Cat
I wake up in a panic knowing full well that I’ve overslept. My mom didn’t get home until I was already in bed after Drew dropped me off last night, then she left again early this morning. And for some reason unbeknownst to me, I slept right through my alarm. I get dressed and ready for school with only minutes to spare before the ding of my phone alerts me that Vada is outside in her car to pick me up.
“You don’t give me relaxed morning vibes,” Vada says when I slide into her passenger seat, sweaty and out of breath despite the sub-freezing temperatures outside.
“That’s because I’m not having a relaxing morning.” I throw my backpack in the backseat and buckle my seatbelt. “I overslept.”
“Well, you made it, so you can take a deep breath now and relax on our very exciting five-minute drive to school,” Vada jokes half-heartedly.
I pull my phone out of my back pocket, ready to silence it in anticipation of the school day. “I’ll try. How was the movie last night?”
Vada doesn’t get the chance to respond before I notice a missed call.
“Oh, I have a call from a Montana number,” I say, confused yet excited at the same time. “It can’t be Ran; it’s only Thursday?”
“Message?” Vada asks simply.
I nod, then press the speaker button to retrieve the voicemail.
“Hi baby, sorry to call you so late or… early in the middle of the freaking week, but I had the opportunity to leave you a quick message and I didn’t want to pass it up. I just wanted to tell you that… I miss you so much, it hurts. I can’t stop thinking about you, and I’m counting the minutes until Sunday. I love you so much, . God, I fucking love you. I have to go. I’ll talk to you soon, baby. Have a good day at school. Tell everyone I said hi. I love you. Bye,” Ronan rattles off, and my smile gets bigger with each word.
“When the hell did he call you?” Vada asks with a big grin on her face.
I check my call log. “Just before four this morning.”
“Jeez,” Vada groans, “why is he up at that time?”
“He usually gets up at three-thirty anyways,” I say. “That’s when they start their day out there.”
“Seriously?” Her eyes are wide, her tone incredulous.
I nod. “Yeah, didn’t Steve ever tell you about life in Montana?”
“No, not really. I guess I haven’t asked him,” she says. There’s something sad in her voice, but I don’t get to ask her about it. “You should call him back,” she says. “Right now.”
“I can’t do that,” I say, shaking my head.
“Why not?”
“Because we’re only allowed to talk on Sundays, and I already broke the rules when I called him on New Year’s Eve.”
She’s well aware of the restrictions that have been imposed on Ronan’s communications with me because I’ve complained about them a hundred times. I love talking with Ronan; Sundays are my favorite day of the week, but I miss being able to call or text him any time my heart, body, or mind yearn for him, which, let’s face it, is most of the day. It’s especially hard when I have exciting, happy, sad, or annoying things I want to share with him and I don’t have a way of doing it.
“Well, he obviously didn’t care that it wasn’t Sunday when he called you at the ass crack of dawn, did he?”
Vada makes a good point. The skin on the bridge of my nose buckles as I scrunch it, weighing my options.
Obviously the prospect of hearing Ronan’s voice mid-week is enticing. It zaps little jolts of giddy excitement into my stomach like I’m a kid on Christmas Eve. But can I risk it? If we continue to skirt the rules, are we setting ourselves up for a complete halt of his phone privileges? “Okay, but it’s only like six a.m. where he is. And what if I inadvertently call his grandparents’ number?” I ask. “I don’t think they’ll be as willing to let me talk to him if I keep calling him on days he’s not actually allowed to talk to me.”
“If his grandparents answer you can just hang up.” She nudges my shoulder. “Come on, Kitty , just a quick ring to tell him you love him.”
I exhale loudly, releasing the breath from my chest as though I’m a pressure cooker. “Oh fine. You’re such a great influence on me.” I dial the number Ronan called me from a few hours ago.
“Just continuing my duties of making sure you listen to your heart, just like I did when you and Ran first got together.”
“Yeah, yeah,” I say as the phone rings.
“This is Randi,” a girl’s voice answers the phone, and I know for sure I didn’t accidentally call Ronan’s grandparents.
“Oh, uh, hi… sorry, I… I must have dialed the wrong number,” I stutter.
“No, wait, is this ?” the girl asks. I can hear the smile in her voice, which sounds soulful and smoky.
“Yeah, I… Sorry, who’s this again?” I continue stammering. I already forgot what she said her name was.
The girl on the other end of the phone laughs. “I’m Randi. Sorry, , Ronan was with me last night, but he’s not this morning.”
My insides twist unnaturally, visions of Ronan and some faceless girl with a sensuous voice flitting through my brain. I look at Vada for help, but Randi stops laughing abruptly. “Okay, that came out totally wrong. I didn’t mean it like that,” she says. “Ronan and I just hung out for a little bit last night, and I made him call you after he told me how much he missed you. He’s obviously not with me right now because, well, he’s just not. He should be at home, or on the ranch. He’s probably working.”
“Got it,” I say, unsure of what to do next. Do I just end the conversation? Hang up?
“But, listen, just have your phone at the ready, because I plan on forcing him to break those stupid rules on calling you anytime I see him.”
I instantly feel more at ease. “That would be great.”
“Great. If I see him around, I’ll let him know you called me back. Have a good day, like the feline,” she says, her voice a mixture of whiskey and smoke, and hangs up the phone.
I blink at the darkened screen. “Well, that was… weird,” I say when I set my phone to silent and put it back in my pocket.
Vada looks at me with one eyebrow raised and her lips pressed together.
“What?” I ask.
“You know that was Ran’s ex, right?”
“No, I didn’t. Really?” I ask, feeling uncomfortable again.
“Yep. Stevie told me about her. She and Ran dated for about a year.”
A lightbulb comes on in my head. “Oh, wait, Miranda?” I ask, and Vada nods. “Ran told me about her,” I say with a nod to myself, realizing that the Miranda I had envisioned in my head doesn’t match the voice I just heard. I pictured someone like me, I guess, someone a little more reserved, inexperienced—if you want to call it that—but this girl sounded worldly, mature, sexual perhaps. Now all I can imagine is a beautiful siren, a luscious body, an angular face with sultry eyes, and my chest squeezes.
“Yeah? Did he also tell you that his ex has a reputation?” Vada asks me meaningfully as she pulls into the school parking lot and stops the engine.
I furrow my brow. “What do you mean ‘she has a reputation?’” I ask as Vada and I climb out of her car. This does absolutely nothing to ease the prickly feeling on my scalp.
“It means exactly what you think it means,” she says. “She’s quite a bit older than Ran and was known for… you know.”
I thread my eyebrows together. “Jeez, Vada, if this is your attempt to make me relax this morning you’re failing miserably,” I say. “Plus, this poor girl. Don’t you hate it when people say shit like that about girls? Nobody would bat an eye if a guy ‘has a reputation,’ but just because it’s a girl she’s suddenly a hussy or whatever. And even if she was, I trust Ran. So he’s hanging out with his ex, who cares. He’s all alone in Montana; what’s he supposed to do?”
“Woah, don’t be so touchy, Kitty . I just thought I’d give you a heads-up,” Vada says, and stalks toward the entry doors.
I know I’m probably overreacting, but to be honest, the fact that Ronan hung out with his ex-girlfriend, who’s apparently older than him and maybe a bit more promiscuous than me, does worry me. After all, Ronan and I haven’t seen each other in over two months, and we barely get to talk.
Ugh, this is going to be a long few days before I’ll get to speak with him on Sunday, but that doesn’t stop me from hatching a plan to interrogate Steve about Miranda as soon as I get the chance.
I’m standing by my locker, grabbing textbooks to shove in my backpack when I feel eyes on me, notice the whispering. I take a deep breath and shake my head at the incessant rumor mill churning, the gossip about Ronan and me on people’s tongues. I’m mostly immune to it now, have built some resilience to the hurtful stories that I’m somehow to blame for the pain Ronan has endured and for his sudden exit. But my ears perk up when I hear one girl say, “Well, she’s obviously got a type. Hockey players.” Another girl whispers back, “Yep. Used up the forward, already moving on to the goalie.”
You’ve got to be kidding me.