Page 559 of Call Me Baby 2: Side B

[pause]

But you weren’t there.

[pause]

I can see it too. Some angel and some devil on a couch somewhere watchin’ me like, ‘watch this dumb prick.’ Then dyin’ laughin’ the second I turn around.

Fuck. I don’t know.

Can’t be a fuckin’ coincidence, right? I hear Aerosmith, that means you gotta be thinkin’ about me. We said that once. Aerosmith means one of us is lookin’ for the other. That was our thing. One of our things.

And I heard it today.

So where the fuck are you?

[a long pause]

I’m sorry I keep callin’.

Sorry I keep leavin’ you voicemails.

I keep thinkin’ if I leave the perfect one,

you’ll call me back.

Like there’s some magic combination of words where you stop hatin’ me for five seconds and tell me where the hell you are. ‘Cause I’m tellin’ you right fuckin’ now—I don’t know where my home is if I don’t know where you are. I'm not just sayin' that. Not tryna pull shit or tell you what you want to hear. I literally can't fuckin' do this.

[exhales]

Okay.

I really, really need to talk to you.

I curl my knees into my chest.

I shouldn’t be listening to these.

I should delete them.

I should throw the phone across the room, let it shatter, let the voicemails disappear with it.

But I don’t. Because his voice is tormented and devastating and mine.

I press the phone to my chest

as if I can hold his voice inside of me.

And then I play the most recent one.

// ANDREW (VOICEMAIL) 01/07/25

05:02 AM

What the fuck do I gotta do, Allison?

Seriously. Tell me. ‘Cause I don’t fuckin’ get it.

You tell me that, then bounce? You say that shit to me, then go off doin’ the exact. Fuckin’. Opposite. I don’t know what you think disappearin’ is gonna fix. All I know is that it’s been too many days. And I’m goin’ out of my FUCKIN’ MIND.