#bantheo | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

halleiswriting · 3 years ago

Text

started back up with this story again so here’s a snippet of what I just wrote

I have been staring at a spreadsheet of my financials for almost two hours, knowing full well that the solution to my problems does not lay here. I can find a new subletter, but not in time for when the rent is due next week. I’ll get money from my work with Stephie, but not until November when I project I’ll be done with her book. No, the answer doesn’t lay in my notes or in Excel. It lays in my phone contacts, under the initial J.

But somehow, even in the eerie comfort of my childhood bedroom, the quiet calm of Katherina’s purr from where she sits on the window seat, my phone’s keyboard feels like a delicate grenade, a mine buried in the walls of my carefully constructed life. The sight of it against my fluffy pink rug does not help.

I imagine potential drafts of what I might say, picture it like it’s simply dialogue that’s sprung up in the latest book I’m editing.

Hello, this is Theodora. I am writing to you to warily accept your ambitious proposal of a creative collaboration.

Nope. Formality would not establish a boundary between him and me, it would only get me laughed at. I backspace.

You probably found someone else to help you with your project, but if not, I’ve been thinking, and what the hell! But if you aren’t still looking, you do have a trust fund, and I need money. Please donate to my venmo @bantheo.

Too desperate? Probably! I delete and try again.

Hi. It’s Theo.

Before I can talk myself out of it, I jam my thumb against the send button. The whoosh sound confirms the delivery, and like I’m one of Pavlov’s dogs, I want to vomit. Instead, I toss my phone on my bed. It bounces up once and falls on its face. Same.

I can physically feel the seconds passing by, and I feel even more nauseous knowing that I’ll probably be waiting around awhile. Jude is not someone glued to their phone. All he seems to do is give people his undivided attention. It might be hours until—

My phone pings!

My heart thumps in my chest.

It pings again, and I swallow hard, slowly bending to reach it from my bed. I don’t unlock it yet—not quite ready to leave this moment of uncertainty of his response. A small part of me hopes he’s sent something vulgar that would probably please Kiera only to give me reason to hate him again.

But I unlock my phone, and open his message. Hey, he’s written, I’m glad you messaged. Another bubble indicating he’s texting appears, and a moment later, he’s said: How’s your father? His surgery go okay?

I don’t know how to write any of this to him. My whole life is about words and concision, cutting out fluff and emphasizing the point. Digging into the truth, the meaning. But I don’t know how to write this. How to write my life as it happens. Before I know what I’m doing, I press call and hold the phone up to my ear.

He answers after the first ring. “Theo,” he says, voice tight with… concern? I don’t think I’ve ever heard that before. “Are you okay? Is your father…?”

“Yes,” I say, letting out a breath. “He’s fine. The surgery went great, so great my mother sent virtual confetti. I don’t know why I called. I usually don’t continue text conversations over the phone…”

“That’s great about his surgery,” Jude says. “I wish him as easy a recovery as possible.”

“I’m sure he’ll be happy to hear that,” I say. “Whenever Dad’s mentioned you, he always laughs, shaking his head, calls you a ‘charming little freak.’”

Jude laughs. “I didn’t think he remembered me. I met him only a few times over the years.”

“Unfortunately, you seem to stick in people’s heads.”

“That so?”

“Being memorable is not necessarily a compliment,” I argue.

“Though definitely better than being forgettable.”

“I suppose that depends on who you’re being remembered and forgotten by.”

I hear his smile through the phone—and that image, the image of his grin, so bright and genuine and so sudden and instinctual, shocks me so bad I shiver. “Theodora. You called me. Did you want to talk about the pros and cons of being buried in an unmarked grave, or was there something else?”

“What morbid phrasing,” I say, deflecting.

“What can I say? I’m very morbid. I hear women are into rendezvous in their family cemetery plots these days.”

“These days—yes, I can’t believe it’s 1814 already.”

“Theo,” he says again, his smile still in his voice. A waiting sort of smile.

I sigh, covering my face with my hand. “If I say what I need to say, I feel like you’re going to gloat and rub it in my face.”

“I won’t,” he says softly. “I meant it when I said I want to be your friend.”

“Okay,” I say. “So. I’ve thought about it, and if we’re being completely transparent, I don’t have enough money to pay my rent for the next few months since my subletter is moving out early, and as your project sounds mildly interesting, I want to accept your offer. Working with you doesn’t… it doesn’t sound awful.”

For a second, he doesn’t say anything, and in that slight pause of silence, I am terrified that he didn’t really mean it, that the magazine isn’t really all that important, or that he was joking, or that he already found someone else, and I’m about to say SIKE and hang up, but then, then Jude laughs.

“You have no idea how happy I am to hear that,” he says. “I really didn’t think you would say yes. I hoped you would, but… I thought my apology came too late.”

This time, I don’t respond immediately. I swallow thickly. “It didn’t come too late.”

“It should’ve come earlier,” he says.

“Well, you can make it up to me by not squinching me on my salary,” I say, straightening my shoulders. “But we should probably meet up and discuss the specifics. What you want my role to be here. What you have in mind for all of… whatever this is.”

“Of course,” he rushes to say. “When do you want to meet?”

I open my calendar, and I bite my lip. “If you’re still dying to buy me lunch, then I suppose tomorrow works.”

“I would absolutely love to buy you lunch,” he says in earnest.

“One o’clock,” I say, clutching my hand to my chest. “The Lilac House. Bring a friendship ring.”

And I see that smile ignite in my mind all over again. The shiver comes like a somersault. “I won’t be late.”

Exactly what I’m afraid of.

taglist: @muddshadow @kainablue

#wip: bancroft sisters #my writing #what I learned while doing incredibly minimal research for the 1814 line in reference to our icon Mary shelley #Mary and Percy Shelley had sex for the first time together--on her mother's grave mind you--on my birthday!#June 26 is a legendary day #this is why I always wanted to skulk around cemeteries as a kid

2 notes · View notes