He didn't show up online this past Sunday and he hadn't mentioned not being available at any point during our last conversation. Our last conversation, now that was something that has been running through my mind on a never ending turntable. His words and his hesitance to tell me at first have left me wondering if that was really how he felt, if he really wanted me in that way or was it just a result of his current frustrating situation with Mary. Either way, that conversation has certainly left me in quite a state, one I've not been able to shake. But it also made me wonder about him not showing up online this past Sunday. There was a fear resonating through me that our last conversation would cause him to shy away from me, granted running away from things was much more my style, I still wonder if that was a possibility given his hesitance to tell me in the first place about his feelings as it were. But there was also a nagging feeling about something else he'd said that night, something about having a lot of things he wanted to tell me. Late at night, as I couldn't sleep, my brain would run wild trying to figure out that those things could be, but still I was at a loss.

It was late Thursday night and I'd managed to put all thoughts of Jamie into the far back of the brain, mostly because I had things I needed to get done. I'd spent the majority of my day on the 3rd floor of the library, finishing up some last minute research for a paper I needed to finalize tonight. Now I was sitting at my computer, comfortable in grey sweatpants and a white shirt, the remaining half of my grilled cheese sandwich sitting on a crisp white plate next to my half full glass of Chardonnay. My fingers were so familiar with the keyboard I barely needed to look at them as they crafted the last few pages of a paper on the changing face of democracy in the U.S. My web browser was open as I'd needed to complete some last minute research on the major political parties current platforms. The browser was minimized as my fingers transcribed the last quote I'd be using from the book my eyes were currently focused on. My ears perked up at the sound of the messenger system telling me someone was talking to me, but I couldn't be bothered. It was probably one of my classmates asking me to proof read their paper, but I was in the home stretch, just my conclusion to go and I'd be done. The chime alarmed a few more times over the course of the next half hour as I finished the paper.  Finally sitting back in my chair and finishing the last of my now cold sandwich I closed out of my paper and took note of the messages on the screen behind it.

SixStringGuy: Hello Sydney.

SixStringGuy: Sydney? You there?

SixStringGuy: Are you ignoring me? Upset with me for some reason?

SixStringGuy: I need to talk to you.

I was completely taken back to find him online, it wasn't Sunday. I couldn't recall the last time I'd seen him online that wasn't a Sunday. My stomach was instantly in knots as I noticed he was still online, waiting.

Grumpybluebear: Hi Jamie, Sorry I was finishing up a paper.  I wasn't ignoring you on purpose. 

SixStringGuy: Ok. I thought you might after our last conversation.

Grumpybluebear: Oddly enough I thought maybe that's why you didn't get online this past Sunday.

SixStringGuy: No. Nothing to do with that. I enjoyed our conversation.

A blush colored my cheeks a deep red as his words cause a my mind to sink back into the conversation and fantasies we shared.

SixStringGuy: I need to talk to you Sydney.

Grumpybluebear: go ahead, you have my full attention.

SixStringGuy: No. I don't want to type, I want to talk to you. Can I call you?

The face I gave my computer screen was complete shock. Call me? Real human interaction? This is a massive leap forward in our friendship, one I'm not certain we need. Or after last week that would be a change in not certain I could handle.

Grumpybluebear: I don't know Jamie. That's a really big change in our friendship.

SixStringGuy: No, it's not. I have to talk to you about important things.

Grumpybluebear: But, what if I don't sound the way you expect and ruin your fantasies.

SixStringGuy: Not possible. I need to tell you things. What's your number?

Chewing on my bottom lip as I silently weighed the pros and cons of his request. Trying to get past the huge lump of nerves in my throat

Grumpybluebear: Ok, 5099635555

SixStringGuy: I'll call in exactly 5 minutes.

Grumpybluebear: Ok.

I signed off, freeing up my phone line. Picking up my slim black corded phone, I dragged it across my room and sat cross legged on my messy bed waiting for it to come to life.  My heart was thumping hard enough I could swear the sound was filling my room.  My eyes caught sight of my dark window and I noticed it was snowing again. The world was so quiet when it snowed around here, but this room was the loudest it had ever been with anxiety. Nearly jumping out of my clammy skin as the piercing sound of the phone heightens my anxiety.  Giving it till the second ring I gingerly pick up the receiver, cautiously placing it against my ear.

"Jamie?" My voice held a faint tremble I hadn't been expecting. For a moment the line was completely silent and I almost thought he'd changed his mind and hung up.

"Hi." The voice that greeted me was soft and comforting, but very quiet.

"Um, wow this is different." An awkward laugh filling the gaps between my words.

"This is nice." His voice so quiet I could barely hear him, but his tone was vaguely familiar.

"Are you whispering?"

"Hhmmmm, maybe" His voice, so familiar but I couldn't place it. Like a comforting voice I'd been lost in before, but the whispering was so distracting.

"I'm sorry, Jamie, but have we met before? You sound so familiar."

"We got married." The words carried by that whispered voice in no way answered my question, but they did cut in a most unexpected way.

"Oh, ok. Um, congratulations to you both." The tension over the phone line was so thick it was spilling into my room, blurring my vision. "When?"

"Yesterday." My eyes looked questioningly around my surroundings. Why was this something he felt he needed to actually speak to me about? And why marry her, after everything he'd told me, after that night we chatted only last month when he seemed so lost. My brain was swimming in questions and I couldn't land on one long enough to ask. "I don't love her." Pulling the phone away from my ear to look at it skeptically, maybe even disapprovingly.

"What the hell? Then why marry her?" My voice raised slightly, unintentionally, as my blurry eyed frustration continued to overwhelm me.

"She's pregnant." There was the slightest shake in that now annoyingly familiar whisper. But how...? He'd said they weren't...? ...he sure...? My mind clogged with fragments of questions. I wanted to reach through the phone line and shake him as hard as I could. Shake the answers out of him to understand what he was thinking.

"That doesn't mean. . ."

"I can't deny our child the chance at a family." His voice softer, and my questions settled into a discard pile in my mind as I focused on trying to place his voice and my inability to do so bothering me like an itch I just couldn't reach no matter what I do. My eyes settled on the hem at the ankle of the sweatpants as I felt an unexplainable pang of fear rush through me.

"Does that mean we can't talk any more?" My voice now a whisper to match his.

"No, we don't change sugar. Sydney," clearing his throat, this whispering was taking a toll on his voice, and I still couldn't figure out why he was doing that, "please don't tell anyone. I just wanted you to hear it from me first." My head shook in confusion as my mind was screaming for clarification.

"What? Jamie we don't really run in the same circles. Whose do you think I'd tell?" The annoyance at his request was dripping from each word.

"Just, if for some reason you decide other people might be interested, please don't talk about this." He wasn't making any sense at all, but even in his whisper I could hear the desperation in that voice, and it broke my heart. "I need my friend, I need you to be there for me."

"Ok." Shaking my head as I focused my blurry eyes out the window, the snow coming down heavier now.

"I have to go. I'll be back in a few weeks."

'Ok. But Jamie, your voice is so familiar and it's really bugging me, have we met before." My mind was swimming in information and questions, but I was singularly focused on that voice.

"It feels like we did, in a previous life. Good night Sydney." The line went dead before I could even contemplate an appropriate response to anything he'd told me in our brief conversation. That night was a sleepless night along with the following night. I had so many questions for him about the situation he'd placed himself in, about why he felt the need to tell me that over a phone call, why he whispered through the entire conversation, and his voice. His last answer suggested that we'd met, but where.

That Saturday I headed out for lunch with my Alley and a few of our friends. It was nice to get out of the apartment and away from the library for once. Sitting in the comfortable surroundings of our favorite local restaurant with old brick walls and lit with antique looking chandeliers. By the time our food arrived I was on my second martini and our conversation had drifted into pop culture and celebrity news.

"Oh!' Alley perked up beside me "Sydney, have you heard the news about your favorite little musician?" Everyone at the table turning to look at us both.

"What?" My eyebrow cocking in curiosity as I placed my glass on the table.

'Prince, he got married."

"Oh, wow, well good for him." Suddenly my mind shot back to Jamie's whispered voice on the phone call. So familiar. So comforting.

'Yeah apparently it was a real quiet affair."  You're beautiful Sydney, Prince's words from that night filled my head. The way my name sounded rolling off his tongue, similar to how Jamie's whispered voice had sounded wrapped around my name.

"Hold on, who did he marry?" Studying the liquor in my glass as if the answer would appear there.

"Um, some dancer of his named Mayte, or something like that." Running my hand through my hair as I let that name run through my mind. Mayte. Mary. Those were very similar names. Didn't mean anything I told myself.

"When?" My mind was running circles through all the available information.

"On Valentine's Day." The same day Jamie married Mary, Prince married Mayte. Prince's voice was playing like a record in my
head. "Yeah there was some big rumor about how it almost got cancelled because they were having problems last month, but I guess that all got worked out." Picking up my glass I let my head fall back as I downed the entire drink. If we're alone, then call me Prince, his words at that exact moment, in his studio, had been a whisper. Jamie wouldn't tell me what he does for a living, but he travels for work. He was up all hours, didn't seem to have a conventional schedule. I really seemed to know so little about him, it could all be coincidence, but the voice. That one time Prince whispered to me that night continued to play over and over in my head...that's why he whispered on the phone...that's why he asked me not to talk about it...He's been lying to me the entire time    That's why he was so curious about my trip. That's why I was so comfortable meeting him. He knew it was me. He knew everything when he, when we...That motherfucker.