"Yeah. I've been drinking. People all say drinking can drown the worries. But I'm quite uncomfortable after drinking instead."
Bending over the low table, I muttered staggeringly to the one over the phone.
The person over the phone was silent for a while and then said, "Why don't you tell me what happened? You may feel better after saying it."
"Okay..."
In a daze, I began to tell the one over the phone everything that had happened between me and Patrick...
It was unknown how long I had been talking.
Nor did I know how I had fallen asleep later.
By the time I woke up again, it had been another evening.
Feeling that I had a headache, I got up and cooked a bowl of instant noodles. Picking my cell phone up, I intended to check what time it was, only to find that my cell phone was out of power. I couldn't even turn it on.
I was a little puzzled. And I remembered that my cell phone had been fully charged in the morning.
I had just helped Patrick make a call to 911.
I got my cell phone charged and went to eat the instant noodles by myself. By the time I finished the instant noodles, my cell phone had been turned on.
I clicked open the call log and found that there was a number that wasn't saved in my phonebook on it. Then I recognized the number at a glance. This number belonged to the one who had funded me to go to college.
I took a look at the call duration...
Ths call lasted 132 minutes.
"Oh my God."
I was scared out of my wits, wondering why I had talked to him over the phone for so long!
I tried to think about it. And I finally remembered that I seemed to be complaining to him about something in tears.
Then I immediately felt extremely guilty.
In fact, I had never seen the one who had funded me. In my imagination, he should be an elder who took good care of me.
I usually texted him in a polite manner.
But I had been talking to him over the phone for such a long time...
I was afraid that I had said something that I shouldn't have said.
Just in case, I sent him a text and apologized, saying that I had drunk too much during the daylight. If I had said something bad to him, I hoped that he could forgive me.
After sending the text to him, I felt a little nervous.
But soon I received his reply, which read, "No, you're very cute today..."
"You are cute."
Reading his text, I couldn't help but imagine a scene where an elder in his forties or fifties was talking sincerely to a junior, "You are cute."
I was a little embarrassed. And I said some more words to apologize to him.
After that, I put down my cell phone and went to the bathroom to wash my face. After I went in, I saw that Patrick's electric toothbrush and rinse cup were on the washstand.
My heart ached. Then I picked up these things and threw them into the trash can on the side.
After that, I saw his slippers.
I threw them away.
Then I threw the pen he had left here away.
I searched around my house and threw away all the things that Patrick had brought here before.
Sitting on the sofa, I tilted my head and saw short hair on the leather. Although I was short-haired as well, this one was much shorter than mine.
It was Patrick's hair.
I threw the hair away. Then I, who seemed to have been possessed, began to clean up my house while wearing rubber gloves.
I fetched a basin of water and dripped a bit of disinfectant into it. Then I began to clean up every corner of my house with a rag.
By the time I was done with all the cleaning, it was already late at night.
I turned on the lights, making them look the brightest. Then I searched every room.
It wasn't until I made sure that there was no trace of Patrick's existence that I stopped searching.
I finished cleaning up everything and went back to bed, only to notice a WeChat message from Lisa on my cell phone.
Comments
The readers' comments on the novel: Substitute Her to Love You