Page 82 - Vol. V #6

(Ghosting continued from page 50)
“Can we do something tomorrow?” Abby asked. ing. If this was a dream, it was a remarkably vivid
“Maybe you’re just under a lot of stress. This whole paper thing...”
one—free of the foggy uncertainty and numb legs of sleep. She kept staring at the screen, waiting for a response. The “...” of typing pulsed on, but then flatlined. It did this for a few minutes, but no response came. Eventually, the “...” faded away too into a blank message field.
“I don’t care, I just, I just need to see people this weekend. OK?”
There was a pause where Abby could imagine Rachel making a mental calculation as to whether she’d rather disappoint her oldest college friend or whoever else she’d made plans with. Or maybe she was figuring out who would be more hurt by the change of plans. Ultimately though, Rachel told her to meet her for brunch and Abby felt sat- ed the way you would if you’d eaten half a meal.
There could be a perfectly reasonable explana- tion for this. Phone companies sold phone num- bers all of the time. Someone else probably had the phone. And she was stressed about the paper, whose deadline was now only hours away. But
After hanging up, her apartment was once again empty of noise as she’d forgotten to unmute the music station from her computer.
as Abby half-closed her eyes and tried to mimic sleep, she hoped that the other explanations, just out of sight, would stay there.
She put on another sweater and curled up on the couch, hugging her legs. The Ex-Whatever was dead and Abby felt robbed of something. She tried getting comfortable, but no matter what position she shifted to, there seemed to always be a patch of exposed skin nipped by the cold. There was
She had overslept her alarm. Though she wasn’t required to be at the lab at any particular time, Abby recognized that the appearance of working from home, especially with a looming deadline, was unthinkable. Let The Couple knock off for a few hours or the third year disappear for days. She had to revise her paper, meet with her advi- sor after his suggested changes, and not only meet her deadline but be done with it early.
a window somewhere that was letting in a cold draft and though she looked around her apart- ment, could not find its source.
Twenty minutes later, Abby was waiting for BART to take her to the city. She was surprised to hear the chime amidst the din of night sounds on the platform.
~
The text read: “Hey how’s it going?”
“What’s up?” said the text. It was from The Ex- Whatever’s number.
Abby saw it in the morning grogginess and didn’t register the name above it. When she did, she nearly screamed. The text was from Him.
Abby responded with a more direct message: “Look, I don’t know who you are, but the previous owner of the phone was someone who passed away so please delete me from your phone.”
This had to be a prank, she thought. It reminded her of the pranks her tennis friends would play on each other in hotels, how you could take a plas- tic bag and fill it with water and then hang it on someone’s door, waiting for them to open it and spill it. A cruel joke, but this was worse.
The reply was nearly instant.
“Who is this?” she replied.
“Sorry I’ve been AWOL. How’s the genetics lab? Did your advisor ever approve your paper?”
Abby looked around the room but could find nothing there in the cool stuffiness of early morn-
Abby’s breath caught. She felt fingers run over her brain, racing through possibilities. Abby looked around at the other commuters, all check-
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