Page 207 of Callan

After my neighbors and their friends had gotten picked up by the police, the building turned quiet.

It took me a while to get settled, not to fear every little noise, not to watch every car crawling down the street, and not to envision myself joining that group of people.

I don’t know what that was all about, but seeing them being dragged away by the cops sent a shudder of horror through my bones.

Honestly, I’ve never been more frightened in my life.

But then, things got back to normal, and I felt more confident about my fate.

Unfortunately, things haven’t been easy when it comes to Callan. After not hearing from him, I started to fear for him.

What if he’d been picked up as well?

I tried not to freak out, and although it was difficult to get back into my routine, I slept well that night and didn’t think about it.

It’s been several days since that day, and now, I’m more freaked out than ever.

Mrs. Goodman called the following day and said that the job interview had been postponed.

My first feeling was that she wasn’t entirely truthful.

She seemed like a nice lady, but some things weren’t in her control. Maybe they wanted to interview someone else, and if that person didn’t work out, then they’d call me for a second interview.

Strange scenarios spun in my mind, and I had to trust her that the interview was still on, but frankly, I couldn’t.

She couldn’t give a new date right away, which only fueled my distrust with the process.

That wasn’t the only thing keeping me up at night, and I wanted to do something about my anxiety, so I tried not to fret over Callan not contacting me anymore.

It’s not like he had contacted me before, right?

We never exchanged phone numbers, and most of our interactions seemed random and connected to my neighbors’ shady business dealings upstairs.

Now that they’d been gone, maybe he didn’t see a reason to get in touch with me again.

But that didn’t sit well with me.

Not after spending that last night with him.

Not after feeling the things I’d felt for him.

Something didn’t look right to me.

And, of course, considering that I was still feeding on that chemical connection to him, my mind started to spin a lot of self-doubt.

I hated that, and despite knowing what it was and who I was, I still couldn’t escape its clutches.

I was a woman profoundly affected by him, still feeding on the memories of him and experiencing pain and distrust––my old friend––because of that.

I so wanted to talk to him, and I was ready for some bad news, like, for instance, that we were done.

We had a good time and all that, but things didn’t work in real life.

I was ready for anything.

The following day, I squealed under the weight of uncertainty.

I felt trapped in silence with a job interview that couldn’t materialize, a lack of focus that messed with my life, and absolutely no answers.

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