I have no idea where this concept came from. Probably from having one friend so sick she didn't remember a conversation with me, and another who got in a bike accident. Strange the way the two connected.
“Mom, can I get my pain meds?” Natali lay on the couch, tenderly fingering the stiches in her stomach. “I‘m dying here.”
Her mom entered the room a moment later, a glass of water in her hand and two pills in her palm. “Here, hon. It’s going to make you sleepy, so get some rest.”
She swallowed the pills, trying to ignore the aching, throbbing pain in her side. She liked riding bikes… but she didn’t particularly like falling off. This particular spill had been worse than others. Flying down a hill in her neighborhood, she’d hit an unexpected bump and gone flying over the handlebars, landing hard on her side and slicing the skin on her stomach open. Thirty stitches later, she was lying miserable on the couch, hoping her pain medication would kick in quickly.
Ten minutes later, as the pain in her side began to dim, her phone buzzed with a text. She groggily flipped it open and saw a text from her friend Joe. Hey, heard bout ur accident. Still ok 2 come c u 2morrow? Miss u.
She smiled, thinking fuzzily about Joe. They’d been friends for several years, and he had told her at times that she was one of the only people he truly confided in. It felt good… but also guilty, because she knew that, while he was being honest and telling her his deepest secrets, she was hiding a massive one. She was head over heels for the dark haired musician, wrapped around his little finger and hanging on every word he said. When he was around her, she was happier than she was with anyone else. Every little thing that he revealed of himself, she adored. He thought they were such good friends, and he was right… but he was so much more to her.
She started to reply to the text, and that was the last thing she remembered before she awoke the next morning. She yawned, tried to stretch, and flinched when the movement tugged at her stitches. She hit a button on her phone to make it light up and her eyes widened. “Ten?” What on earth happened? The last thing she remembered it was 7:00 the night before. “Mom?”
“Just a second, honey!” Her mom walked in and said, “Morning, sleepyhead.”
“H-have I been sleeping the whole time?”
“Basically. You were awake and loopy for a while, but then you fell asleep and didn’t wake up till now.”
“Wow.” She glanced back at her phone. “Hold on, texts.”
She had five new texts, mostly from friends hoping she felt better soon, but one caught her eye, from Joe. She had forgotten to text him back the night before! She read it quickly. Wow Nat. I didn‘t no… I’ll b there @ 12 2morrow. We can talk bout it.
Rereading more carefully, Natali scrunched her eyebrows. What was he talking about? She hadn’t texted him back last night, had she? She flipped through her phone to the sent texts folder, and her eyes immediately widened. Horrified, she read through several sent texts.
joe! Yeh come 2morrow. Miss u so much. Love u so much.
That wasn’t bad, except that she didn’t remember sending it. But the next one? Really luv u a lot. Like… I never told u, but I’m in luv w/ u. And the next, Don’t b mad. I’ve loved you 4ever. Everything about u. I can‘t help it.
Natali felt tears well in her eyes. Had she really sent these texts? Her mom wouldn’t have, and she was the only other one home… her phone had been next to her all night. That’s when she remembered what her mom had said: she was awake and loopy for a while. “I didn’t,” she whispered quietly, but she realized she had. The morphine she had taken… she had revealed her deepest secret, the one thing she had sworn she would never tell Joe, over text when she was drugged and half asleep, and she didn’t even remember it.
She felt tears slip down her face as she reread the text response she had gotten. It was embarrassing, but it was more than that. It was shattering. Her closest friendship had just been ruined by pain medication. Her mom called from the other room, “Nat, do you want another pain pill?”
“No,” she yelled desperately. “No, no, no!” Why didn’t they tell you that morphine and cell phones don’t mix? She cried, then slipped into a numb state, trying not to think about what Joe would do when he got there, what he would think. When the doorbell rang at quarter to twelve, she grimaced and closed her eyes.
Her mom answered. “Oh, hi, Joe. Come on in. Natali’s on the couch.”
“Thanks.” She heard his footsteps and closed her eyes. The steps stopped beside the couch where she lay, but she stubbornly kept her eyes closed, fighting back tears, afraid to look at him. “Natali… I know you’re awake. Stop fooling.”
She groaned and opened her eyes, hesitantly looking up at him. Her breath fled her lungs as she looked at him. His white skinny jeans and pale blue shirt made him look like a god and his shaggy black hair fell in his brown eyes, just begging to be brushed away. He was tanner than the last time she had seen him, and a little more muscular. His smile was exactly the same as she remembered, bright and friendly. Was he not upset? “Joe… listen, those texts last night--”
He sobered. “Yeah, about that--”
“No, listen, Joe.” She tried to sit up, winced and whimpered, and gave up. Ever a gentleman, he knelt beside her, arm resting close to her on the couch, eyes attentive. “I don’t know what I was thinking when I sent those texts. I had just taken morphine, I was totally drugged. I don’t even remember sending them. I’m so sorry.” She shook her head. “I didn’t know I’d sent them until I saw your response this morning. I wasn’t in my right mind.”
He just watched her levelly. “So… you were on pain pills, out of it… so it was kind of like you were drunk, right?”
“Exactly!”
“So… when someone’s drunk, they say things they don’t mean to.”
“Right. I didn’t at all mean to say those things.”
He smiled slightly. “But you know, when a drunk says things he doesn’t mean to say… a lot of times, he doesn’t mean to say it, but he does mean it.”
Natali processed, then her eyes widened. “Joe, no, I--”
“Then you didn’t mean it?” Something in his face changed. “You weren’t telling the truth?”
She sputtered. Could she really say she had meant it? She’d told him the flat out truth. She loved him with everything in her. She had never loved anyone the way she loved him. “I…”
“Please don’t lie to me, Natali… do you love me?”
“I--Joe--” She drew a deep breath, closed her eyes, and answered, “I do.” Then she searched his face. “I’m sorry, Joe. I’ll forget about it if you do, we can pretend it never happened.”
A wide smile spread across his face. “Natali, sweetheart, why would I want to do that?” He touched her cheek softly before bending over her and pressing his lips, with infinite tenderness, to hers. As she gasped in surprise, he laughed low in his throat and pulled back slowly. “I love you.”
Her tears choked her, but she finally managed, “I love you, too… oh, I love you so much.”
“Got that. In several texts, I got it.” He grinned. “It’s about time, Nat.” He pulled out his phone and showed her the display of the text that had gotten them where they were right now. “I don’t care if you were high as the sky when you sent this. I’m never deleting it.” Then, phone still clutched in his hand, he ducked his head and kissed her again, sighing as she wrapped her arms gingerly around his neck.
Who ever said morphine and cell phones don’t mix?
