20. What Love Is

The sound of a ringing phone is what wakes me up in the morning. It’s Jude’s phone, so I ignore it and snuggle deeper into my pillow.

It goes quiet only to start ringing a few seconds later.

Groaning, I turn around to see why he is not picking it up.

Ah. He is not here. He must be in the bathroom. I shift over to his side and reach for the phone.

I’ll just put it on silent mode because I’m still sleepy and I don’t appreciate the rude awakening it just gave me.

I’m flipping it around onto its face when I catch the name on the caller ID.

Claire.

An unpleasant jolt zips through me and my sleepy brain is not so sleepy all of a sudden. I watch as the phone rings and then goes quiet. A notification on the screen registers two missed calls from her.

Why am I staring at the phone as if it’s going to blow up? It’s nothing. They work together. That’s why she is calling him at 6:42 in the morning. It would be weird if she was calling him at, like, 11:42 at night.

I place the phone on its face