Not Always There When You Call Novels & Stories

I walked out of my room and saw no one in the living room…or in the kitchen. “Darren?” I called out but only got silence. I pursed my lips and immediately grabbed my phone to call her. “The subscriber is not available right now. Please try your call later.” The operator’s voice is fucking annoying even though she’s not at fault. I pursed my lips and took a deep breath as I kept on calling her again. Even when I’m changing, I was still calling her.

Just make sure she was okay. The number you have called is out of service at this time. “Shit.”

Whеn уоu’rе not wоrkіng thе ѕtrееtѕ іt’ѕ easy tо gеt lаzу, but I hаvеn’t. Mу phone screen lights uр whеn іt hаѕ enough роwеr. I have ѕоmе mіѕѕеd calls from Cаrrіе. Without lіѕtеnіng tо thе mеѕѕаgеѕ, I call hеr bасk. “Hеу, hоw’ѕ it gоіng?” “Blаkе, who thе hеll іѕ Nеоn Lips?”

“I'm going to the restroom for a minute.” Why does Jayden always show up at peak times like this. He's like a telepath, he always messes up my plans. While walking to the restroom, I picked up his call. “What's wrong with calling me?”

It never gets better. Because it’s always like this, always. If anything bad can happen, it will happen to me. I'm a bad luck magnet. Before I let my deficient brain go into mindless panic, I call Isabella, but an operator tells me her number is unavailable. She probably blocked me after giving birth, which doesn't surprise me. Then I call Theo... No answer. I also call Marco and Isaim. They don't answer either. I should call Nukea, but I still don't want to talk to her. She can fuck off if I'm that unbearable to be around.

My mother’s absence felt like abandonment, like the floor had been pulled out from under me. I pulled my phone out with shaking hands and turned it on. The first thing I did was call Nicholas. He would know what to do. He always knew what to do when my world tilted but the call didn’t go through. I tried again and again. By the fourth attempt, the message popped up in cold, merciless letters: Service Unavailable.

Just a calendar that keeps moving forward as if nothing underneath it has shifted. I miss a call. From her. Not intentionally. I’m in a meeting—budget triage. Real numbers. Real consequences. People whose jobs are attached to columns and cells. By the time I check my phone, there’s no voicemail. Just the timestamp. She doesn’t call back. She never pushes. And that’s how I know this one matters. Later that evening, when I finally reach her, her voice is the same as always—steady, warm, distant in the way space creates rather than conflict.

I pulled out my phone and tried her line one more time. ***The person you are calling is currently unavailable...***

I panicked when I felt there was no pulse and then I did what I could do. I dragged the person to the adjoining ditch and ran from there. But I thought there was no one. How could he get that footage? All the blood drained from my body and I wanted to scream, but I was numb, and scared. I could hear people talking, and laughing but all I saw was me in that footage. Suddenly my phone rang, it was Adrian and I answered it immediately. “I hope everything is clear now..” he drawled. “How?” I whispered. “Does it really matter? How, when, and what. Nothing matters. I have my own ways.” he said.

The sound echoed through the empty clinic like a gunshot. I dove for my phone, calling her number. *The person you are trying to reach is no longer in service.* "No," I gasped, the blood draining from my face as I looked at the shattered glass at my feet. "No, no, no..."