1

one thing sierra didn't need was more stress. she was in her fourth year of nursing school, already active in the hospital and about four months out for graduation—the last thing she needed was a distraction.

so why is her ex boyfriend calling her at 4pm on a tuesday? she has no clue.

sierra is a smart girl, and for the past six months she's been coming up with smart ways to ignore her ex man successfully. they've all worked, since she hasn't thought about him in depth, in a few weeks. that's pretty successful in her book. all the walls she's built up around herself because of him have shielded her from any more disappointment or hurt from anyone that wasn't herself.

so why does she feel those exact walls start to crumble, the ones built for protection, when she hasn't even picked up the phone. again, she doesn't have an answer.

time seems to stand still as she watches her phone buzz wildly on the desk. the buzzing is taunting, almost. the caller ID, saved under 'do not answer' daring her to do exactly that, to have all of the hard work she'd put it to forget about him, go completely down the drain.

so she lets it ring. there's an ache deep in her chest that wants to answer it, that wants to hear that deep rumble of her voice that can make her oh-so weak in just an instant. but she knows she has to be strong, for the sake of her well-being. and because she knows that if she answers that phone, she'll fall deep, and is afraid that she won't ever be able to pull herself out of it.

so she lets it ring, and when it finally stops, she braces herself for something.

she sits there for five minutes—waiting—for anything else to follow, but nothing happens. an inkling of disappointment bubbles in her chest, and she ignores it and forces herself to go back to focusing on her assignment, back to pretending like he never even existed.

-

it is excruciating.

the itch to call him back is stronger than ever, and when the clock strikes 8pm, sierra is dialing the number back.

the phone burns a hole on the side of her face as she waits for the sound of him picking up. the trill feels like it's mocking her, laughing at her for being so naive and stupid, once again. she's been here before—more than once—and she swore she would never do it again. at least the two of them had breaking promises in common.

sierra almost doesn't believe it when the trolling stops and the robotic voice doesn't tell her to leave a message, and instead jack is saying, "hello?" into the phone. blood pounds in her ears and knots form in her stomach. this cannot be real. "sierra?"

"what?" she whispers, almost inaudibly, but he hears her. her voice feels hoarse and thick, the lump that has now formed in her throat making it hard to swallow and hard to think.

"hey," jack says, at a loss for words. she actually called him back. he never expected that, if he's being honest. given her retweets on twitter, he half expected her to cuss him out via text and then block his number—he wouldn't have been surprised if she did. her twitter is evidence that she's turned to ice. and it's all because of him.

"what do you want, jack?" she asks, her voice firm, yet quiet. the lump is still there.

"i just wanted to talk to you, si," he says.

"don't. do not call me that."

"i'm sorry."

"you always are," she didn't mean to say it, but it slipped anyway. but it was true. if there was one thing about jack, it was that he was always sorry. missed dates: sorry. forgotten birthdays: sorry. he was always sorry, it was starting to look fake.

the line is quiet before he replies, "i know." and somehow, that statement irritates her. because how can you be so self aware, and still manage to fuck a good thing up knowingly? she'll never understand and doesn't wish to. "but i mean it."

sierra is quiet. she bites the inside of her cheek and sighs quietly. "look, i gotta go jack. i got things to do," sierra says decidedly. her heart feels so heavy, like it did all of those months ago, and it's scaring her. she can't be that person again.

"okay. goodnight, sierra," jack says through a shaky breath. they're both quiet on the line, the anticipation of whether or not she's going t say it back building, bubbling to the very top before it pops and leaks over the surface.

she doesn't say anything.

she just hangs up and squeezes her eyes shut as she clutches her phone in her hands so tight that she thinks it might snap. her heart pounds in her ears and the lump in her throat grows in size. don't cry don't cry don't cry, she tells herself. forces herself to comply. the tears are sucked back in as quickly as they came.

sierra decides that that is the last time that she'll be speaking to jack ever again. he can't fuck her life up again, she can't be back in that headspace she was in for so long, for two whole years. not again, not with him of all people.

surprisingly, she falls asleep easily that night. she forces herself to dream and think of anything other than jack. it's much harder than it sounds.

-

"and you called him back? for real, sierra?" rayana, her older sister, barks over facetime. sierra doesn't react, just continues eating the lunch she packed for today. "wait, i thought you blocked him?" rayana asks, coming to the realization. when she looks at the camera and sees sierra unmoving, she rolls her eyes. "you blow me, dog." rayana says, shaking her head at her sister. sierra only shrugs. she regrets telling her, but out of all of her options to tell someone, rayana to was the most practical. her friends would've been bad influences.

"it wasn't even a five minute phone call. pipe down, for real," sierra says after taking a bite of her food.

"i'm just looking out for you. you don't think right around him," rayana says, not looking at the camera, being that she's driving, which means she misses the look that her baby sister gives her.

but rayana has a point, and sierra knows it. her whole world becomes Jack, when they're together. her brain is cloudy around him. besides her education, he came before everything. whenever he fucked up and missed a birthday or a dinner, she could always see through to it, and when the fog cleared, it wasn't until the next day she could actually think about the situation and be upset. she always gave him another chance, until she snapped six months ago and ran out.

"and i'm not trying to get on you, i just want you to be smart, sierra. don't let that little white boy fuck up your path," rayana adds when sierra doesn't speak. it wasn't a secret that rayana wasn't a fan of jack in any way. she thought his raps were weak and that he and eminem would never be on the level that both aspired to be on. she thought he was a decent guy in the beginning, though. he was polite and respectful, and sweet to her sister. he made sure she was always doing well in school. he was a good guy at one point.

until he wasn't, and then rayana wasn't going for it. it was the first time he had actually made her cry. sierra said they were going to his show, and then dinner. they never got to dinner, though, because of the fact that jack took the bras he got on stage home with him, the fact that he posted about it and kept throwing it in her face, telling her it wasn't a big deal when she was obviously upset. and maybe it wasn't a big deal, but it bothered her. she knew it came with the job, but he didn't have to do all of that. and then, jack decided he wanted to go to the club instead of dinner. it was a good show, and he felt like celebrating. sierra, on the other hand, wanted to celebrate too, but not like that. she wanted the dinner she was promised. the alone time that they hadn't had in awhile because of their schedules.

obviously, she got nothing she wanted that night. instead, she got sent to her sisters house in an uber and cried the entire ride there. she was sure she was going to get kicked out of the car, but luckily she didn't. when rayana opened the door and saw her sister there, makeup streaked across her face, she decided that she hated jack.

"he won't, it's not possi-" she stops mid sentence as a text pops up on her screen. her mouth goes dry as she reads the text. sierra ignores her sister shouting, "what?" over and over again as she takes longer to respond.

all it is, is a time and place. an all too familiar place.

"whats the date today?"

"what?"

"whats today, rayana?" sierra asks, her voice panicked. she's already clicked out of facetime and gone to the calendar by the time rayana catches on. it's january 12th, making tomorrow the thirteenth. her mouth goes slack at the realization. "imma call you back." sierra says, hanging up just as rayana says "what?"

when rayana calls back, sierra presses ignore an texts her that her break is over. rayana doesn't press the issue again, and sierra is grateful for the five minutes that she has until it's really over to gather herself.

it has to be coincedental, sierra thinks. there's no way he remembered january 13th of all days.

she'd just have to find out.

——

A/N: this is just a test.