The phone call

My heart is beating wildly….no, I cannot do it. I turn to my right and enter the nearest building. What is wrong with me? Is this how an adult is supposed to behave? This is no life to live…dodging from people…dodging from friends just because I have no explanation. I look around in the building I am now in; it is some sort of reception. I sit down and pretend I am waiting for someone. I start flipping through a magazine as if I really have a mission there. Nobody seems to take any notice of me, which is all good because how do I explain to people that the only reason I am in a strange building is because I am dodging a friend? I do not know if I can even call her that anymore, three months have passed since I last heard from her, she must hate me by now. I might be her number one enemy. The friend that is not worth being called a friend. How did I get myself in this embarrassing position? I will tell you, but you will not believe me, but I will tell you anyway.

It all started one night three months ago. I was tired, very tired. I saw her number on my phone and I did not pick up my phone. I just could not be bothered with a conversation at that moment. It is not as if I do not like my friend, Mary. It is just that sometimes, my brain refuses to cooperate with me. My brain decides that enough is enough and it would not matter if it was the president on the phone. Anyway, so I decided to ignore the intrusive sound coming from my phone. I did not switch off my phone but I put it under my pillow, then I put two blankets on the pillow and pretended my phone was nonexistent underneath it all. Now the next day, I could have called and made up a story about how I was sick or in the bathroom or I could have just said the truth…that I was extremely tired but I never called. Then a week passed and I still did not have any good reason for not returning her call. Then two weeks passed and I felt so horrible and ashamed of myself that I definitely could not call. By the time a month passed, I felt like the most useless friend on earth…how could I do this? Why don’t I just call her and apologize profusely for my stupidity? Or better still, I could make up the greatest lie of all time…that I was sick in a hospital bed without any means of communication whatsoever…or even better…I had amnesia…I could make up the biggest story ever, and my friend would forgive me. She would hug me and tell me how much she missed me, how she was so wrong to judge me so fast…I could do all that but I do not.

Instead, I am hiding in a strange building pretending to be waiting for someone all because I cannot face my friend Mary whose phone call I never returned….I am hopeless.