Migraine, Chapter 7

24 Jan 2009

Exclusive

The moment Carla logged in her computer, her phone rang. Not bothering to look at the caller ID, she picked it up and said hello.

“Hey Carla. It’s Tom.”

Carla almost dropped the phone in surprise. After what, two weeks of no contact, here was Tom, actually calling her instead of buzzing her through the messenger.

“Carla?”

“Hey,” she said, finally finding her voice. “Sorry, I was just surprised. How are you? You’ve got me worried sick! You’ve got us worried sick!” Carla added the last sentence so as not to single herself out.

“I’m fine, I’m fine, don’t worry about me,” Tom said reassuringly. His voice sounded calm, like he never disappeared from them at all.

“How could we not? You weren’t answering any of our calls or messages! What happened?”

Tom actually laughed. “Sorry about that. I was dealing with some issues on my own, and I did not want to bother you guys.”

Bother? You’re not bothering me! I made myself available for you, didn’t you know that? Carla wanted to exclaim those thoughts but instead, she said, “What are those issues anyway? Girls?” She said the last word in a teasing tone. Almost like a reflex, there was a teeny ache in her chest.

“No, no,” Tom said, surprising Carla even more. “No girls. I’m done with that.”

How many times can Tom surprise her? “Seriously now.”

“Yeah, I’m done with dating,” Tom said proudly. “Anyway, I just thought I’d check on you.”

And then the ache in her heart was gone, replaced by that warm and fuzzy feeling that she used to feel back in the early days of Tom. Carla was pleasantly surprised to feel that again.

“Well, don’t worry about me either, I’m okay,” Carla said softly, smiling. The rational part of her, the one that agreed with Julie, started to berate her for her sudden softening to Tom, but she pushed it away, glad that things were starting to go back to normal.

* * *

So Tom’s message to her a few days later totally caught her off-guard:

Carla…don’t tell anyone yet, okay? The reason I’m not seeing anyone anymore is because I’m dating this girl exclusively. You’ll meet her soon, I promise to tell you all about it. 🙂

[377 words]

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