Who: James (narrative) What: Quiet time. Where: 501. When: This afternoon. Warnings: :(
The phone was ringing. It had been for awhile now. One of those plastic, see-thru phones from 1992 with all it's inner parts exposed so it could light up, click and whir. James could remember being a little girl and wanting a phone like that so badly. It was the height of technology at the time, the way it blazed neon like an MTV commercial. Of course, she hadn't gotten one until some fifteen years later. Scavenged from the junk pile at a flea market in Queens. Nobody wanted see-thru phones anymore, but it was just the tacky kind of shit that James enjoyed.
The phone kept ringing. James tilted her head; chin framed in the cusp of thin fingers, elbow pinned to the lacquered top of a red formica dinette table in the kitchen. The phone was blazing pink and green, it's ring gone shrill with a demand of compliancy. But James made no move to answer it, as if she barely recognized the sound for what it was. Blank-eyed.
Besides, who would be calling her? Work didn't want her up there. Her mother would only be full of I-told-you-so's. Like Lotte, whose friendship James wasn't even sure she had anymore. Why was it that James was so singlehandedly capable of destroying the happiness of those that she cared about?
You've broken your mother's heart... and mine too.
And then, Rick. Logically, James understood that he was operating in her best interest. He wouldn't lie to her, and he wouldn't hurt her.. right? But James wasn't even capable of functioning on a logical plane anymore. She'd clawed him through the forum, pushing him away with anger and injustice. Here she was, tapdancing down this razor's edge of wanting someone to comfort her.. and beating them away when they did.
Oh, then there was Shane. Someone she'd thought was something of a friend. How wrong she'd been there. He hadn't even asked if she was okay when she'd told him what happened.
It really wasn't something to get upset about, because she knew better. While James was strangely numb, she could feel the littlest things barbing her. These unimportant forum antics, these offhand comments, these lack of comments at all.. it was building, and building..
The phone rang again. James rose from the table, and pulled the cord from the wall.