My nights have been quiet save the telephone.

Last night it was Kyle again, calling about the same time that he called the day before. Again I let it go to voicemail, again I listened to the message immediately, again curious if this time he’d come around to my obvious reasons for avoiding him, if now he’d relent. But no luck.

“Katie, it’s Kyle again. You know I don’t mean to be a pest, but I thought I’d check in, make sure everything was fine. You didn’t call me back the other night, so I guess you got in late, but not hearing from you, and…” He spluttered a little bit and I hated myself for finding it kind of cute. “Well yes, anyway, yeah I was just looking to make sure you’re good. No big deal, just shoot me a text saying hello so I know you’re still alive!” The end was obviously his attempt at making light of the call, but it wasn’t quite convincing.

So another confusing call. Another in which he completely ignores his call before it, completely ignores the things he’s done, which have altogether stopped since I’d had it out with him (as they’d better). At least in this one he’d suggested some hint of knowing what had transpired three days ago, hinting at the possibility that I might not be alright. Damn right I might not be all right you meddling prick.

But the phone calls didn’t stop there. That one came in at 9:32 in the evening, and proceeded to ring from an unknown number exactly an hour after, 10:32, 11:32, 12:32. By one thirty I was watching the digits change on the clock and calling the ring as it came in, when the one warped into the two. I was left torn again, not knowing what to make of this new situation.

Was it another dumb game of Kyle’s? Probably. Likely even, considering the lengths he’d obviously gone to. And were this just another of them, I really never wanted to even see the child again. He calls pretending to be generally concerned about my well being and then starts up another game an hour later? The two-faced nature of the whole ordeal is what bothers me most. How can you accept empathy in any form from a kid you don’t trust?

But on the other hand  (and on the surface I’m frustrated with this ever-rationalizing sensitive side that looked for the best in everyone, but it’s been a part of me for as long as I can remember – I was never very good at holding grudges), on the other hand, the calls were set so predictably it was hard to believe it was anything more than some cell phone malfunction, sending another phone call again on the exact second the clock changed to thirty-two after the hour, which lead me to think that the case was actually a problem with my handheld device, as it seemed to be synched with my clock.

And it was this prevailing logic that had me prepared to answer the phone the next time the call came around at 2:32. I wasn’t afraid of it being Adam, but I didn’t rule out that possibility either. Were it he, I’d give him another piece of my mind and effectively sever all times with the fraud.

So, holding my phone, watching the clock count down, 2:29…

2:30…

2:31…

I prepared, gripped the phone tight in my hand and stared at the number, waiting for the change.

2:32

The phone buzzed, as if a call or text had come in on the vibrate setting (which it wasn’t set to, was instead in fact turned up to full volume on Loud). And then as soon as the buzz came, it passed, dead. The phone still blank, not having lit up.

“The fuck?”

I opened the phone, confused. There was no missed call, not even the hint of an incoming call, dialed then hung up. The received calls were blank for the last hour. I had no texts messages. Sometimes incoming mail would buzz my phone without lighting up as it did with incoming data, but I’d gotten no emails in two weeks.

I felt jerked around, angry enough to throw my phone into the wall across the room, but I am not a destructive person, and settled for miming the act and sitting down on the floor, hard.

Another glitch? It had to be. Kyle couldn’t perpetrate multiple glitches programmed into my phone to go off at certain times. He was clever, he was manipulative, but he wasn’t that tech savvy. Besides, my phone was always on me. I would have noticed him.

I’m not sure what frustrated me most, that my phone was teasing me into the early hours of the morning over nothing, that I should be so open to being bothered by such glitches, or that I didn’t have anyone to blame.

I went to bed shortly after that, exhausted, annoyed, and ready to let it all go in sleep.

Sleep wasn’t my friend that night. Not because of nightmares mind you (and to that, I’m grateful, and should be happy it wasn’t worse), but because the phone started ringing again.

And not just at thirty-two after the hour, but whenever it seemed to feel like, sometimes at four past the hour, sometimes again as shortly as fifteen past. When it first went off, still bleary from crashing hard for twenty minutes, I answered out of instinct.

“Hello?”

There was only a crackly silence. The static sound in the background reminding me of the first phone call from Kyle. It wasn’t there in the last two messages.

“Hello? Kyle?”

Still only the funny static. A very electronic sound, but no hint of breathing, though I suppose it could have been hidden in the static. I’m not sure that the phone call was made from anyone human, as with the super-regular beginnings and now talking to electronic noise, I’m left with little doubt that it was some strange glitch. If it persists, I decided, I might have to make a call to a phone company.

I turned off the phone and rolled over to go back to sleep when it woke me up an hour later, ringing like normal. With a groan of frustration I reached back, answering it, yelling something obscene at the static before handing up again and turning the phone off once again, shoving it beneath my pillow to muffle the sound.

Twenty-two minutes later, it rang again, but I slept through the sound. An hour and five minutes later, the phone rang once again, this time awakening me, where I silenced it and chucked it out of my room into the living room. I slammed the door, put in headphones as earplugs, and crashed.

This morning I awoke to find my phone off, laying in the middle of the floor in my living room. When I turned it on, it buzzed in my hand announcing nineteen missed calls, ten of which left voicemails.

I swore and threw the phone against the couch, where it bounced back across the floor to where I was standing. I went to the kitchen to pour a bowl of cereal, but as I stood in the entryway eating, my attention had nowhere to stray but to the phone. What was going on? Nineteen missed calls?

“Fine,” I put down my bowl of cereal on the counter. “Fine, I’ll play along. What do you have to say, huh? More fuzzy static and annoying little bleeps.” I pressed the button for voicemail and played through each message. Sometimes I did hear breathing, sometimes I heard a distant voice, far, far in the background, babbling in the way a television does when left to run unnoticed. I couldn’t make out any words, hardly inflections at all. It could have been a string of numbers for all I knew. The sound sent chills down my back. “Nice, Kyle. Did you stay up all night to do this?” The last three messages were silent, no sound at all. Not even the hiss of static.

Unbelievable.

I almost went next door right then and there. I was halfway to the front door when I stopped. Waking him from a dead sleep after a night of terrorizing the girl next door sounded wonderful, but that would probably be playing right into his hands. He wanted me to respond, he wanted a reaction, he wanted my attention. I’ve been ignoring him for three days now, I’m not going to play right into hands and give him the attention he so sickly craves.

“You can rot over there, see how I care.”

I turned the phone off again and shoved it under a cushion on the couch. Not sure why I even keep the damn thing around. Who do I call on it? Who calls me?

The thought made me lonely, and I didn’t like the feeling. But it’s Friday, I decided. It’s hot out. Maybe I’ll get in the shower and throw a bathing suit in a bag and find a pool somewhere or go to a lake, lay out in the sun. The funky morning clouds that’ve been in all week, some dark, some light, some puffy, some wispy, are finally burning off some. It could be nice.

“Perfect,” I said to no one in particular. Maybe the Stranger if he was still lingering somewhere, would hear and appreciate my plan. “I’m going to finish breakfast, get ready, and get the hell out of here, and I’m not going to worry about Kyle or the goddamned glitches or pranks for the rest of the day.”

It felt good to say, and even better to do.