Ryan woke up the next morning in the emptiness of his apartment. He didn’t remember driving home last night, didn’t remember much of anything after leaving Alfredo’s. He thought maybe he’d dropped by Kelly’s before leaving town. Maybe he’d knocked on her door and no one had answered. Maybe that was just a dream.
He grabbed his Blackberry from the nightstand, blearily checked his messages, but there weren’t any. Disappointed, he tossed it back on the table and tried to scrub the fog from his head. Get a hold of yourself, he thought. She’ll call back. She always does.
Not that he wanted her to, of course.
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A week went by. Then two. Then three. Soon it had been over a month since she’d left Ryan's sorry ass at Alfredo’s. He hadn’t called her again, and she hadn’t called him back. It didn’t hurt as much now. That was nice.
She still had his message saved on her phone, though. Sometimes when she was feeling especially sick or tired or when Michael made jokes about her food choices—bananas on a ham sandwich was NOT weird, thankyouverymuch—she would pull out her phone and listen to his message again. His words were slurred and she wondered just how many beers he’d had before calling. But he sounded worried, concerned, and that made her heart beat just a little faster.
She hadn’t told her parents. She was thinking that maybe, just maybe she never would, maybe she’d just keep the baby a secret forever, or at least until she’d gotten married (not to Ryan, obviously, but to someone) and then she’d tell them they’d adopted or possibly that he’d had a kid in his previous marriage. Or maybe she’d just never visit again, but the idea of never seeing her kid sisters again made her stomach hurt and her eyes well up, and before she knew it, she was sobbing into her latest issue of Parenting magazine which she’d hidden inside a Cosmo and Angela was glaring at her around Oscar’s desk.
She tried to get a hold of herself but the tears kept flowing and she dashed from her desk in the annex to the women’s bathroom as quietly as possible.
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The guys from work had invited Ryan out to the club but he hadn’t felt like going. Too much work to do, he’d told them. He stayed at the office for another thirty minutes or so before he ran out of papers to sign and reports to look over. Then he spent another hour on the internet, checking his balance even though he’d already written it in his checkbook. Glanced through his email though he’d looked just an hour before.
He played 12 games of Solitaire and skimmed the Wall Street Journal until the numbers ran together and his head began to hurt. He thought of his empty black sofa, the Plasma TV with 800 channels and nothing to watch, and his king-size bed that had seemed like a good idea when he’d bought it, but now left him feeling as if he were drowning in a sea of sheets.
He dialed her number. Was surprised to find he’d memorized it.
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Kelly was halfway through A Knight’s Tale when her cell rang. She set down her bowl of popcorn-smothered-in-chocolate-syrup and dug it out from between the cushions. Flipped it open without glancing at the caller ID.
“Yeah?” Why does everyone have to interrupt my Heath time? She thought. .
“Hey,” Ryan was a little taken aback by her tone of voice. “Uh, is this a bad time?”
Kelly froze. Damn it, Damn it, Damn it. “Not really, I guess. What’s up?”
“Not a lot, really. Well, kind of a lot. My job’s going pretty well. I have a great apartment now. Not like that piece of crap I had in Scranton. It’s really beautiful, you’d probably like it. Not that big, but hey, it’s New York. And they gave me a Sebring. It’s silver, like Michael’s. Well, it’s newer than Michael’s, still pretty cool though, I guess. I like it, just—“
“Ryan,” Kelly cut in. “Do you have a reason for calling?”
The line was silent for so long that Kelly thought maybe he’d hung up. She was just about to click off herself when she heard him speak again. His voice was a little rougher this time. “What is it, Kelly? I’d like to know.”
“It’s nothing. Really.” She looked down at her stomach. It was still mostly flat (as flat as it’d ever been, anyway), but she knew it wouldn’t be for long. How she was going to keep her secret in a few months? She’d worry about that later. “I was just being stupid. Made-up drama. Sorry I didn’t come to Alfredo’s. I…” What should she say? “I, uh, got sick. I meant to call.”
“I left you a voicemail.” He sounded a little hurt, and Kelly bit her lip. She recalled having almost this exact conversation from the other side.
“You did? It must not have gone through. My voicemail’s a little spotty, sometimes.”
“It never was before.” He pointed out.
“Like you’d know. I’ve been with Alltel for two years now, and my voicemail’s always been really crappy like that. Sometimes it works okay and sometimes it acts like it hates me.”
“Yeah.” Ryan mumbled. “Alltel’s like that.”
“It really is.” Kelly said. “Alltel’s a bitch. It’s really not worth my time. I don’t know why I haven’t switched yet.”
“Yeah.”
“I gotta go, Ryan. I’m glad that your job’s working out great. I totally knew you would go far. I always told you that.”
“I know.” His voice seemed so throaty and flat. Kelly didn’t think he’d ever sounded like that before. Oh well. He was probably bored talking to her anyway.
“Goodbye, Ryan.”
“Bye, Kelly.”
She hung up the phone and dug back into her popcorn. But sitting in the chocolate sauce for so long had made it squishy and gross and she ended up just throwing it away.
Author's Chapter Notes:
So I've had this written forever. Sorry for not getting it up sooner! Also, this was written way before I saw the new episodes, so no mention of those. Actually no mention of those in this story, most likely.
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hanakinstarbuck is the author of 1 other stories.
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