One evening, Leah and Daniel were on a date. They were so in love, it wasn't even funny. In fact, it was kinda annoying for the rest of us, which is why we took a break from hanging out with them…at least for the time being. They were talking all mushy and cheesy, when suddenly Leah’s phone started vibrating ferociously. It was the loudest disturbance within miles, and it was so alarming that Daniel practically jumped out of his seat.


He tumbled backwards and hit his head. He was kind of embarrassed and didn’t want to cry in front of her, so he covered up his tears by taking it out on her. He yelled at her for the first time he’s ever yelled at anyone face to face. Leah, who has always been much stronger emotionally as well as physically, punched him and shouted, “You dumb fool! This all started just because of a stupid text!”


“Nooo, Leah, you did this on purpose. You know how sensitive I am. You did this to hurt me,” his face scrunched up in a funny way, the way it usually does when people cry.


Leah was shocked, “Daniel, think about this a second.” Daniel wouldn’t look at her, but she continued, “You’re really making a big deal out of nothing. Do you honestly think I’d want to hurt you? Of course not. All I ever want is for you to be happy, but you make that really difficult.” Her words lingered, and slowly scattered away as she stood there waiting for a reasonable response. Nothing. Silence. Except for Daniel’s sniffling. With that, she walked away with her nose in the air, and didn’t look back. Not once.


She hopped on his bike and headed toward Nicole’s house at a speed faster than humanly possible. Daniel watched until he couldn’t see any further. He just sat there, with a stupid unreadable expression on his face. He heard voices in the back of his head, “What are you doing, man? You’re just gonna let her leave like that? Go be a man for once, you baby. Go be a man.” So he recollected himself and went to call her.


He grabbed his phone from where it sat beside him, and started dialing numbers. “Wait a minute,” he whispered. The pink and purple puppy wallpaper definitely did not look familiar to him. “This isn’t mine,” he thought to himself. “She took my phone instead of hers!”


He remembered the buzz that had started it all. He searched through her unread texts, and there, as visible as the nose on his face, was his worst fear. He read it over and over again, hoping that would cause it to disappear. “I knew it. This is killing me.” He could feel his heart dropping in his chest. ‘Inbox: Shawn: I love you and I miss you,’ he read once again. “I knew there was something- something she wasn’t telling me.” His heart was pounding uncontrollably fast. After several arguments with himself, he decided to reply for her, “Sorry.”


It was midnight by then. He waited and waited for a reply, but it never came. You know what they say: “A watched phone never rings.” He called his phone over and over again and it kept going straight to voicemail. He texted her, “Your ex just sent you an ‘I love you’ text. I knew it. You’ve been lying to me. I don’t have my exes sending me ‘I love you’ texts.”


“What??? Prove it!” She responded. He forwarded it to her. She still didn’t believe him.






Leah was freaking out. “He has my phone. The idiot has my phone!” She frantically waved her arms in Nicole’s face.


“Don’t worry. He’s too stupid to do anything bad with it,” Nicole rolled her eyes.


“You don’t understand.” Leah stared at her, eyes red and fiery. She leaped out of the house, but Nicole was one step ahead of her and blocked her way to the bike. It was one A.M. Leah couldn’t wait any longer, so she walked there, and Daniel was in the same place she left him.


“Oh, Leah, I knew you’d come back,” he tried to kiss her. “I don’t wanna lose you.”


She ignored him and snapped, “Gimme back my phone!”


Daniel raised his voice, “I’m not the one who took the wrong phone! You give me back mine!”


“Not until you give me mine. Where is it??” she demanded. Daniel had it hidden. His heart was beating quickly from guilt.


“No! I wanna see what Shawn replies!”


Leah stomped on his foot. “There is nothing between me and Shawn! Can’t you just believe me?”


“NO!” Daniel shouted, “I want to figure this out MY way!”


“You are a selfish man, Daniel. No, you are a selfish BOY.” She left. Again. Daniel followed her back to Nicole’s and she spent the night there. He slept outside the window, still hanging onto her phone as tight as he could, as if it would just try to jump out of his hand and attack him any minute. With what was left of the night, he lay there awake. He couldn’t sleep-- At least, not longer than three minutes at a time, before he was woken up by his heart pounding for the hundredth time.


When it finally reached morning, he realized that this was all his fault. He never wanted her to leave. He broke into the house, and sat at her feet, from where she was sleeping. When she finally woke up, they greeted each other with their eyes. “I’m sorry. This is all my fault,” Daniel hated to admit.


“Me too,” she smiled.


Just then, Shawn texted back, “whoops…I meant to send that to Cece.”