All the Words We Couldn't Say

by Seinaru Kibou no Tenshi

What do you say when you love someone but choose not to be with them? (Hikari, Takeru, Angst. It has more of a plot than that summary would suggest too!)

2. Fear

ALL THE WORDS WE COULDN'T SAY

PART TWO

The stick was blue.

Hikari sat on her bed, her cellular phone in her hands. The tests are inaccurate, the small, cool voice in her head reminded her. If the second one is negative, then you are not pregnant and you have no good reason to telephone him. You have plenty of bad reasons. Like you are lonely. Like you want to hear his voice. Like you want him to ask you to come back to him.

Her fingers trembling, she scrolled down the list of names on her screen to the one that read simply "Home". She pressed the button to dial it, and held the phone to her ear. It rang for what seemed like an eternity, and she wasn't sure why she didn't click the button to end the call. It would have been the sensible thing to do, and she had resolved to be sensible about their separation. At last, however, she heard a click on the other side of the line.

"Moshi moshi. Takaishi here," he sounded sleepy. He must have just woken up, reached across for phone next to his bed. She had lost track of time, while she had been sitting and staring at the pregnancy test in her hands. She glanced across at the neon clock in the corner of the room and swallowed. According to the green numbers, it was 12:09. Her husband was the only person she knew who could be infallibly polite even after midnight.

"Hello?" he asked, "Who is this?"

Her tongue felt thick and heavy in her mouth, "I . . . I . . . ." 

She could imagine him sitting upright in bed, pressing the phone more closely to his ear, hope and fear in his blue eyes.

"Hikari-chan? Is that you? Is something wrong? Is - "

"Sorry. Wrong number. Bye."

Her hands shaking, she hit the button to disconnect the call and put her cell-phone onto her nightstand. Moments later, it rang. She did not need to look at the screen to see it was her husband. She just had to stretch out her hand to take it and press a single button, and everything could be the way it had been. She knew Takeru still loved her or believed that he did. She had been the one who had wanted the divorce, just as it had been the raw pain in his eyes that had made her soften that to a trial separation. She just had to say the word, and he would take her back.

She lay on her bed and stared up at the ceiling until the phone stopped ringing.