The Icebreaker

Chapter 5: Wrong Number, Right Conversation

Ivy's phone buzzed on the desk beside her laptop at 11:40 on a Tuesday night, right in the middle of her rewatching a third period power play for the fourth time, and she almost didn't look at it at all. Almost nobody texted her this late. Priscilla was three feet away, asleep with her face mashed into a chemistry textbook, unaware of everything that has been happening around her.

She looked anyway, out of habit, and found a message from a number she didn't recognize.

Hey, it's Beckett from Deja's party. Hope this is still the right number? lol

Ivy stared at it for a long moment, the way you stare at something that clearly wasn't meant for you, waiting for the sentence to somehow rearrange itself to make some sense. As far as she can remember, she had not been at Deja Whitfield's party...

Wrong number, she typed immediately, thumb hovering over send.

Then the phone buzzed again before she could hit it.

Also, not gonna lie, but I've replayed something you said about ten times since the party... Still remember the "extremely low bar" thing? It's still making me laugh.

Ivy's thumb stayed exactly where it was.

She should've have sent the "wrong sent" message, but she stopped because she's kinda bored anyway. She decided to delete the wrong number message and typed something else instead, mostly to see what would happen.

Glad I could set the bar so low for you.

The reply came fast enough that she pictured him laughing at his phone somewhere, which was a strange thing to picture about a total stranger.

Yes, devastatingly low. My coach would be so disappointed in me right now.

Ivy's thumb's started moving again.

Why's that?

And there was another buzz from her phone.

Because I'm supposed to be studying a game match video but I'm texting a girl about a joke from four days ago.

Ivy read it twice. There "game match video" suddenly caught her full attention.

What team? she started typing again.

Oh, I thought Whitney told you at the party? Anyway, I play Ice Hockey, and I'm from Ridgeway U. We sometimes play against Cedar Falls a lot. Well, I hope you're interested with ice hockey.

Ivy immediately sat up a little straighter in her desk chair, while the power play footage still frozen midplay on her laptop screen six inches away, entirely forgotten.

I might care about hockey a little, she typed.

Yeah? Are you a casual fan or fully committed?

She looked at her laptop. At the three open tabs of game footage. At the notebook on her desk, currently open to a page covered in handwriting nobody but her could read, breaking down exactly why Ridgeway's power play unit kept struggling on the same side of the ice they'd struggled on for two straight seasons.

Somewhere way past full commitment... she wrote back.

Cool! Okay, I need details. what's your team? the Beckett guy asked.

Finally, there was someone she could talk to about ice hockey.

Cedar Falls, she typed.

NO WAY... You're the enemy lol

Ivy smilingly typed her reply.

I prefer "the team with better power play stats."

Whoa! That's a bold claim from someone on the Cedar Falls side... Beckett replied in return.

It's not a claim. It's math and the truth... Ivy insisted.

Hmm... That's a dangerous combination, I must say.

Ivy actually laughed out loud at that, a short surprised sound in the quiet of the dorm room, and Priscilla stirred slightly at her desk without waking, one hand flopping off the edge of her chemistry textbook.

For the next thirty minutes, the conversation moved easily between hockey and nothing in particular... A joke about mascots, a mutual complaint about early morning classes, and just talking about almost everything.

Ivy found herself typing faster than she meant to, laughing more than she'd laughed in a single evening in longer than she wanted to think about, and somewhere in the middle of it, the small correcting voice in the back of her head... But the text message wasn't for you in the first place. But in the end, she decided to hush that voice.

I should probably sleep, Beckett wrote eventually, sometime past midnight. early skate tomorrow. this was fun though... Didn't expect a whole conversation out of a random message from me.

Ivy looked at the words the right number for a long moment, feeling something uncomfortable twist in her stomach which means she's feeling a bit guilty.

Guess it worked out, she typed back.

Yes, I guess it did... Goodnight, Cameryn.

The name sat there on her screen, small and undeniable, and Ivy stared at it until the screen dimmed on its own and went dark.

Ivy held her breath, her eyes widening. Wait a minute... You mean the text message is supposed to be for Cameryn Ross, the Golden, Picture-Perfect Girl of Cedar Falls?!

"You've got to be kidding me!" she groaned in frustration, as she set her phone face down on her desk.

Ivy sat there a long time in the quiet of the dorm room, staring at her phone on the desk beside her, feeling the small, dishonest thrill of pretending to be not just another person, but being Cameryn Ross...

She thought about texting back, right then, and setting the record straight before it went any further. It would have been easy enough, like a single line, a small confession, the kind of thing that would have taken thirty seconds and ended it cleanly. But some quieter, more stubborn part of her didn't want it to end, not yet, not after an entire conversation where someone had actually laughed at her jokes and asked follow up questions like her answers mattered.

She thought about what Priscilla said to her a few days ago. Priss said that she shouldn't be voice watching everyone else's life happen through a window, while being invisible... She thought about how long it had been since anyone outside that booth had remembered her name on the first try, let alone wanted to keep talking to her past a single sentence.

It wasn't right. She knew that much clearly, even in the fog of midnight and adrenaline rush. But it also feels good to be wanted, even under someone else's name...