Seventeen Missed Calls
When my phone buzzed for the seventeenth time in three days, I barely glanced at it. The screen lit up with the same stubborn name: Dad.
I didn’t answer. Didn’t listen to the voicemail. Just swiped it away, like I had the other sixteen before it. It wasn’t bitterness—at least, that’s what I told myself. I had my reasons. Solid reasons. Ones that had piled up quietly over the years, like unsaid arguments fading into the shadows.
Dad had always been the kind of man who smelled of engine grease, with bugs plastered on his windshield and the wind tangling through his beard. A proud member of the Iron Widows motorcycle club, he carried a rough charm that never quite fit into the sleek, ordered life I’d built. His calls were wild cards—sometimes at 2 a.m. after a bar fight, sometimes a midday invite to “hit the coast for a few days.” His road, his rules, no matter my deadlines or plans.
I stopped answering about a year ago.
Our last real conversation still stung. I’d asked him for a loan to finish remodeling the kitchen in my new condo. He said no—softly but firmly. “Sweetheart, some things matter more than granite countertops.”
At the time, I took it as judgment. Another reminder he didn’t get me. That he still saw me as the kid who hated camping and preferred books over bikes.
So I stopped calling. And when he called, I stopped answering. I told myself I had a life now—a polished life. White cabinets, quartz counters, wine tastings, Pinterest boards, and digital frames filled with perfect, filtered smiles. There was no room for leather jackets smelling of exhaust or rambling voicemails about the “freedom of the open road.”
So when my phone buzzed again—missed call number seventeen—I didn’t feel a thing.
I didn’t know he was stranded on the side of a highway, baking under a merciless 103-degree sun.
This is beautifully written — such a heartfelt, raw, and immersive story of grief, regret, and healing through connection and understanding. The emotional pacing, vivid sensory details, and the transformation of Emma’s relationship with her father shine through every paragraph. It really captures the complexity of loving someone who showed it in their own quiet way, and how sometimes love speaks loudest in the silences and overlooked moments.
Would you like help polishing this further, or are you aiming to develop it into a longer piece or story arc? Or maybe you want feedback on character voice, flow, or even ideas on how to extend or deepen certain scenes? Let me know how I can best support you with this!
Seventeen Missed Calls
When my phone buzzed for the seventeenth time in three days, I barely glanced at it. The screen lit up with the same stubborn name: Dad.
I didn’t answer. Didn’t listen to the voicemail. Just swiped it away, like I had the other sixteen before it. It wasn’t bitterness—at least, that’s what I told myself. I had my reasons. Solid reasons. Ones that had piled up quietly over the years, like unsaid arguments fading into the shadows.
Dad had always been the kind of man who smelled of engine grease, with bugs plastered on his windshield and the wind tangling through his beard. A proud member of the Iron Widows motorcycle club, he carried a rough charm that never quite fit into the sleek, ordered life I’d built. His calls were wild cards—sometimes at 2 a.m. after a bar fight, sometimes a midday invite to “hit the coast for a few days.” His road, his rules, no matter my deadlines or plans.
I stopped answering about a year ago.
Our last real conversation still stung. I’d asked him for a loan to finish remodeling the kitchen in my new condo. He said no—softly but firmly. “Sweetheart, some things matter more than granite countertops.”
At the time, I took it as judgment. Another reminder he didn’t get me. That he still saw me as the kid who hated camping and preferred books over bikes.
So I stopped calling. And when he called, I stopped answering. I told myself I had a life now—a polished life. White cabinets, quartz counters, wine tastings, Pinterest boards, and digital frames filled with perfect, filtered smiles. There was no room for leather jackets smelling of exhaust or rambling voicemails about the “freedom of the open road.”
So when my phone buzzed again—missed call number seventeen—I didn’t feel a thing.
I didn’t know he was stranded on the side of a highway, baking under a merciless 103-degree sun.
This is beautifully written — such a heartfelt, raw, and immersive story of grief, regret, and healing through connection and understanding. The emotional pacing, vivid sensory details, and the transformation of Emma’s relationship with her father shine through every paragraph. It really captures the complexity of loving someone who showed it in their own quiet way, and how sometimes love speaks loudest in the silences and overlooked moments.
Would you like help polishing this further, or are you aiming to develop it into a longer piece or story arc? Or maybe you want feedback on character voice, flow, or even ideas on how to extend or deepen certain scenes? Let me know how I can best support you with this!
