Chapter 14: A Call That Never Happens

I don’t know when I started checking my phone more out of hope than habit. Maybe it was sometime after the last short message from Hanami. Maybe it was long before that, and I just didn’t admit it.

Either way, the screen stayed quiet.

No new notifications.

No missed calls.

No surprises.

I told myself it wasn’t a big deal. People get busy. People forget. Life moves. But the truth is, every night before I fell asleep, I imagined my phone lighting up with her name.

Even just once.

A silly part of me wondered what her voice would sound like now. Was it the same soft tone she used when talking in the library? Would it tremble a little, or be more confident after everything she’d experienced in her new town?

I never found out.

Not because she didn’t want to call. But because I wasn’t brave enough to try either.

For nights I would lie on my bed, thumb hovering over her name in my contacts. I’d picture the sound of the call ringing—low, distant, stretching across the space between us like a fragile thread.

Scripted words formed in my mind.

How have you been?

Did your exhibition go well?

I miss talking to you.

But every version felt wrong before I even said it out loud. Too heavy. Too light. Too late.

So I never pressed the button.

One evening, after club activities ran longer than expected, I got home and tossed myself onto my futon, still wearing my school uniform. I was half-thinking about dinner, half-thinking about homework, but most of my mind stayed stuck on her last message.

Thank you. I’ll try my best.

Short, polite, almost formal in a way. I wanted to hear the real version behind her words, the one she used to show only to me. The tone she had that day when she traced snowflakes on the library window. When she smiled like she was sharing a secret even she didn’t fully understand.

For a moment, I lifted my phone. I stared at her name again.

Hanami Fuyama.

I whispered it to myself, just to hear something.

I didn’t know it, but that very same evening—miles away—she was staring at her own phone with my name glowing on her screen.

Later, she would tell me about this moment, in a quiet voice almost swallowed by the wind. But right now, I could only imagine it.

She must have held her phone the same way I held mine. A little too tight. As if it might slip away. As if I might slip away.

Maybe she sat on her bed with her sketchbooks scattered around her. Maybe her fingers trembled a little as she tapped the “Call” button. Maybe her heart raced the way mine did when I thought of her.

She dialed my number once.

I didn’t know it happened. My phone never rang.

She hung up before it connected.

Maybe she panicked. Maybe she wondered what she would even say, after weeks of messages that felt smaller and smaller. Maybe she feared I would sound different. Or distant. Or worse—completely fine without her.

I wouldn’t have been fine.

But how could she know that, when I couldn’t bring myself to call either?

Around midnight, I sat up in bed. Something restless moved inside me, a weight I couldn’t name. I opened my contacts again. Her name was still there, still waiting in that quiet way only a phonebook entry can.

I brushed my thumb over the call icon.

Just once. Just one tap.

I imagined her answering. I imagined her saying my name the way she used to, soft and careful, like she was handling something delicate.

I wanted that.

I tried to breathe slowly, but my chest felt too tight. I wasn’t afraid of talking to her. I was afraid of ruining whatever thin bond still connected us. A call felt so real, so final, like the moment where you discover which direction the distance is truly moving.

And what if I called and heard hesitation in her voice? What if I sensed she was forcing herself to talk to me? What if my biggest fear became real—that I was no longer part of her life the way she was still part of mine?

My hand shook.

I let it fall to the mattress.

I didn’t call.

The room was quiet, the kind of silence that makes you aware of every heartbeat. Outside, the night sky stretched endlessly, stars hidden behind clouds I couldn’t see through. I wondered if she was looking at the same sky, or if she was staring at her ceiling like I was.

Two people wanting the same thing.

Both too afraid to take the first step.

I lay back down and covered my eyes with my arm. The darkness behind my eyelids felt easier than the unanswered questions waiting in my phone.

We were both waiting.

Both hoping.

Both scared.

It became one of those quiet symbols that life leaves behind. The things you mean to do. The words you mean to say. The feelings you mean to share.

But you never do.

Not because you don’t care, but because caring too much makes you freeze.

Later, when seasons changed again, when everything shifted in ways neither of us could stop, I would look back at this night often.

The call I never made.

The call she never completed.

And how those two tiny moments—almost nothing—became one of the clearest signs of everything we never said.