Chapter 3
602 Words
The reply sitting in that chat window stung me to the core. I barely slept that night.
Callum called me a dozen times the next day, and Amelia flooded my phone with apology texts. I ignored every single one.
Then Callum showed up at my place and marched straight to my bedroom.
"Summer, you can't shut me out over something this petty. Amelia and I are just friends. Fine, you don't want to answer her texts, but how do you not pick up my calls? She doesn't even know we're engaged yet. You do remember we're engaged, right?
"She's sent you a dozen apologies already, and the least you can do is send one reply back. It was just some fish at dinner. How did that turn into all this drama?"
My eyes were swollen when I opened the door, and my voice came out flat. "Then tell me. What exactly are you and Amelia?"
Seeing the state I was in, Callum finally dropped the attitude. He told me to lie back down. "Amelia and I are just friends. She's your best friend too, so you know how she is. She's blunt, and she says whatever pops into her head. That's the only reason we hang out so much."
I closed my eyes and refused to say a word.
I went back over all the time the three of us had spent together, and I realized there were so many things I'd been blind to.
Callum always bought Amelia her favorite lattes. He kept track of when her period was coming. He made a point of walking her home every night after study hall.
Callum said, "Knock it off, Summer. If you keep blowing up over nothing, how are we supposed to stay friends?"
I didn't answer him.
Callum decided that my silence meant I'd cooled off. He grabbed his phone, dialed a number, and put the call on speaker.
I could hear someone sobbing on the other end. Callum spoke into the phone, "Amelia, it's fine now. Summer forgives you. She'll come around."
A few messages from Amelia had him this worked up. Meanwhile, I'd spent two weeks in the hospital by myself, and he'd barely reacted at all.
I opened my eyes and looked at Callum. I could see a flicker of impatience buried in his eyes.
"Summer, I checked the forecast, and it turns out the weather on your birthday is perfect for filing the marriage license. The problem is you've got class right then. So how about this: you hand me your ID, and I'll go take care of it for you. Missing the lucky window would be bad luck."
It hit me that the chat thread had mentioned a fake marriage license.
'Could it really be fake?' I wondered.
I put on a curious face. "Since when did you get so superstitious?"
Callum frowned. "Better safe than sorry."
I handed my ID over to him. "Can you even get the license without me there?"
Callum nodded. "Of course. I've got a friend at the office. He just stamps it, takes two minutes."
The second he had my ID in hand, Callum couldn't wait to leave.
I stopped him and looked him in the eye. "Callum, what kind of person ends up in a psychiatric hospital?"
He snorted, "Crazy people, obviously. Who else would they put in there?"
I froze.
Then I watched him walk away, and my stomach dropped.
He was right. Only the mentally ill ended up in places like that.
But the future version of me had seemed perfectly lucid. Nothing about her looked sick.
- Writer
