*ring ring, click* The woman accepted the call without looking at her phone.
"Hey Ina, it's me Sam, just asking when will you come?" Hearing the man's name made the woman happy.
"Oh Sammy, missing me already?" Her small chuckle didn't go unheard by Sam on the other side of the phone.
"If you keep acting like that I'm not going to wait at the airport!" This made the woman cough in surprise.
"W...what do you mean?" She pressed her phone closer to her ear.
On the other end, Sam didn't respond right away.
"Why don't you stay there some more." The way his tone was getting heavy. "You don't need to be concerned for me."
Ina straightened, the words hitting her like a slap. "Sam—"
But the line had already gone... dead.
She stood still for a moment, blinking at the phone in disbelief.
'What the hell was that?'
She immediately called him back. The phone rang once, twice after the third he finally picked up.
"What is wrong with you?" She shouted. "Seriously, what's going on? You're acting like a jerk."
There was a pause. She could hear his breath catch.
"You wouldn't understand."
"Try me," she shot back, her voice trembling with heart aching. "You're not the only one who lost someone, Sam. I lost them too!"
"No," his voice rose higher. "You don't get it. You moved on like it's easy. Like they didn't mean anything to you."
"How dare you!" Ina full on wanting to scream, tears burning behind her eyes. Clutching the phone with white knuckles.
"How can you be so selfish? They were my parents also!" 'You think I would be happy because I lost them?' Ina's tears which were burning now was a waterfall.
Instead, her voice dropped.
"Maybe I shouldn't have....protected...you."
A long silence stretched between them.
Ina heard him inhale, then exhale.
"Do whatever you want," he muttered.
And then hung up. The screen went back to black.
Ina stood frozen, staring at the black screen of her phone.
The ache in her chest was spreading.
'This wasn't how it was supposed to go.'
She took a deep breath, fighting her trembling hands.
Her heels echoed across the pavement as she walked to the parking lot.
It had started to drizzle.
Inside her car, she threw her bag into the passenger seat and slammed the door harder than she meant to.
Her reflection in the rearview mirror startled her, her makeup combined with her tears running on her face.
Her red eyes looked back at her through the mirror from all the crying.
She started the engine after cleaning her face.
'He's just grieving, we both are.'
The road shimmered under the growing rain.
Wipers moved left and right but visibility was getting worse and worse.
She should've waited, pulled over, something — but she just wanted to get to a secluded place to scream, to cry.
Her phone buzzed on the dashboard — a text.
From Sam.
She glanced at it.
>I'm sorry. Please come back home.<
Her breath caught.
Tears welled again.
She reached for the phone without thinking.
That was when the headlights hit her.
A horn blared. Her body jolted.
---
(Some may say she was lucky to lose her consciousness or unlucky because now she couldn't get free from the crash.)
Rain tapped against the crushed windshield. Ina lay slumped in her seat, blood running down her temple.
A fire starting to ignite the gas.
*Ring ring* her phone buzzing uselessly next to her.
The cracked screen blinking.
> Sam – calling
Answer/Decline.<
---
A man called a fire department when he saw black smoke rising in the distance.
He himself didn't go near it fearing it might be a forest fire.
(Maybe if he was brave, he could have saved the beautiful woman about to burn in the heat of an engine and have a happy life? But that kind of story belongs to another story. Someone kinder than me.)
Before the firetruck could come a large explosion came from the location where the black smoke was rising.
'Wait forest fire can't explode. I need to check.'
The man slowly approached the car which was on fire even though the pouring rain couldn't extinguish it.
The unknown man looked at the upside down car and saw a slight silhouette of a human inside the car.
'There was a chance I could have saved the person!' his mind started to blame for his selfishness.
'NO, if you tried to save you could have died with the explosion that just happened.' his logistic mind tried to reassure him.
*Ring ring ring*
The sound of a ringtone awoke him from his mind.
Seeing the phone on the ground which was ringing just a little far away from the car.
The man got the phone without any problem from the car.
The phone which now had more than just cracks than before and most of the body almost half melted was somehow still ringing.
The man looked at the phone which had black screen which blurred few words.
>Sam - ca..ing
Ans..r/...line<
The man gave a heavy sigh before accepting.
---
Sam had been calling Ina's phone nonstop for the last 30 minutes since he sent the message.
Was getting nervous as he would call non-stop, while walking in circles.
"Please answer your phone, please sis." His voice cracking with every possible word.
His gut is eating him like a guilt.
*Click* Sam heard the phone connect.
"Hey sis I'm sorry for what I said come back home." Before he could continue a man cut him off.
"Hello are you the person's family member?" The unknown man wanted to regret doing this yet. 'The person deserves to know.'
Sam was puzzled about who this unknown man was.
"I'm sorry to bring you bad news..."
This somehow made Sam's guilt more.
"The owner of this phone... I'm so sorry. She died in a car crash." Even the unknown man had struggled to say this.
Sam's eyes widened. "This... has to be a joke... Right?" Holding back his tears.
"..." The silence confirmed it.
"Please say you are joking, she paid you to joke with me right?" The voice cracks ringing loudly.
Unknown man could hear the sobbing through the phone. Yet he couldn't say it's a joke.
He wanted to lie but it would only make things worse.
Sam continued to ask over and over again believing Ina will soon come out and say it's a prank.
Yet the silence was more deafening than anything.
Soon Sam heard the firetruck sirens ring in the background.
"I beg of you please say it's fake and She is okay. Please!" Sam cried uncontrollably.
The man could only say a few words. "I'm sorry I had to tell you this."
And cut the phone.
Sam screaming in his house all alone. Saying to himself "it's my fault!" Non-stop.