Messages from the Bathroom Wall

Seven missed calls.

Huh?

My bleary eyes can barely make out a thing. Does that say seven, next to that little red phone symbol with the line through it?

I try to sit up in bed, hearing Aria snore from her own bed a few feet away. The blanket is half over the floor. She tends to push it off herself in her sleep and then subsequently blames me in the morning as if I've been reaching over to pull it off her as a prank.

Oddball, that girl.

"Oh!"

"What?" Aria gasps, sitting up straight. Her eye mask is still firmly over her eyes. "Turn on the lights, Cleo! Did someone break in?" She holds out two very small fists.

"Sorry," I snort, watching her thrash. "I'm just getting a phone call. Go back to sleep."

Does that say...?

I blink the sleep from my eyes as Aria grunts and pulls the covers over herself. She flips over and proceeds to snore again almost instantly.

Carol

It does say that. Jared's mum is calling me.

Weeks of radio silence. Not even a message from his sister, who I thought I'd been quite close to before this whole ugly mess. Apparently I have a few messages from her now. They're hidden deep in the fifty or so notifications I've been bombarded with.

The phone continues to ring.

I bite on my finger and press answer.

"Hello?"

"Cleo?" she asks. I make some sort of positive noise that sounds a lot like an injured animal. "I've been trying you for hours. Who is that boy on your Instagram? I can't believe you would just parade around with another man so soon — is this what happened? You, of all people, to have met someone else. I absolutely cannot—"

"Huh?"

"And after I spent so long convincing Jared that this was a blip, that you probably just needed a little space—"

Space. My favourite word.

"I didn't need space," I answer, dumbly.

"Obviously not." She sounds livid. "How long have you been seeing this — this man? Weeks? Months? Years?"

"What?" I frown.

"Cleo," Aria groans. "Sleeping. Please."

"I didn't cheat on Jared," I declare. "If that's what you're so subtly trying to imply."

Aria sits up in bed and pulls off her sleep mask. I must look incredibly offended because she slinks out of her bed and collapses onto my own, pulling the covers around both of us.

"So you left him for this...this...?"

My mouth drops open.

"I didn't leave him," I cry out. "He left me. He kicked me out. He said he needed space. Did he tell you something else? I can't believe you would just...call me and shout at me. I've tried for weeks to speak with him and patch things up. He won't even answer my messages."

Silence.

For a second, I worry she's so angry that she's just hung up, but then I hear a soft breath through the line.

"Carol?" I ask gently.

"I'm so sorry, sweetheart. He said — oh, that stupid boy. He said you'd just upped and left."