a steady relationship as now only he was giving the advice.

“Trouble in paradise?” he asked cheerily after accepting the call.

“This is going to sound absolutely absurd, but I am having the worst day and I feel like you’re the only friend who can fix it,” Louise said, her panicked voice revealing that she was incredibly stressed.

“What’s going on?” Tom questioned with a frown.

“The new cook was screwing up the simplest recipes at work today and we received a bunch of complaints, I got caught in the rain and now I’m soaked, my period decided to start today, my mother just called saying she’s visiting tomorrow and I really can’t stand the woman, and we also have a health inspection tomorrow which makes me freak out even though I know that my workspace is clean-”

“Okay, I think I catch the drift,” Tom interrupted as calmly as he could. “Just breathe, everything’s going to work out.”

“I just can’t relax, Tom. Can we go and get drunk somewhere?” Louise proposed, knowing that alcohol was a guaranteed way of unwinding. Tom rubbed his temple that was beginning to ache as he weighed up his options.

“Look, I’ll come over. I’ll grab some takeout for dinner, and we can talk about it over some orange juice and chocolate, and then watch a movie. Sound good?” he offered and the line became silent. Louise wasn’t expecting that response at all, but it sounded wonderful.

“Yeah… Yeah, that sounds good,” Louise confirmed and Tom glanced at his watch.

“Give me half an hour, maybe a bit longer if the shop’s busy,” he said before hanging up. Tom then dialled Annie’s number to cancel their date, uncertain of why he didn’t feel as remorseful as he knew he should.