I felt dizzy. The familiar objects that filled my room had taken on a sinister, skewed aspect. The darkness pressed so hard against the windows that it looked like it would break through. I took a shallow breath, all that I was capable of. The phone was in my hand, my heart was pounding. Do or die. I was going to call him.

Shaking, my fingers barely able to punch the right numbers, I still didn’t know what I would say. I listened to the tiny rings in my ear with this sickening combination of hope and fear. I kind of felt like I was eating some gourmet chocolate with a huge juicy ant at its center. I was going to be sick. And it had rung three, four, five times. No one was there. No one would answer. What did I expect? Did I honestly think that Jordan Catalano would spend his nights at home like me?

“Hello?” It was him, his breathless voice as he ran from wherever to pick up the phone.

“Uh, hi, Jordan?” I sounded so stupid. I wished I hadn’t done this. Too brazen for my own good. I wasn’t Rayann who could just, like, do anything, say anything to anyone. Some people were like that and I just had to accept that I wasn’t one of them.

“Yeah,” Oh his voice, it made me feel like, I don’t know, melting. And I loved how he just said the one thing, without rushing on with questions like I would have. He didn’t know who it was, I was sure of that. If some boy I didn’t recognize called and asked for me I’d be full of questions at this point. ‘Who is this? How do I know you?’ But he didn’t.

“Uh, it’s Angela,” I said, and then I physically braced myself for the demolishing response. I held the phone with one hand and put my arm across my stomach and leaned forward slightly, ready to ward off a blow. Because if he said, ‘who?’ or ‘why are you calling?’ with that slight condescension that boys like him were a master at, then I didn’t know. I didn’t know what I’d do.

“Oh. Hi,” I smiled. He didn’t sound annoyed, or like he didn’t know who the hell I was. He still might not, but if he didn’t know who it was he was graciously pretending he did, and I loved him more for that. I was on the phone with Jordan, of all people, and I had nothing to say.

The seconds were stretching out, the seconds that I had to think of something to say. Why did this have to be so hard? There was a whole world out there, music and politics and all that crap and I couldn’t think of one single thing to say.

“Uh, what’s up?” I said, wishing I had thought of some reason to call him, something to pretend I had to say to him. Small talk was beyond me at this point.

“Not much,” he said. I scrambled around in my head for some excuse, some reason to have called, and I’d have to think of something soon because I couldn’t breathe, I felt almost faint, outside of myself, but alive for once. I liked this adrenaline rush, the blood pounding in my ears.

“Listen, did you hear if Tino’s having a party this weekend?” I said, thanking Rayann in my head for having such a screwed up friend.

“No, I didn’t hear anything. Did you?” he said, and I followed the tone and texture of his voice like a wave, getting lost in it, the sea spray in my eyes.

“Well, I thought Rayann said something about it, but I wasn’t sure…” I felt secure with a nice lie to root me to the spot, so I wouldn’t float off into the stratosphere. I licked my lips and imagined kissing his, those perfect pouty lips. I could see the way his hair fell across his forehead, the way the choker necklace he wore lay against that delicate spot at the base of his neck.

“Oh. Well, uh, let me know if you hear anything,” he said, his speech almost deliciously slow. Maybe he was closing his eyes right now.

“Okay, yeah. I will. Cool. Uh, Jordan, I have to go,”

“Okay. Talk to you later,” he said, “bye,”

“Bye,”

I hung up the phone gently, his voice still tingling in my ear. That was okay. I could breathe again.