Wrestling a 'Bear'

Kri’s pleading voice scraped across my conscience.

“Please?” She begged, “Please, Mya I never ask you for anything. Please. Just… talk to him. That’s all I’m asking for. Just talk.” I sighed and rubbed my temples. This was impossible. She knew this.

“Kri,” I groaned into the phone. “We’ve tried this before, remember? It ended with him in hysterical tears.” I paused. “And me laughing about it. This is just a bad idea. Bad.” She sniffled on the other line.

“I—I know. I do. I just…” Another loud sniffle. “I love him. I do. And… and…” She took a deep watery breath. “And I want you there when I get married!” She wailed pitifully. I pulled the phone away from my ear as the wails escalated. When, rather than stopping, she cried even louder I snatched the phone back to me.

“Kri,” I tried to reason over the wails. “He’s 15. That’s not even legal to drive, or have sex. Let alone marry you.”

They simply got louder. I looked around the room for some aspirin. I’m going to need it for this conversation. Another ear-splitting squall pierced my eardrum.

“Fine!” I snapped. “Fine, I’ll talk to him. Okay? I’ll talk to him. I promise you though, no good will come of this, but I will try.” The sniffles stopped instantly.

“Thank you!” She said cheerfully, and I cursed myself. I fell for it. Again. And again and again and again.
I heard her call to him distantly in the background.

“Bear! Bear, come talk to Mya!” I blinked.

“Wait,” I asked, “He was there the entire time? You knew I would cave didn’t you? You planned this entire thing!” There was a pause on the other line.

“Here’s Bear! Play nice you two!” She passed the phone off to Dalton. I could still hear her suggestions in the background, so I knew that this would in no way be a conversation just between Dalton and I. “Go on,” She urged in the background. “Chat.”

Chat

I rolled my eyes and took a deep breath.

“Ummm,” I started awkwardly. “Hey?”

“Hi.” He replied stiffly. Then more silence.

“…”
“…”

“How ya doing?” I asked after ages, literally, ages of silence.

“Fine.”

“…”
“…”

“Neat.” I said.

“Hn.”

Chat

“…”
“…”

Kri scolded in the background.

“Go on.” She whispered severely. “Talk to her.”
Thoroughly put upon, ‘Bear’ sighed.

“So, what are you up to?” He asked abruptly.

“Oh,” I said, surprised by his apparent ability to say more than one syllable at a time. Who knew? “Um, nothing really. Just writing a bit.” That seemed to perk his interest.

“Writing?” He asked suspiciously, “What are you writing?”

Oh. Um. As all should know, writers don’t talk about what they are working on until they are absolutely sure that this project won’t fail. If you don’t tell anyone what you are working on, they can’t ask you how it’s going a month after you have given up on it and put in the failed ideas pile of your brain.

Instead of explaining this, I replied, “Oh, nothing really. I’m ion the planning stage and there’s nothing really to talk about in that stage. It’s the boring part.” I tried to add a joking quality to my voice, but I’m pretty sure that he didn’t take to well to it.

“…So you’re not going to tell me?” I blinked.

“Well,” I said slowly. “There’s nothing to tell, really. I’m not far enough into it yet.”

“…”

“Besides,” I said brightly, “You would probably be bored to hear it anyway. You never really were into my writing before. It’s still as boring.” Again, I was trying to joke. The tension in this phone call could be felt over state lines.

“What did you say? So, now I’m stupid, huh?” He snapped into the phone.

Wait, what?

That needed to be vocalized.

“Wait, what?” I asked. “Where did that come from?”

“Just because I don’t read as much as you, it doesn’t mean I’m fucking stupid, Mya.”

“Wait, what? What just happened? I didn’t say that! What?” It all rushed out of my mouth in a dissonance of mashed consonants and forgotten vowels.

“God,” he bit off, frustration lacing every word. “You always fucking do this. You always have to go on and on about how you’re better than me, you’re smarter than me, you’re fucking perfect. Well, you know what? You’re not. You’re just not, okay?” Still confused, I stammered in to the phone.

“I—ah, can we go back to monosyllabic answers please?” I squeaked. “I think I liked you better then.”

There was a pause.

“What?” He hissed.

Well, it was one syllable. I kind of win.

“What the hell, Mya?” He shouted. I jerked the phone way from me. I guess he didn’t take that well either.

Running the conversation back through my head, I came to one conclusion despite my utter consternation: Kri was brain-damaged. She’s defective. She must be to have thought that this would be a good idea.
When the shouting stopped, I brought the phone back to my ear.

“Okay,” I said slowly, “Can we talk calmly about this please? Let’s just both take a deep breath and talk about this. Calmly. Maturely. Like adults. We can do that.” I heard him take a deep breath. Hopefully it wasn’t just for more screaming. When he released it, I too let go of a breath I didn’t even know I was holding.

“Fine.” He said shortly. “If you wanna try to explain away the fact that you just called me fucking stupid, go ahead and try.”

I closed my eyes and tried to, once again, grab the small amount of patience that I had left.

“I didn’t call you stupid, Dalton. I merely said that my writing would bore you. I don’t know where you got that I thought—” He interrupted, all of the forced patience gone from his voice.

“Oh, whatever, Mya, you know what you did. You know that you think that I’m stupid and wrong for Kristyn. I know, so why don’t you just say it?” I opened and closed my mouth silently at least four times before a sound would finally come out.

“Ah---wha.. huh?” Unfortunately, that was all that came out. Of course it was. When I needed words the most.

He huffed, frustrated by my apparent lack of admission to my suckiness.

“Whatever. Now you’re stuttering to cover up. This is so fucking like you. I’m not an idiot. I know you. You think that just because I don’t spend all of my time hiding in my room with my books like you do that I’m stupid. Well, excuse me for not being as pitiful as you are. Actual people can bear to be around me.”

Okay.

The confusion that was swirling around in my head stopped and did a double take at those words.

Every fiber of my being seemed to bow up and shout in a thick Southern accent that I barely could recognize as my own voice: ‘Oh no he didn’t!’

Well, yes body. Yes, he did.

“Why are you even talking to me now if that’s how you feel?” He continued harshly. “Just go on back to you’re books. Maybe the fictional characters will talk to you and take your arrogance. ‘Cause I sure as hell won’t.”

I took a deep calming breath. I need to be mature. I need to breathe.
It’s not working.

Another breath.

…It’s really not working.

“Dalton.” I said through clenched teeth. “What. The. Heck? What are you talking about? I’m confused.”

“Of course.” He scoffed. “You would choose to try to fake me out now.”

I cracked. Just a little, right down the middle of my patience.

“This is ridiculous Dalton. I’m tired and I don’t feel like talking anymore. Now either put Kri back on or tell her that I will talk to her later, okay?”

“You know what, Mya? I think you’re being really childish right now.”
The crack exploded.

“Childish? How in the world am I the childish one here?” I shrieked; all composure destroyed in the explosion. “From the very freaking beginning, you have completely taken everything that I said out of context! On purpose! Now, tell me, how am I the childish one here?”

He snorted, obviously pleased with his ability to infuriate me.

“Are you aware of how immature you sound right now?”

I broke just a little more in various places.

“Are you aware of how smelly you are?” I retorted. “There, now that was childish, you buttface!”

I snapped my phone closed on his indignant sputtering.

Closing my eyes, I took a deep breath to calm myself.

Suddenly the enormity of what I had just done dawned on me. Horrified, I looked down at the phone in my hand, and Kri’s furious voice flashed through my mind.
I dropped the phone and clutched the empty hand to my chest.

“I don’t think I did that right…” I whispered to myself. I jumped when it started vibrating, no doubt Kri calling. I leaned forward a bit and kicked the phone under the table. “That’s better.”