Nothing More

I toss my phone at the bed and bounce on one foot out to the living room, my toe still throbbing. When I reach Tessa’s sleeping body on the couch, I scan her and the furniture. Her cell has to be around here somewhere.

Why didn’t I listen to my mom about getting a landline?

You never know what could happen, Landon.

The cell service could stop working.

You may lose that cell phone and have to use the landline to call and find it.

The aliens could invade Brooklyn and steal all technology to further their plan of taking over Earth for their evil doings.

Okay, so I made the last one up when I teased her about her concern.

However, this is one of the many times in my life when I’ve come to realize that my mother usually knows what the heck she’s talking about. Most twenty-year-olds would never admit it, but I’m smart enough to know that I’m lucky to have a parent like her.

I spot Tessa’s phone wedged between the back of the couch and her hip. I slowly reach for it and hold my breath, trying not to wake her. Just as my fingertips reach the phone and I grab hold of it, Tessa’s body jerks and her eyes dart open.

I pull back and give her time to understand that it’s only me, and she’s asleep on the couch in her own living room.

“Are you okay?” Tessa groans. Her voice sounds like she’s still asleep.

“Yeah, sorry. My phone is dead and I’m late for work.”

She nods and reaches her phone out to me.

I take it and go to dial the number, but I’m asked for the passcode.

Tessa starts naming numbers and I type them in quickly.

“Zero, two, zero, one,” she says, and closes her eyes. She rolls on her side and lifts her knees up toward her chest.

“Thanks.”

I grab the blanket from the back of the couch and drape it over her. She thanks me with a smile and I unlock her phone. Her phone feels weird in my hand; it’s so small compared to mine.

She teases me for the size of mine, calling it an iPad, and I tease her for always breaking or losing hers. I bring up the one she dropped in the toilet, the one that “went missing” in an Uber, the one that she threw at a spider on the rooftop of our building. The only one left, the one I don’t mention, was her first phone.

That’s the one whose screen she busted purposely and stomped it under her feet at least twenty times. I came home from work to find her smashing it. She swore she was never going to use an iPhone again, and I had my suspicions that it had nothing to do with the technology. Rather it’s the same reason she only drinks cold coffee now. The same reason she can barely listen to her favorite band anymore.

She quickly gave up on her promise after using another phone for a week. She lost all of her music, all of the information she had saved. All of her auto-login websites, her saved credit cards. She cursed Apple all the way to the store, saying that they are taking over the world, and it pissed her off that they have such good products because they leave consumers no other choice but to use them. Quite the paradox.

She also mentioned more than a few times that they should make more affordable products. I agreed.

When I get to the call screen, I realize I don’t know the number to Grind by heart. I usually rely on the number already in my phone. I can barely remember the days before smartphones took over the world. I did have an old Nokia when I was twelve that my mom made me bring with me everywhere I went, just in case something happened. I used to kill the battery playing Snake all day.