#IWillAlwaysReply

Five slim fingers were tapping on the table impatiently. They created a chain of monotones like the sound of a ticking clock. Edward had been waiting for more than 15 minutes, redialed Mia over ten times. At this rate, he couldn’t help mentally grunting the question: ‘Why are you ignoring me?’

Edward angrily opened the Twitter window. He typed as if he was about to slam his palms on the keyboard.

@hesloveturtles: Why aren’t you answering?

So angry he was that Edward almost bolted up, lifting him off the comfy chair. However, his legs slowly brought himself falling back onto the soft seat cushion. Maybe she was busy with something. He shouldn’t have acted like that, like such an impatient kid. Again, his fingers tapped on the table with a tune. His lips parted as he quietly sang along to the beat.
“Para-para-paradise… Para-pa-… oh.” Though the song’s lyrics were flowing seamlessly inside him, he suddenly stopped drumming the beat. A faint smile crept upon his lips.

@JustMiaN: Sorry, I was away.

@JustMiaN: But I’m back now.

Biting her lip, Mia slummed back into her seat, stretching both of her legs out so that they wouldn’t go numb like they had a while ago. Her eyes veered to the screen occasionally with anxiety. Actually, despite what she’d written, Mia hadn’t even left the room, more accurately the chair, once since she came in. Right now she was so full of energy that she kept standing up then sitting down, standing up, and sitting down. She even took a short walk around her room so that she could distract herself from feeling nervous.

Is he going to call again? Maybe. But he’s probably given up the idea now. I’ve ignored him like twice or more. But what if he calls back? Should I pick it up? I shouldn’t… but I really want to know what he looks like. I wonder if he’s handso-

Rrrrrrrr!

“Ohmygod!” Mia jumped up as the buzzing sound came out from her laptop. She quickly strode quickly to the old wooden study table, slapping herself back to her senses.

Please don’t be Edward. Please don’t be Edward. Her inner voice screamed.

“Oh, wonderful.” She looked up and sarcastically shouted, “Thank you!”

Her legs relentlessly paced back and forth in front of her desk. The nail-biting habit she had been trying to repress for years suddenly came back, and she caught herself tearing a jagged line across her pinky nail. She was shocked and immediately withdrew her hand with a disappointed frown on her face. Her eyes couldn’t stop veering to the screen every now and then just to find that the call was still there. Finally sure of what she was going to do, Mia said to herself firmly, “Mia Watson, listen. This is just a normal call. You have no reason to be panic. It’s just one simple call, well, video call. And you won’t stutter or mess it up. You are not the kid who doesn’t know how to mingle. You are just too busy with life.” And then her eyes shut as she pressed the “Answer” button.

His patience was dropping as rapidly as if it had been thrown off a skyscraper. His mind was filled with nothing but one single word, ‘Answer’. They both had agreed to Skype, she couldn’t just abandon him! Distracting himself from restlessness, Edward turned on the TV, switching channels before he even had time to see what was showing. “Hello? Um, Edward?” A sweet voice broke in over the noisy sound of the TV.

His green eyes blinked, glanced at the Skype icon.

She answered, he inwardly whispered, smiling to himself.

“Hey, can you hear me,” the voice asked.

He clumsily dragged the mouse to Skype, hastily clicking the blue circle multiple times.

Come on, come on, come on. Yes!

An image of a girl appeared. She furrowed her eyebrows, trying to look through the pitch black in front of her.

“Why is it so dark? Did something happen with your camera? Are you even there? Can you hear me?”

Edward studied Mia’s face. He wouldn’t say she was equal to the models he had met or the girls that he had dated. But she had these undeniably adorable features that caught his attention. Her warm chestnut-brown hair fitted perfectly with her round baby face. At first glance, she looked like a girl ww who hadn’t been bothered by any of life’s problems. However, her eyes said differently. Those pair of dark brown eyes held something very mature about her, a profound outlook upon this world.

“Ugh, he isn’t even there. I’m such an idiot.” The girl covered her face with her small hands as she fell back into her chair. At that moment, senses came back to Edward, he shouted.

“Wait wait wait! I’m here. I was away.”

Her finger was just two millimeters away from the left mouse button, about to end their call.
Moving away from the keyboard, she exhaled, surprised to find she was relieved.

“Oh, h-hi.”

Mia mentally gave herself a slap on the face. Oh, shit, I just stuttered. Not good. Not good.

A small sound emitted from her MacBook. She quirked her eyebrow, wondering what it was.

“Why are you laughing?” she asked. Mia really had no idea what was going on.

“Nothing,” he said, stopped himself just before telling her, “Your expression was adorable.”

She gave him the doubtful look while pouting her lips. It seemed that she had no idea how cute she was. “Oookay, if you say so.” She clearly wasn’t convinced. “So what happened to your webcam? I can’t see anything over here.”

Edward immediately turned his gaze to the pile of sticky notes covering the small webcam of his laptop. He shouldn’t have worried about the stickers being insufficient. They were more than excessive.

“My webcam is broken. I don’t know what happened.”

Her eyes were vaguely staring at the small cuts on her old wooden table, suddenly flicked up as Mia genuinely heard his voice. It was low, deep and a bit husky. Well, she wouldn’t want to admit this but she had really thought that his voice was very attractive. A voice that captured attention and somehow sounded familiar.

What am I thinking? Focus, Mia!

“What? Aw, come on,” she impulsively whined, then quickly covered her mouth, embarrassed.
‘Whining is only for kids and childish people.’ She had held this theory for more than half of her life. And she had just violated it. Amelia Watson, calm down. Think before act. That’s right. Do not embarrass yourself. Act like the Queen.

“I mean it’s unfair. Why do you get to see my face while I can’t see yours?” Mia asked, fairly satisfied with her question.

“I think,” a husky voice said, bringing her attention back to the black screen, “That what’s on the inside is more important.” Mia found genuine sincerity in the tone of his voice. He must have meant every word. Despite that, she also felt a tinge of annoyance, rising in her.

“Wow, that sounds cliché.” She commented nonchalantly, “Is this like your flirting line with girls?” She held back a laugh, pursing her lips.

Edward beamed while lying back on his chair. “It works every time.”

“Liar.” She unconsciously mumbled, quirking her lips. “What? You don’t believe me?” Even though he had just rested his back on the chair, Edward sat straight up leaning on the table with a flash of excitement in his eyes.

She startled. “Huh? What? Did I say something?”

Oh, don’t tell me… I just spoke without thinking. I did not, did I?

“Yes, you did.” Edward’s voice suddenly came out from nowhere.

Mia felt her cheeks getting hotter by seconds. She bit her lip, turning her eyes away from the screen. And again, Mia stood up from her seat, pacing back and forth in front of the webcam while mumbling the phrase, “Act like the Queen.”

“Mia, what are you doing?” Edward couldn’t hide the amusement in his words. Did she know that he could clearly hear her muttering? Should he tell her that? Probably, no.

The ambiguous moving figure on his screen was walking closer to the camera, her cheeks were bright red.

Cute… He thought.

“Oh! Nothing! Nothing at all. I think I’m going to cover my webcam.” Adverting her eyes away, she smiled.

“What? Why?”

“Because it’s the inside that important.”

“Oh, the outside is important as well. It’s the first impression after all.”

“Oh… But not in our case.”

“It’d be like talking to a black wall,” he quibbled.

“No, it’d be like a phone call, plus, it’s unfair that I can’t see your face.”

“But…”

“I’m covering it,” she said, standing up from her chair.

“Where are you going?” He rested his chin on the back of his hand.

“I’m looking for something to cover the camera.” A voice echoed back to him. Apparently, she had been out of the reach of the webcam. He sighed.

“So what was the whole broken phone about?” He eyed her room. It seemed smaller than he had thought. There were books everywhere from the bed to the floor, clothes scattered around the something; he thought it was a closet. Luckily, she was still much tidier than Louis.

“Well, I was in a classroom, and-“

“I thought schools let out earlier than that.”

“Think again.” She rummaged her bag, looking for a sticky note while Edward was staring at the screen with beady eyes, looking for the other’s figure.

“I live in London, too. I know when schools end.”

“Since when did I tell you I live in London?” A blurry figure moved closer to him, well, to the webcam. It was Mia. She was holding a stack of note stickers.

So this is what it feels like to take my own medicine.

“The pictures say you live there.” He shrugged.

“What pictures? Edward, are you a stalker?” Mia was carefully sticking the notes on the webcam but stopped in the middle of it, raising an eyebrow.

“Hey, when you upload a picture on Instagram, it becomes public’s property,” he protested.

“Wait, how do you know my Instagram? Are you sure you’re not a stalker?” She folded her arms, giving the other the doubtful look. Edward rolled his eyes amusedly.

“What? Do I sound like a stalker to you?” he demanded.

“Judging from all what you have been doing, yes, yes you are.” Sticking the last note on the camera, Mia sat back with pleasure. However, on the other hand, Edward’s face fell as his screen was now a deep dark black. He wanted to see her face.

“I’m sad.”

“I know you are but it can’t be helped.” She remarked, obviously entertained.

“About the phone-“

“Well, where was I? Oh, right, I was holding my phone, the room was very quiet then you texted me then I was surprised and threw my phone away. The end.” In one breath, she exhaled and continued, “Wasn’t that story worth an award?”

“So what part of that am I responsible for?”

“The unexpected message, of course.”

“That doesn’t sound logical at all. I didn’t know you were in a quiet room.”

“Well,” she paused. It came to her that Edward was actually right. She shifted her sitting position to cross-legged on the chair. “I forgive you.”

Edward stifled a laugh. What a stubborn girl. “OK, so what about Angie?” he asked.
On the other side of the screen, Mia could swear that she had sensed a laugh but she decided to ignore it as the memory of today’s morning flowed back in her like a waterfall. “I told her.”

“Uh-hm,” he hummed.

“But well, I wanted to protect the secret so I sort of messed up the whole confession and made
things even worse than they already were.” She sighed, turning to the small photograph of her and Angie. It was put in Angie’s favorite frame. She remembered when she had opposed buying something that flowery, only to find it in her bag with the photograph of two best friends in the world. They were totally opposite like black and white but they managed to overcome the difference together. However, they had never once been through such a conflict like this one.

“You should give them some space. Don’t talk to them unless you have to.” He suggested, contemplated a bit more. “Yeah, you should do it like that.”

Mia fell in in silent. She considered his advice carefully. Up until now, his advice seemed to be the best. Yet, she didn’t want to follow it. She only had two friends, real friends, in London, and now she couldn’t talk to them for the next two weeks? She was definitely not crazy enough to spend nearly a month not communicating with any of them. She wished she could spill the beans.

“If you feel lonely you can talk to me,” Edward offered. It was supposed to be a joke to break the deadly silence, but Mia had believed it. His offer had somehow comforted her.

“Are you sure?” She hesitated.

He felt a flash of hope in her question. This made him curious about her social life. She didn’t have many followers on Twitter, and her tweets were scattered. She seemed to be a busy person. The pictures on her Instagram were mostly sceneries: trees, sky, flowers, people, etc. There were some pictures of a bookstore that he had never seen, a restaurant that was probably Nando’s. The most recent picture was an old grand piano in a corner.

“Yeah, absolutely. Just message me on Twitter,” he said, meaning every single word. “I will always reply.”

~*~*~*~*~

Notes

Hi everyone! Thank you for reading my story! If you want to, you can support me and my story by voting, commenting or, simply, reading.

P.S: You should start to ask yourself about:

1. Stephen (Who is he? - He has a big part in the story, better remember him -)

2. Vote (Have you voted? ~LOL, just kidding~)