The phone number doesn’t belong to her anymore, but I think about calling it. I think about a stranger’s voice asking what I want, and I can pretend she’s having an affair. I can pretend her lover has answered her phone even though my face is on the screen because he’s unapologetic and that’s why she’s in love with him. She’s in love with him and she’s in love with the world. She wants to travel, and she makes plans. She goes out at night and laughs until she can’t breathe, and she goes on day trips to hike and see waterfalls that make her tear up at their roaring beauty. She gets emotional thinking about the past that she’s working to forget. The past that includes me. She won’t be answering her phone when I call. When I call, it will always be someone else. Someone who doesn’t know. Someone who will tell me that she’s not there, and I’ll say I know.
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K.A. Honeywell lives in the Pacific Northwest and wrote a novel called Damn Wilds. She can be found online at kahoneywell.com.
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image: Christine Naprava is a writer from South Jersey with a soft spot for photography. You can find her on Twitter @CNaprava and Instagram @cnaprava.
Rejection Letters 