8. Waiting for the Phone to -- Is that Me? Oh -- Ring

Though he claimed to have forgiven me, and I believe he really tried, what I’d done sped up an unraveling of our relationship that had begun slowly weeks before. It would only live out its course over a few more weeks.

But during that awkward time, I tried to redeem myself. Subjecting myself to all manner of little errands, requests and the answering of the occasional “just-to-remind-you-you-aint-shyt-and-if-I’m-mad-it’s-your-fault questions like, “Did you enjoy it? Did you enjoy it better than with me?” Or, “Is it something I did? Did I make you want to be with him again?” Cloaked in what seemed to be genuine empathy provoking insecurity.

I’d learn later those little scenarios were no more than expertly executed manipulation. Racked with my own guilt, I had no idea that BD had also kindled a flame of his own on the side. (More on that tomorrow).

But slowing down a bit to the day after I dragged myself, back to BD’s apartment unaware of whether he would allow me to stay or make me go, I couldn’t get all the things he’d said to me out of my mind.

I’d looked at my recent situation with BD to be the temporary one, not my year’s long relationship with Digital. But BD had struck a chord that night and I found myself checking and rechecking my call log. I think I even pulled the battery out of my phone once, quickly replacing it of course, for fear that the next incoming call would go straight to voicemail.

The next call wasn’t for an hour later and it wasn’t Digital. A day passed and it was going on 48 hours later.

Aren’t there rules about this? You’re supposed to call the next day right? You have to call the next day. I was stressing like this was new. Stressing, like a woman feels after sleeping with a man she likes and who she knows likes her, but the day after she’s not sure if he still likes he as much, as if perhaps by giving herself to him, she’d stunted the possibility of furthering his interest. But we past that stage like a half decade ago. Why do I find the silence so worrisome now?

The phone rang. Unavailable. Yes! I picked up expectantly --

“Hey girl,” -- and wanted to hang up just as quickly. It was one of my best girlfriends (not BD’s old love interest) but Ayana. Also, absolutely not the person I wanted to speak to, especially now. This is my friend who will tell me about myself with little sensitivity for how I might take it or what I might not want to hear. She’d told me months ago that this BD shyt stunk and every subsequent conversation thereafter regardless of what topics we covered included a breezy, 

“So, you still in that mess? That’s just some mess.”

Couldn’t take it right now.

“Hey,” I said flatly. “Can’t talk. I’m walking to the train.”

The wind whipped through the phone and I used the noise as the perfect exit, hitting call end and sliding it back into my pocket. 

I made eggplant parmigiana for dinner, enough like meat for me to get through it and vegetarian enough to meet BD’s standards. I’d been working especially hard as of late to meet BD’s ever-rising standards. I chalked it up to penance.

My phone rang on the kitchen table. Blocked caller. BD looked up from his plate.

I don’t think I even realized how important it was that Digital get in touch with me until I felt my heart leap at the first ring. Get it together.

“Hello,” I said coolly.

“Dyou know what this bitch did? You are not gonna believe what this bitch did “¦”

My sister began ranting about some co-worker’s plan for her demise. Somebody was always out to get her. Jealous, she said.

“I’m eating, I’ll call you back.” Click.

Ever get mad at somebody for not being somebody else? That’s effed up.

The call did come around 10 p.m. that night. BD was in the shower. Unwilling to set myself up again, I didn’t even look at the ID and answered drowsily.

“Hello.”

“Hey, what’s up?” It was Digital. I was so unprepared. Not that I’d ever needed to prepare. We’d been like water. BD had really gotten into my head.

We chatted for a few minutes about how he loved the south and was thinking about buying a house in Atlanta.

“Nowadays, if you wanna do anything in music, you gotta go through the A,” he said.

That’s the same reason he’d packed up his things in our small apartment five years earlier and headed for New York.

He’d tell me sometimes late at night, “This music thing is in me. It’s in my blood. This is what I gotta do.”

He played the piano, guitar and drums by ear. His father, who he’d never known, had been a musician. His talent and his unbelievable tenacity made for an extraordinary businessman whose success was a mere matter of time. Those same characteristics though, made him a terrible mate and relegated our relationship to a romanticized friendship at best and me, a lady in hopeless waiting at worst.

But our connection was undeniable.

I said good night to Digital and wished him safe travel -- I had no idea where he was headed after his studio time in Atlanta -- snapped my phone closed and reached over to put it back on the night stand just as BD walked out of the bathroom.

“Who was that, Digital?” He asked.

“Yeah.”

“Oh, he made his obligatory phone call, huh?” BD quipped, toweling off his hair. “Right on time.”

The sarcasm was lost on me.

Actually, it had been. I fell right asleep. 

Originally posted February 26, 2008