216 Missed Calls…
Somehow I was able to register vague surprise that the counter even reached that high. Wearily I hit 'view', although I already knew who it was. Sure enough, the number displayed on the tiny screen was the one my family was currently utilizing. No one else had my number. 216 calls… Someone sure had wanted to get a hold of me.
My surprise was rapidly turning to irritation. Unmerited, I'll admit—I'd been away from the phone for several days, it wasn't as if I had actually heard the phone ring 216 times—but I was rather tightly wound these days. Poor excuse as it was, I couldn't help feeling justified. Hadn't I made it perfectly clear that I wanted to be left alone?
Knowing I was being unfair, I flipped the phone shut again, not interested enough to bother calling back. If someone back at home had something they wanted to say that badly, they'd call again. Maybe I'd answer.
Almost immediately, the phone in my hand vibrated twice, indicating a new message.
I stood still, deliberating, then finally sighed and opened the phone again.
It couldn't hurt to listen to a message.
It was Emmett's voice on the other end, which surprised me. The sheer number of calls suggested Rose's persistence. But then, even if Rose had made the calls, they'd probably not allowed her to leave the message.
Smart move.
I listened to the brief, vague message, which did nothing to soothe my anger. Of course they had something important to say. I could have figured that out from the 216 phone calls. Couldn't he have been a little more specific?
I was about to hang up in disgust when I heard something else, just barely registering before the message ended. Something inside of me went numb, a rather rare sensation for a vampire. I hit the four and the message started to replay. I stopped breathing, waiting, needing to be sure…
And sure enough, at the end of the message, there was Rose's voice.
"Nothing about Be—"
The phone fell out of my nerveless grasp, clattering against the wooden floor so hard that the battery popped out.
It stayed that way for a very long time.