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Carmen threw her clothes frantically across the room towards her bag sitting on her bed. She ran around gathering her belongings, the phone all the while wedged between her ear and her shoulder. She had no reason to doubt that the last call Alice made wasn’t true, and right now, she was desperately trying to get hold of her friend. At last, the phone call got through and in Carmen’s state of panic, didn’t realize that voice did not belong to Alice.

“Alice, oh god, what happened? How is she…!”

“Peach.” The voice hummed softly and in that instant, Carmen registered that there was only one person in the world who would call her that.

“Shane? Are you okay? Are you badly hurt?” Carmen was still trying to stuff all her clothes into her bag, although she was relieved to hear Shane speak…. Shane? Speak?

“I’m fine… I needed to talk to you…” Shane said quietly, guiltily. Carmen finally realized that she was duped, she stopped her frantic movements and settled heavily onto the bed.

“You are not hurt, are you? You tricked me?”

“Carmen, don’t hang up. I needed to talk to you so badly. Alice came up with this plan… I… I was desperate. Please… don’t hang up.”

The relieved Latina looked down and focused on a spot on the carpet, more than anything, she was glad that Shane was not hurt after all, and she was also glad that she could speak to her love.

“I wasn’t going to.” This was the go-ahead to let the conversation continue. But suddenly, Shane was at a lost for words. Now that she was actually talking to her love, she didn’t know what to say first. Should she beg for Carmen to come back? Or should she ask how she had been? Shane couldn’t decide, and instead she allowed the silence to take over the phone call. In the end, Carmen broke the ice first.

“Shane?”

“Erm… yah yah…”

“So… how have you been?” Carmen knew it was a stupid question. Shane should be nothing less than a sobbing mess now, and she said so.

“Me? Well… Alice and Jenny had been calling me a train wreck for a couple of days now…” Her voice laced with bitter cynicism, it dropped a notch as she continued, “I missed you so much, I only hope that you missed me as much as I miss you.”