When You Get This

At 1.14 in the morning, Daniel’s phone lit up on the bedside table.

He was awake. He’s often awake at that time. He reached for it thinking it would be nothing — a notification, a news alert, some app wanting attention. Then he saw the words, and his whole body went cold.

Can you call me when you get this?

It was from Kofi. A mate from college. They hadn’t spoken properly in months.

For a second Daniel couldn’t move. Because he’d seen those exact seven words before. A year and a bit ago, on a Wednesday, from his little brother. Can you call me when you get this? And Daniel had seen it and thought, I’ll ring him tomorrow. He’d been tired. It had been a long day. Tomorrow had felt wide and easy and available.

He never got to make that call. His brother died unexpectedly two days later. There’s no neat way to say it. There’s no neat way to live with it, either.

Daniel is twenty-eight. Slim, short black hair, beard kept trimmed, tired eyes that look older than the rest of him. Usually in a charcoal hoodie under a black jacket, dark trousers, black trainers — like he’s dressed to disappear into a crowd. Since his brother died, he’s done something he never used to do: he calls people. Not texts. Calls. His mum, on Sundays. His aunt, who lives on her own. Old friends he’d drifted from. People are sometimes surprised to hear his voice. Some of them ask why.

He never really says. He just tells them he wanted to hear how they were.

But that night, lying in the dark with Kofi’s message glowing in his hand, all of that went out of his head. He just saw the words, and he was back on that Wednesday, and he was about to make the same mistake.

He didn’t. He pressed call.

It rang four times. Daniel sat up in bed, heart hammering. Pick up. Pick up. Pick up.

“…Dan?” Kofi’s voice. Surprised. Croaky. Alive.

Daniel let out a breath he felt like he’d been holding for a year. “You alright? You said to call.”

“Yeah, I — sorry, man. I didn’t think you’d see it till the morning. I didn’t mean to worry you.” A pause. “I’m fine. Well. I’m not in danger or anything. I just…”

He trailed off. Daniel waited. He’d learnt that from Samuel, actually — that sometimes the most useful thing you can do is shut up and let someone find their words.

“I just couldn’t sleep,” Kofi said eventually. “I lost my job three weeks ago. I haven’t told anyone. My girlfriend moved out last month. I’ve just been sitting in this flat and it’s so quiet and I kept thinking, who would I even ring? And then I thought of you. Don’t know why. We haven’t talked in ages.”

“I’m glad you did.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

They talked for two hours. About the job, and the girlfriend, and nothing, and everything. About a football game they’d both been at when they were nineteen. About Kofi’s dad, who’d never been one for feelings. About the flat, and the quiet, and how the nights go on for ever when you’re on your own with your thoughts.

At some point Kofi said, “Sorry, I’m going on. How are you, anyway? How’s your family?”

And Daniel told him about his brother. He hadn’t told Kofi. He’d only really told the people who’d been at the funeral. He told him about the message. About the call he didn’t make. About how he still sometimes picks up the phone to ring his brother before he remembers.

Kofi was quiet for a long time.

“That’s why you rang straight back,” he said.

“Yeah.”

“Mate. I’m sorry.”

“It’s alright. It’s not alright. But it’s… I don’t know.” Daniel rubbed his face. “It’s why I pick up now.”

By the time they hung up, it was getting light. Kofi said he felt like he might actually sleep. He promised to ring his mum in the morning and tell her about the job. They said they’d meet for food at the weekend.

After, Daniel sat on the edge of the bed for a while. Then he did something he hadn’t been able to do in a year.

He opened his voicemail.

There was one message he’d never deleted. He’d never listened to it, either. It had arrived the same Wednesday as the text. He’d seen the little red dot every day for over a year and never pressed play, because as long as he didn’t, it felt like there was still one conversation left.

He got dressed and walked down to Samuel’s bench in the grey morning light. He didn’t know why he needed to be there to do it. He just did.

Samuel wasn’t there yet. It was too early. Daniel sat on the cold wood on his own, with the estate waking up around him — a bus sighing past, a shutter going up somewhere, a fox trotting across the green like it owned the place.

He pressed play.

“Alright bruv, it’s me. Nothing serious, just wanted to talk to you about Mum’s birthday. And, like — I dunno. Just miss you, innit. Call me when you get this. Love you.”

Eleven seconds.

Daniel played it three times. Then he sat and cried on Samuel’s bench, the kind of crying that comes from so deep down it feels like it’s been waiting underground.

When Samuel arrived about half an hour later, with his flask and his paper, he took one look at Daniel’s face and sat down without a word. He didn’t ask what had happened. He just poured a second cup of tea from the flask and held it out.

After a while, Daniel said, “He just wanted to talk about Mum’s birthday.”

Samuel nodded slowly. “And now?”

“I don’t know. I thought it would be worse. It was just… him.”

“We all put things off, Daniel,” Samuel said. “We all think there’s time. It’s not a failing. It’s being human.” He looked out at the green. “What you do with it after — that’s the part that’s yours.”