The Friend Returns
1000 Words
My fingers tightened around my phone. For a second, I forgot how to breathe.
That voice.
Even after years of silence, I knew it instantly.
"Avalan?"
Hearing my name in his voice felt strange. Like a ghost returning from a part of my life I'd buried years ago.
I sat straight up on the bed.
"Ryan?"
A soft, familiar laugh came through the speaker.
"So you still remember me."
The attempt at humour should have been comforting. Instead, it made my skin go all goosebumps.
Of course, I remembered him. How could I not?
Ryan was the only one there during the absolute worst of it. When everyone else walked away, when the humiliation followed me around like a shadow, he stayed. He sat through my silence. He listened to me cry. He became the one person I believed truly understood.
At least… that's what I thought back then.
"I heard you're getting married."
Straight to the point. I leaned back against the headboard, my grip on the phone loosening just a fraction.
"News travels fast," I said.
"It surprised me."
Something about his responses made me pause; his tone was too guarded, as if he were deliberately masking his true reaction.
"How did you even get my number?" I asked.
"One of your cousins still talks to my sister."
It made sense. Yet a strange, heavy feeling still lingered in my chest.
"You completely vanished," he continued after a beat.
"No calls. No messages. Nothing."
A faint smile touched my lips. "So did you."
There was a tight, stretched silence.
Then, his voice softened.
"I didn't think you wanted to hear from me."
"Really?"
"You never called. Never texted. Then suddenly, I hear you're getting married."
"Oh, that, I lost your contact".
Maybe he was right. After everything blew up years ago, I cut ties with almost everyone connected to that wreckage, including him.
"I heard it's Shadric."
The moment he mentioned that name, the air in the room felt heavy.
"Yes."
Another long silence. Suddenly, I became acutely aware of how he pauses before saying the next thing.
Downstairs, the faint laughter of the remaining guests still echoed, but up here, the silence felt deafening.
"How did that happen?"
Ryan finally asked.
I let out a slow, controlled breath. "It's complicated."
He let out a short laugh.
"That bad?"
"You have no idea."
I braced myself for another joke. Instead, his voice dropped an octave.
"Avalan… are you sure this is a good idea?"
Irritation flared instantly. "I didn't know I needed your permission."
"That's not what I meant."
"Then what do you mean?"
This time, the silence felt different. It felt awkward and calculated.
And then, out of nowhere, Shadric's words from earlier echoed in my head.
You trusted the wrong person.
Every instinct told me to end the call. But another part of me wanted Ryan to keep talking. I hated that.
Twenty minutes ago, I would have agreed with everything he was saying.
Now every sentence felt... wrong. Not because I suddenly trusted Shadric. But because I wasn't as certain anymore.
No. I forced the thought down. This was Ryan. The guy who held me together when everything else shattered. Ryan who...
"You still there?"
His voice snapped me back.
"Yeah," I murmured, adjusting my grip on the phone. "I'm listening."
"You don't sound happy."
"Whenever you lie, your voice gets quieter."
I froze.
"You used to do the same thing after exams whenever you failed one question."
I forced a dry laugh off my lips.
"You still remember that?"
"I remember a lot of things."
I rubbed my forehead, a headache blooming behind my eyes. "It's just not that simple."
"Does he know?"
My brows furrowed.
"Know what?"
"How badly he destroyed you 7 years ago."
The question hung in the air. I found it wrong, not because of the question itself, but because it was asked the wrong way. It was too precise and too deliberate.
"He knows," I said after a moment.
"And you're still marrying him?"
A frown deepened on my face. The conversation was slipping into territory that set off my instincts. Every silence, every slight shift in his rhythm, felt loaded.
"You sound angry," I said slowly.
"I'm not angry."
He answered way too fast.
I caught a glimpse of what was hiding beneath his calm exterior, since the beginning of this conversation.
Tension.
Raw, coiled tension.
"I just don't get why you'd go back to a guy like him," he muttered.
It is the same narrative I had carried for years.
Except now… after everything Shadric had said to me recently… that narrative didn't feel so solid anymore.
Why did every word suddenly feel like a trap?
Before I could answer, a shadow crossed the gap beneath my bedroom door.
I frowned.
Someone was standing outside. My voice caught in my throat. The handle moved slowly, and my heartbeat stopped.
Then the door opened. Shadric stood there.
I couldn't tell how long he had been listening to my conversation. But the look in his eyes told me everything. Long enough.
For a second, neither of us breathed.
Ryan's voice bled faintly through the phone.
"Avalan?"
But I couldn't look away from the doorway.
Shadric's face was impassive, blank, but his posture was rigid and dangerous. His eyes flicked down to the phone in my hand, then locked back onto mine.
The room shrunk, and the air vanished.
"Avalan?" Ryan called again, urgency cutting through his tone.
"What's wrong?"
I swallowed hard, forcing the word past my throat.
"Nothing."
It sounded fake, even to me.
"Avalan?"
"Who's there?"
I couldn't say a word to either of them.
"Avalan?"
Ryan hung up the call.
The way Shadric was staring at me right now... it was clear he didn't need to ask. He already knew exactly who was on the other end of the line. I felt terrified.
He looked at the phone.
Then back at me.
Finally he asked, "Ryan?"
- Writer
