“Hello,” she answered, her voice light, normal, like he would expect any other 18-year-old girl’s voice to sound.
He didn’t say anything. He wished that he could tell more by her tone—how she was doing, if she was reasonably okay.
“Hello?” she said again, more forcefully that time.
He debated speaking—but only for a second. Quickly ruling that out, he hung the phone up.
Then he swore.
He shouldn’t have done that.
That was stupid and insensitive.
Cursing again, he put the phone back on the desk and stood up, feeling more frustrated with himself than he had when he slunk into his office in the first place.
“Jesus Christ,” he muttered, shaking his head and making his way around the desk and toward the door.
Then he felt a vibration coming from his left pocket. Pulling his phone out, he glanced at the caller ID…and nearly had a heart attack.
It was Willow’s cell number.
Heart plummeting, he debated not answering it. She couldn’t have known it was him—he had called from a blocked number. Preparing to apologize anyway, he answered the phone and slowly put it to his ear.
“Hello,” he said hesitantly.
“Hi,” she said simply.
There were a few beats of silence while he waited for her to ask why he had called, even though he had no idea how she knew he did.
What did he say? Wrong number? That was stupid. How would he accidentally dial her number? That would be even worse, because then she would know he had it memorized and she’d think he was some psycho stalker.
Although he was sort of a professional stalker, so….
The girl cleared her throat. “Sorry. Um, I’m not sure why I’m calling.”
“You’re not?”
“No. Sorry. I’ll just go.”
“No, wait,” he said with a little more energy. “It’s okay. Did you need something?”
The line was silent and for a second, he thought she had already hung up.
“Willow?” he questioned.
He heard her sigh, so at least he knew she was still on the phone. “Do you ever have dreams about what happened?”
Absently glancing at the clock to make sure it was only 6 o’clock, he replied, “Yeah, I do. Sometimes.”
“Me too,” she said. “They’re different sometimes though. Like, sometimes it doesn’t happen the way it actually happened, and then when I wake up I’m not really sure how to feel.”
Ethan made his way back to his computer chair, slowly sinking down into it. “Well…how do you mean?”
Another sigh. “I don’t know. Are your dreams all memories or are they different sometimes?”
That was the last thing he wanted to willfully dredge up, but he doubted she was eager to either, and she was doing it. “They’re different a lot of the time,” he said.
“Like how?”