Work Text:
I haven’t left my place for the past five days, and I don’t plan on leaving anytime soon. It’s not that I don’t want to, I really do, but lately, I’ve felt trapped by my own body. Everything feels pointless, who’s even going to care if I decide to get up? Every so often,I fall into a rut like this. It’s been a while since the last one, so maybe I should’ve seen this coming. This time, I legitimately have nothing to be sad or depressed about. I love my job, I have amazing friends, and I’m comfortable. It’s so frustrating, but I can’t help it. I only leave the comfort of my crusty, dirty bed to grab another unhealthy snack or relieve myself. I can’t seem to relieve myself of this massive weight on my heart and shoulders, however. I haven’t brushed my teeth or washed myself since last Saturday, it’s now Friday. I reach over to the table next to my bed for my phone, only to be met with the same blank screen, void of notifications. I haven’t talked to a real person, even over text in longer than a week, and that’s making me more sad. I’ve always put forth so much effort towards my friends, I care about them so much, but it seems I can’t say the same about them. Whenever they ask me why I missed someone’s birthday, or why I wasn’t at work, I make some excuse like I was visiting family, or I wasn’t feeling well enough, which I guess is true to some extent. I don’t realize it, but now hot, thick tears are streaming towards my ears, and my heart wrenches violently thinking about how truly alone I feel right now. By now, not only are my eyes leaking, my whole body shakes with intense sobs. I wrack my brain, trying to think of someone, anyone I can contact to relieve myself of any pain I can, and someone who won’t care that it’s currently three in the morning. Suddenly, I am taken back to a memory of one of my best friends growing up. We’re sitting on the floor together, backs pressed to the couch in the dead of night, talking about things like what we ate for lunch to if we’re truly happy with the life decisions we’ve made. We’ve seen each other at both our lowest lows, and our highest highs. Back then, we thought we would know each other forever. When I think about it now, nothing even happened to make us drift apart, we just did exactly that: drifted. I could never bring myself to remove his number from my phone, that would mean we were truly done. Feeling desperate and incredibly lonely, I decide it can’t hurt to send a casual text asking how he's been. Once my tears finish drying, I fall into a fitful, dreamless sleep. I wake, not feeling rested at all, to my phone still in my hand, but now it’s been brought back to life, ringing. I quickly go to silence it, but I can’t help but notice the contact name, there he is in his full glory. I truly can’t remember the last time I’ve heard his sweet, comforting voice, and normally I’d probably let it go to voicemail for fear of embarrassing myself, and making us even more awkward and distant, but right now I need someone, anyone to talk to. I quickly swipe my thumb to answer, and even my own voice sounds foreign to me.
“Hello?” I croak out.
“Hey! I realize it’s been a while, um I’ve actually been meaning to talk to you, I saw your message and it reminded me. I figured you’d be asleep right now, but maybe you haven’t changed very much after all,” he says with a short giggle the end.
I manage a small chuckle at that, then realize I should probably say something back.
“Look, I know it’s been a while since we’ve talked, and this probably feels really random, but I just really need someone to talk to right now, and you seemed like the best choice. I’m, um, sorry if I’m disturbing you.” I choke up a little towards the end, and he definitely notices.
“Okay first, you could never bother me, you know that.” he pauses.
“Hey, are you okay? I told you a long time ago that I would always be here for you, I didn’t forget. Even if we haven’t been keeping in touch, I still wonder how you’re doing sometimes, and I’m sure you wonder about me too.” Another pause.
“Hello?”
By this point, I’m full on crying again because this is all I’ve been wanting, no needing to hear for so long. I decide in the moment that I won’t let it die.
My voice quivering, I say, “Actually, no, I’ve definitely been better.” I hesitate.
“I really miss talking to you, do you want to get lunch tomorrow and catch up? I think we have a lot to talk about.”
“I was waiting for you to ask.”
I swear I can hear him smiling through the line, and I can’t help the smile that graces my features either. Finally, I begin to feel the weight lift off of my heart. “I should do this more often,” is the last thing I think before I finally fall back into a restful, rejuvenating sleep, finally looking forward to waking up.