Hiding – A Short Story

This is based on a writing prompt from Writer's Digest: Monday Matchup - The Ringing Phone This was a fun one. I hope you like it.

"Whitley, Morrison is calling," the robotic voice said, jerking me out of my alcohol induced sleep. I sat up quickly, too quickly. My head began to throb as I tried to focus on the clock. I grabbed the sides of my head with both hands, holding onto my short brown hair as if it helped. It was definitely day time, the sun was blinding in my eyes.
"Whitley, Morrison," the robot voice repeated.
"Stupid phone," I muttered. "An awful thing to wake up to," I added. It was new, I didn't realize it spoke until the first time I received a call after I installed it. It spoke instead of ringing. I tried not to let it be creepy.
"Whitley, Morrison," the phone said again.
"Why is he calling me?" I said to myself before I pressed the answer button. "Hello," I said, my voice still clogged with sleep.
"Emma?" the voice on the other end asked, a note of urgency in his tone.
"Yes, Morrison. What's up?" I asked. Who else would answer my phone? I thought to myself.
"How'd you know it was me?" he asked, thickly.
I'm not the first person in the world with caller ID, I thought. Maybe he figured I hadn't bothered to look because of the grog in my voice. The talking phone thing was still fairly new.
"I have caller ID," I said, a little sharply. "Why are you calling me?" I asked again, slightly annoyed at being woken up. The throbbing in my head was increased by the suns light streaming through my bedroom window. Mid day morning after is the worst, I thought.
"Have you seen Rachel?" he asked, with the same urgency in his tone. He sounded worried.
"I thought she was with you," I said. I swung my long legs, still in the snug jeans I'd worn last night, over the edge of the bed and put my feet on the soft carpeted floor. My pedicured toes curled out of habit. I realized I had no shirt on and wondered where it might have gone.
"Do you remember what happened last night?" Morrison asked.
I stood up, steadied myself carefully, then sat back down. I looked at the floor around my bed. A pile of tissues and the empty cat litter bucket I used for a garbage can were next to it. My missing shirt was there too. The bucket and shirt had been used for bad things. "Ugh," I said into the receiver. "I just saw what I did."
"Yeah, you weren't doing very well," Morrison said, a smile in his voice. "I hope you're okay now," he added with much less humor, feeling guilty for finding pleasure in my misery, I'm sure.
"I feel like hell, actually," telling the truth. He'd woke me up, now he was going to get to handle the hangover. "But what happened with Rachel? Where is she?" I asked, getting back to the reason he called. It just felt inappropriate to chit-chat with your best friend's boyfriend and I didn't want to talk about how I was feeling. Ignoring it worked best for me.
"You were still downstairs, you were talking with Chad about some claim you filed and how you're sure it's bogus," Morrison said, rambling.
"I remember the case, and talking to Chad," I said. "It's coming back to me." I remembered what was happening around me last night as I sat on the edge of my bed hunched over and hurting. "You and Rachel were by the back door, having a talk. She looked pretty mad," I said.
"It was a misunderstanding," Morrison interjected.
"Of course." I forgot to turn off the sarcasm.
"You know what happened, Emma. You saw what really happened. It was nothing," Morrison pleaded with me. He sounded as if he didn't believe that I knew there was nothing happening between him and Caroline.
I did know what really happened and it was nothing. But I didn't get a chance to tell Rachel it was nothing because I was enthralled with Chad. He's trouble, I'm sure of that, but he's great to talk to. "I know," I said, ready to get on with it.
"She screamed at me," Morrison said.
"I think I remember the scream." I closed my eyes and remembered the sound of Rachel's wretched wail; she is the queen of temper tantrums. She does it when she can't have her way or isn't the center of attention. It makes her a difficult best friend, but she shines so brightly that it's something I'm able to overlook. Like a beautiful child.
"I hate it when she screams at me," Morrison added. I could almost hear the regret in his voice. I thought it was insane that he was actually blaming himself for her temper, but then I remembered that it wasn't my place to worry about. Rachel and Morrison had been having their up and down relationship for many years. Who was I to comment on it? I found that I was glad that Morrison felt comfortable coming to me with this dilemma. It meant that he was willing to make things work with Rachel, no matter how difficult she was. He came to me for help in dealing with her, instead of giving up. I was glad that he was willing to take on that challenge. It was exhausting for me.
"I know you do," I replied. And I did know. I'd seen Rachel scream at him before, and every time she did it, he'd leave. She didn't learn. But Morrison loved her, so much, he always forgave her after one of her childish fits.
"I left her at your house," Morrison said quickly, as if he felt guilty. "Maybe she's still there?" he asked, hope squeaking through his guilt.
I stood up again, steadier than I had been, and walked out onto the large landing of my second floor. I checked my two empty bedrooms on the other side of the staircase and found them to still be empty. "She's not in a bed," I told Morrison as I went downstairs into my living room. "Or on the couch."
I peeked out my windows and looked around my yard. The sun was shining bright but I knew it wasn't warm. Not on the first of November. "She's not outside, her car isn't here," I said.
"She left her car at my house, we took my truck. Her car is still here." Morrison sounded more worried. "Where else would she be?" he asked.
I thought about it for a moment. "Was there anyone else here last night that might have taken her home?" The scary movie watching get together I'd planned had turned into an all out party. Lucky for me, I had considerate friends. They left only minimal trash in my living room and my front door was locked. I was relieved that I wouldn't have to clean up a disaster site. They left things in good order. Not that my house was particularly fine, but it was mine and I tried to take care of what I had.
Morrison was quiet for a long time. "There were a lot of people. I guess I'll call them," he said, clearly disappointed. "Let me know if she turns up, okay?" He had more hope in his tone.
Where would she turn up? I asked myself as I looked around my home. "Okay Morrison. I'll call you if I hear anything. Maybe she walked home, have you checked over there yet? She has caller ID too, you know?"
"Ha, thanks Emma," Morrison said dryly, picking up on my jab. "I'll talk to you later. Bye."
"Okay." I hung up without another word. "Not big on problem solving, are you Morrison?" I said to the receiver once I was sure it was off.
Checkers, my kitty, came out of her hiding place at the top of the stairs. She made a nest behind the plant I kept on the landing. It was full of shiny objects, like my tweezers, along with a blanket she dragged in there and a small stuffed bear that I think she believes to be her kitten. Checkers stopped on the fourth stair, so that I could reach her without bending down. She could sense the misery hanging around me, probably judging by the mess of my hair. She knew me so well.
"Good morning, kitty," I said, reaching out to pet her orange and black calico head. She pressed her head into my hand. "Have you seen Rachel?" I asked her, knowing how silly it was and not caring. Checkers tipped her head at me.
I went into the kitchen and made coffee as quietly as possible. There was no one but me to disturb but I was still not ready for noise. My head was pounding and it hurt to keep my eyes open more than a little bit. For the first time that I could remember, I was glad that I'd ground too many coffee beans the previous morning so that I wouldn't have to use the grinder then. The sound and the effort of the simple machine would have made it seem like coffee wasn't worth it when I knew that it was the cure for the ache in me. Before long, the smell of the lovely dark liquid filled my kitchen. The whole house was quiet, except for the sucking sound that the coffee pot made as it pulled the last of the water to the filter. I sat at the kitchen table, enjoying the silence. Even the world outside was muted.
Checkers jumped onto the table, bad manners be damned. I never broke her of this habit because I don't mind. I don't eat at my table anyway. She smashed her head into my forearms and face, waiting for me to quit holding my head up and pet her properly.
The coffee was done. I poured a cup and tottered into the living room, dropping myself onto the couch. Checker's hopped up next to me and settled on my feet. More quiet surrounded me as I sipped my coffee. My head stopped pounding in almost the same instant that I took my first sip.
In the next moment, Checkers jumped, startled, back to the floor. Her tail was puffed.
"What is it, Checkers?" I asked, wondering what had suddenly spooked her. I listened, barely breathing.
A cough, something like the cough of someone being sick, came from upstairs. "I checked the bedrooms, who's in there?" I said to Checkers. She was already checking it out; slinking up the stairs and investigating in her curious feline way.
I reached the top of the stairs and looked into each room, walking around to the other side of the beds to make sure I hadn't missed someone. The cough happened again. It was coming from above me. Checkers and I looked at each other. "The attic?" I asked.
I went into the smaller bedroom and pulled the string to bring down the folding ladder into my attic. I hadn't been up there in months. It's one of those rooms I had forgotten about, really. Checkers watched me unfold the ladder and climb up. It was dark up there, only the light shining through the vents, but I could see enough to know what was there. And someone was there. They moved, coughing again, leaning over the edge of my papasan chair and puking into a box.
"What the hell are you doing?" I asked, unable to recognize the person in the chair and not caring because they were vomiting on my belongings.
The person sat up straight. The sun shined through a puff of matted blonde hair and told me who it was immediately, even just the silhouette. It looked like a halo on a shadow. "I came up here when Morrison left because I wanted to hide," Rachel said. She had the sound of someone who had just finished evacuating their stomach, the breathy, panicky sound.
I was relieved it was her but still really annoyed that she'd puked in my things. I decided to drop that part; she obviously felt terrible enough on her own. "He's worried about you," I said, no sympathy in my tone. "Why'd you hide?" I asked, softening a little bit.
"Because I was embarrassed. I screamed at him again, in front of everyone, like an idiot," Rachel said, sadness dripping off her words. "And I'm sorry that I did it. He doesn't deserve it."
I was still standing on the ladder to the attic, but my knees were a little shaky from my condition and my best friend's words. I couldn't believe what Rachel was saying. She'd never been sorry for any of her actions in her life. "Maybe you should tell Morrison you're sorry," I suggested. "He's called here looking for you."
"Why? He should just tell me to go away," she said with a pitiful sniffle. "I know nothing happened with him and that nasty Caroline. But I get so mad…" Her small hands were balled into fists.
"Tell him," I said. "He loves you, Rache."
"Yeah," she said in the way that meant she knew he loved her but she didn't see why. Her head hung in misery. I was sure she felt as awful as I did, if not worse.
"Can we come down from here? It smells like puke," I said.
"Yes. And I'll clean up my mess."
Rachel stood up, hit her head on a rafter, then wobbled her way down the rickety ladder. I wondered how she was able to get up there in the first place, as inebriated as she was. We went into the kitchen and I poured her a cup of coffee. Checkers followed us and joined us on the table.
"You should call Morrison," I said, handing Rachel the phone. She looked like hell, mascara streaking her cheeks and lipstick smeared around her lips. Her hair was matted into a large rats nest in the back, all over like a blonde bubble around her head. I didn't envy her having to brush it on normal days, it's incredibly curly, but today it would be even worse.
She looked at it for a moment then took another big drink of coffee. "Okay," she said, then dialed the phone. Tears filled her eyes when she heard Morrison's voice.
I picked up my coffee cup and my kitty and went into the living room. I sat on the couch, enjoying the quiet, except for the sound of my best friend sobbing into the phone in the other room. I didn't worry; I knew she'd be okay. Maybe her humility would do them good. And maybe her disappearance was exactly what they needed to be able to finally find each other.