When Caroline answered the phone she was greeted with his usual eager, "hey, Bud!" She felt her lips relax into a soft smile. He hadn't always called her that. In fact, it was only until this past summer that he started to do it. She liked it, though. It made her feel closer to her father--as if the nickname he personally gave her somehow solidified in her mind that she would always have a special place in his heart.
"Whacha doing?" He asked. His voice sounded far away. He was driving back home from work. Her eyes silently laughed before she rolled them around and back. He always called her when he was in the car. When Caroline asked him about it, he said it was an efficient use of his time. She sarcastically shook her head at her father's antics. But she wasn't hurt by his reasoning, nor did she ever feel like a convenience. And as far away as his voice sounded, when he called, she never felt more close to home.
"Nothing much," Caroline answered. Just doing some work. How was your day?"
"It was shit."
She chuckled at his bluntness. "Was it really busy in the hospital today?"
"Always."
"Well… I guess it just be like that sometimes."
She heard him let out a deep sigh on the other end of the line. "It really do." She was proud he remembered the rehearsed response. "Did you get dinner with anyone today?"
"Yeah, I got dinner with Hannah." This was a lie. She didn't eat with anyone, but she couldn't let him know that. It would just make him feel the need to cheer her up, and she knew that would only make her feel more pitiful and sad than she already felt.
"Good. I'm glad you're meeting up with your friends."
Well, it wasn't entirely a lie. Hannah did ask to get dinner that night, but Caroline had cancelled at the last minute. It's not that she didn't like her. She got along with Hannah just fine--pretty well, even. It's just that their friendship didn't feel the way friendship was supposed to feel like. It just didn't feel… right. It was like wearing one of those socks with individual cut-outs for the toes--it was fine... but something was just inexplicably off. Caroline knew the difference, and that difference made her heart hurt every time they got together. So Caroline called off their dinner plans and ate alone in her room that night, not that that made her feel any better. But it didn't make her feel any worse.
"Hello? Are you still there?"
"Oh, yeah. Sorry, I just spaced out for a second."
"That's okay. Listen, Dad's almost home so I'm gonna let you go. I just wanted to check in. Don't stay in your room too much and stay positive."
"Yeah, I know."
"Alright, I'll see ya, Bud."
There is was again. "Alrighty, Dad," Please don't go. There's so much more I want to tell you. "Bye."
"Bye."
Caroline hung up the phone and tossed it on her desk before curling herself up in bed. Warm tears rolled across the bridge of her nose and down onto her pillow, and she listened to the soft pit-pat of each one as it hit the surface. She wished she could tell him the truth, but he had heard it too many times before. And right now, she couldn't bear to have him feel bad for her circumstances, guilty of setting her expectations too high, or frustrated hearing her spin the same sad record over and over again: that she felt lonely, that she didn't want to be here, and that she wanted to come home. She just needed him to talk to her with love and hope in his voice. Because maybe then she would start to feel it too.