Seventeen Miss Calls

A woman gazes intently at her phone, noting a missed calls received.

Short Story Summary

This short story explores the raw emotions of love, heartbreak, ego, and unspoken regrets in a complicated relationship. Through the lens of missed calls, waiting, and unrequited love, it delves into themes of emotional neglect, toxic attachment, and the fragile line between anger and affection. A deeply moving tale for readers who enjoy relationship short stories, love fiction, and powerful emotional narratives.

---

I seethed inwardly as I stared at the screen of my cell phone. Aseem had dialed my number exactly seventeen times in the last twelve hours.

“Good lesson for the besotted idiot!” I exhaled in anger as my ego prided itself and marveled at itself, having finally mastered over the desire to wait and keep waiting for the calls and messages that took forever to come.

Sometimes, hours, often days, less often weeks. I waited and waited, and waited some more, convincing myself that Aseem must be caught up in something truly important and urgent and hence, could not call or text back.

The wait took its toll on me and I was gradually turning into an embittered, insecure, hypersensitive version of my old self. Friends began noticing the difference in me.

“You look tired Sandhya!” my office colleagues reprimanded.

“You have disappeared from the scene, sometimes I wonder if you will call me at all, if I do not reach out to you?” my best friend started every conversation with this sarcastic opening statement.

I was an emotional recluse and soon cocooned myself into a social one too. I chose to wait in silence, loneliness and solitude, staring at my mobile phone, waiting endlessly for the messages and calls that never came. Or came so infrequently and inconsistently, that every

communication seemed like a lottery.

I cut off from family, mechanically working my way through the long, boring days of wait and, dreary nights stretched into nothingness, wearing thin on patience and energy but thriving on stupid, endless hope. Hope that if I kept quiet and patient, Aseem would

somehow be convinced about my love for him and love me more.

Stupid hope that compelled me to think that if and only if, I just changed myself, Aseem would love me.

It hurt! It hurt, more than Aseem’s absence perhaps. Aseem rarely called and that wasn’t a surprise. If there was one thing I could vouch for, Aseem was predictably unpredictable and consistently inconsistent. His inconsistencies kept my vying and begging for more and every time he responded I felt nourished and cherished.

Stupid me! Over time, I realized, I was absent too, from my own existence. My life now, dissolved, disintegrated, detached from everyone and everything except Aseem. I obsessed over him, while he seemed uncaring, detached, practical (as he put it) and even confrontationally cold and distant at times.

Oh, the travails of unrequited love!

That is when I decided, to confront my own demons. One by one, step by step, too many, too much all at once. The greatest hurdle I had to conquer was self-discipline. Discipline against the emotional, errant self that kept reaching out to the mobile phone, seeking validation from potential calls and messages from Aseem.

It was hard but eventually I did succeed, a Herculean task that seemed too challenging but gradually yielded to the self-talk that I gradually goaded myself into. Nourishing my contorted mind with angry, deprecating thoughts about Aseem made it easier to attain this self-control.

I was proud of myself and basked in glow of my own shallow light.

Till yesterday! I received his first call at exactly 8:00 am. It was unusual, because Aseem would be normally asleep at that time. My heart torn between the desire to protect self and protect ego, would not relent to take his call.

The calls continued through the day, there were a few hundred whatsapp messages and a few dozen voice notes as well as voicemails, urging me to have one last conversation with him.

“Last!” I scoffed at the word. “I am going to have the last laugh Aseem, I am

going to have my sweet revenge for the years of neglect and abuse. You will enjoy it till the last moment! Just watch till the end to see how long I will make this last” I seethed in anger and bitterness at each memory of his hot and cold behavior.

The calls continued through the day, every missed call boosting my ego to a new high. “Teaching the bastard his due lesson!” I thought each time, I intentionally did not pick up his call.

By the tenth call, my brain was on a high, adrenaline at the very peak, enthralled in the ecstasy of making him wait, enjoying the cold revenge I was finally getting to take, quenching my anger and hate for the one human I had totally loved.

The seventeen missed calls signified my victory, finally, completely. With each missed call, I was moving away and farther into the recesses of my bruised ego, gallantly riding

into a realm of construed happiness and self-love.

Perhaps hating someone you once loved, is a form of rescuing self-love!

With that thought uppermost in my mind, I took my mobile phone to call my best friend to inform her about my victory over Aseem.

Coincidentally the phone rang at the same instant. It was a common friend, who knew both Aseem and me. Exasperated, I answered the call, the foremost thought being to inform her that I was finally done with Aseem and if she had anything to discuss about him, I was not in for the conversation.

“Sandhya..” her voice was barely a whisper. The tone took me aback and I was instantly scared! “Yes Priya” I whispered back. “Sandhya, I don’t know how and what to tell you. Aseem had been trying to call since the past few hours.

He desperately wanted to talk to you. He asked me to inform you as you wouldn’t accept his calls. He was supposed to undergo an emergency surgery this evening. He wanted to tell you that he loves you, he wanted to have a future with you and that he was sorry for his behavior. He wanted to be with you this day, today before he had the surgery. It was a critical surgery with very high risks and stakes of survival. He wanted to meet you, Sandhya, it was his but one last wish…“her voice broke as she began crying.

Her words shook me like nothing before, my throat dry, my cheeks wet with the flow of tears, suddenly released from the chains of anger and mistrust built over the relationship. The seventeen missed calls suddenly loomed large, seventeen missed opportunities to be with the man I had truly loved, as he bade farewell to me, his lost love.

-Pallavi Karnik

---

short love story | emotional short story | relationship fiction | heartbreak short stories | modern love short fiction | sad love stories online | short stories about love and loss | contemporary relationship fiction | best short stories about heartbreak | Flash fiction | Luvv It Stories

---