“Ring Ring,” goes the kitchen phone. I stop stirring my mac n’ cheese to seize the noise. I slowly walk over to the phone I figured it wasn’t important, it never was. I reach the phone after the third ring.
“Hello?” I ask.
“Is this Cecelia Spencer?” the man with a deep voice questions.
“Yea who is this” I pushed him for more information, “What do you want?”
“This is Deputy Anderson from the police station. You might want to sit down for this.” he says.
My stomach started to not feel so well, I gripped the counter so hard my knuckles turned white.
“Tell me what’s going on now!” I shakily tell Deputy Anderson.
“Ma’am I hate to inform you this but your friend Toby has been in a terrible accident and is being rushed to the hospital, there is a small chance he will survive but he is being rushed into surgery right now. Head to the hospital if you’d like. I don-” I stop listening there.
I slowly pull the small black phone away from my ear and gently set it on the counter in front of me. My hands are shaking so bad I can barely click the off button. I am frozen. I can’t move, I can’t breath, I can’t stop the tears from rolling down my face. I can no longer hold myself up and collapse on to the cold hard kitchen floor. How can this be happening? This can’t be real. I thought to myself. As I sit in a ball on the kitchen floor I can smell my mac n’ cheese burning on the stove. I’m no longer hungry so I let it be. I don’t even want to sit up at this point. I just lay there crying with my tears covering my face.
Time passes but the sadness doesn’t.  It’s not him. It’s not him. It can’t be Toby. Toby is okay. That’s the lie I made up to comfort myself. But I knew deep down it was him. Once I can finally think straight I say a prayer to God. Praying that Toby will make it. I sit up against the old cabinets and just think. Toby will miss my graduation, me getting engaged, buying a house, getting married, having kids. Toby won’t be able to meet them. I cry harder.
After an unnamed amount of time passes I stand up and wipe away the tears on my face. I figured I should turn the stove off, I don’t need a house fire today. The mac n’ cheese is incredibly burnt no one should even attempt to eat it. I grab a strainer drop it into the sink and pour the disgusting water into it then throw all the mac n’ cheese away. I walk out of the darkness of the kitchen and into my living room. There were too many good memories with Toby in there I had to get out. As I leave all of those great memories flash before my eyes.
“Turn it up! Turn it up! A younger Toby yells. I smile and run over to the radio that looks like it’s from 1980 something. I click the volume button way too many times it was so loud the people at the end of the street probably could have heard it. But Toby and I don’t care we were having too much fun. I turn to look at Toby who is doing the most ridiculous dance moves ever. I laugh at his stupidity before I decide to join in.
“Dance with me Toby! You have to dance with me!” I yell over the radio. Toby skids across the small kitchen and nearly bumps into the old counter. After Toby recovers he sticks his hand out for me to take and bows down,
“May I have this dance?” He puts on a serious manly face he tries his hardest not to break character but he cracks a small smile.
“You may.” I giggle and curtseyed. He took my hand and pulled me into a hug and we danced to about 3 songs. 8 year old us so carefree and happy. I would have never guessed I would have to get the phone call I just did.
I walk lifelessly to my couch and plop down. I couldn’t even think straight. I am numb. I probably should call someone but I can’t feel my hands. I can’t do anything. I stare out the window in the frosty backyard. I remember the time Toby and I were playing in the snow late one Christmas Eve four years ago.
“Cecelia! Toby! Hurry up it’s almost time to come back in.” My mother shouted into the darkness. Toby and I suddenly go a rush of adrenaline to finish the snowman we were building. I was running up the hill and tripped and basically fell face first into the snow. Toby ran over and helped me up, considering I was six at the time I started crying. Toby wrapped his arms around me and brought me back inside to my mom and stayed with my for the rest of the night because I was a very over dramatic child and thought my face planting into the snow was a close as you get to death without dying.
Those were the days when I was so happy and carefree and thought the worse thing I could have happen to me is falling face first into the snow. As I sit on the couch I feel as empty as the wind. I know I’ll never get Toby back and never see him grow up with me and share new great memories but I can always replay the old ones, and that’s what I’ll do.