[contact] voicemail + texts

[radicalize]

Leave any voicemail or text messages for Lucy Carrigan here.

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[manwithaplan]

[ he doesn't realize until too late, hearing the words echo over the line, the double meaning sinking in like a knife. he wants to believe that he didn't mean it, not in that way, but maybe, unconsciously, he did. hearing her sob, the sound distant but unmistakable, doesn't make him any more inclined to think of best of himself. ]

No. That wasn't what I —

[ he trails off, taking a deep breath, willing the right words to come. ]

I didn't mean it like that at all.

[radicalize]

[ had it come from anyone else, she'd be nothing but skeptical. a part of her, some old, bitter, vindictive instinct, wants to be, to turn it back around on him. didn't you? is on the tip of her tongue. but even if she could believe that he might have said something like that on purpose, it's too difficult to imagine him lying and saying he didn't, especially when she deserves whatever he could throw at her. somehow, that only makes her feel worse. ]

Whether you did or not, it's still true, and we both know it.

[manwithaplan]

[ she's right. as much as he wishes he could, he can't argue. but he isn't about to just say so. he may still be angry with her, but he's twisted the knife enough already, however unintentionally. to continue to lay on the blame would be unnecessarily cruel, and that's something that's never sat well with him. ]

It's not the reason I called.

[radicalize]

No, I — I know that.

[ no matter what he's said, it's one thing she can be sure of, even if she still can't figure why he might have called her. Steve isn't like that. besides, if he were, his silence over the past month has said more than any cutting remark over the phone could, anyway, though she suspects that same silence is part of what makes it so hard to hear. her own guilt accounts for the rest. ]

You just wanted to tell me, right? And now you've told me.

[manwithaplan]

I guess I have.

[ he knows what comes next. they both hang up and go about their separate lives. he has no one to blame for that but himself; he's the one who cut her out. but even if he were ready to forgive her, his life is too much of a mess right now, and he can't in good conscience let her get tangled up in it.

the next words are hard to say. but it's the right call, and believing that makes him able to force them out. ]

Goodbye, Lucy.

[radicalize]

[ it is, unexpectedly, a relief to hear just as much as it hurts. there's a part of her that just wants to keep talking, to find an excuse to stay on the line so she doesn't have to go back to them not speaking, but it's better this way. she's barely keeping it together as it is, and she doesn't want that to be made any more apparent than it already has. ]

Take care of yourself, Steve.

[ she doesn't wait to see if there's a response before ending the call. ]