First-Time Caller (Heartstrings, #1)

by B.K. Borison

I’ve discovered people don’t want to be told how to fix their lives or be held accountable. They just want to hear themselves talk and validate their own narcissism.

I don’t know. If my parents are the picture of joy, then I am the portrait of existential dread.

💯🫂

I used to love talking to people. Hearing their stories and sharing mine. It made me feel connected.

It feels like every time I get my hopes up for something good, reality comes out swinging. I don’t know how to be a hopeful person anymore. It’s easier not to be.

“You’re not a toaster. Or faulty wiring. And I’m not a guru or a psychic or a…professional…in any sense of the word. I’m just a person. A person who likes talking to other people. Who, occasionally, has mediocre advice to give. You’re safe with me, and with the people listening. I promise. If the conversation ever goes somewhere you don’t want it to, just say the word. We’ll call it a night and you can ban television in your household for the foreseeable future.”

I find dating, overall, to be a massive waste of time.

“I hate it. It’s like everyone is doing some dance that I never learned the steps to. I’m clueless, and I’m not using that as an excuse. I am genuinely clueless. I don’t understand all of the…stuff you have to sift through before you can be yourself.”

I felt like a cartoon version of myself. It felt like—it felt like gamifying my heart, and I didn’t like it at all.

“It made me feel small. Less connected. Like…like all of us in this big, bustling world are just bouncing off one another and I don’t have anyone who wants to grab on. I didn’t feel like myself and I didn’t feel like anyone else was being themselves either.”

I’ve been caught in a fog and I can’t tug myself out of it.

“So I stopped trying to date. I have so much love in my life, I’m not sure I need any more. I don’t want—I don’t want to settle for something just to say I have it. That’s what I’ve been telling myself anyway, and here we are.”

“You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do.” “No, that’s not what I mean. I don’t want to try. All I do is try. All day long, I’m trying and I’m so tired. Why can’t this be the one thing I don’t have to try at? Why can’t it be a thing that just…happens? I don’t want—I don’t want to think about what I should say or how I should act or…or have talking points in the notes app of my phone for a dinner date at a restaurant that I don’t really like. I want to feel something when I connect with someone. I want sparks. The good kind, you know? I want to laugh and mean it. I want goose bumps. I want to wonder what my date is thinking about and hope it might be me. I want…I want the magic.”

💯🫂

Love and romance seem like a fairy tale now, something we tell kids to help them sleep better at night. Something we tell ourselves too.

“When the whole world tells you you’re silly for wanting the things you want, you start to believe them. You start to think you’re not worth it. That if the things you’re waiting for do exist, they’re not for someone like you.” She sighs, a small, hopeless sound that twists through my headphones. “But what’s wrong with being a romantic? I can be a confident, independent woman and still want someone to hold my hand. To ask about my day. It’s a good thing to want passion and excitement and care. Attention and affection. I don’t want to settle for anything less than that.

That’s why I’m home all the time. Because I’m tired. I’m tired of trying so hard at something that comes so easily for everyone else.

Nothing in my life has ever panned out the way I planned for it. And that’s okay. But I don’t want a relationship to be something I cross off my checklist, or something I do because I feel like I have to.

I don’t want to be with someone if they’re not giving me something I don’t already have. I don’t want to waste my time on things that don’t feel like everything I’ve always wanted for myself.”

Yeah. I wanna be & feel secure and relaxed so bad, but nobody can give me that. Actually they tend to take away whatever bit of those I already have. So here I am.

“I want goose bumps. I want to be wanted. All this time and I—I haven’t given up. I guess I’m just waiting for it to find me.”

I think sometimes I get so caught up in the roles assigned to me—mother, employee, daughter—that it’s easier to shrink down the things that hurt and set them to the side. I never want anyone to worry.

You said you’re waiting for the right thing, but maybe that thing doesn’t exist. Maybe you’re the problem.

I’m ready to categorize the whole thing as an emotional blip and move on.

I want this ability. Like for daily use.

“You don’t have to be alone to be lonely.”

I’ve got all sorts of love in my life, but I’m still yearning for something more. I’ve done a really good job of convincing myself I haven’t been,

I wish there was a guidebook for this. An instruction manual that could tell me how to take myself apart and put everything back together so I’m good as new. I wish I knew how to make sense of my pieces.

the real reason I don’t date, the anxiety that there might not be someone out there for me to fit into the life I’ve made for myself, that maybe I want too much, that I’m being too whimsical and naive, that it’s too late for me—I

💯🫂

I need to start working so my mind can disappear. When my hands are busy, everything else seems more manageable. Fixable. My brain takes the back seat and I follow the steps to put everything in exactly the right place.

Didn’t know you had so many feelings.”

Icebreakers are my personal form of hell.

this is something that would only happen to you, She of Rotten Luck.”

I finish my coffee mug of wine and extend it across the table for more. Liquid courage, maybe. Or self-medication. I haven’t decided yet.

It's both, actually.

I’m tired of wasting time on things that don’t feel like everything I’ve ever wanted for myself, but I’m not sure that’s true. I don’t know what I want for myself. It’s all twisted up in the things I think I deserve, then squashed under the things I’m brave enough to reach for. I don’t think I’ve ever thought about any of it long enough to know what I want.

Oh, I have. I know exactly what I want, but they are squashed under everything.

Caller: I’ve been with my husband for sixty-five years. Every day isn’t a fairy tale. We’ve worked hard for our relationship. To build it. To maintain it. I’ve become so many versions of myself and so has he, but we’ve found a way to fall in love with one another over and over again. Every time. [pause] Caller: But there’s magic too. In between the hard work, there are perfect moments where everything lines up exactly right. What else is that, if not the universe telling me I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be? I’m right next to him, holding his hand. [laughter]

Insulating my feelings from my mom so I don’t burden her is like breathing at this point.

Maybe in another life I was a person who was capable of having a reasonable in-person conversation with a stranger.

Sometimes a little discomfort is a good thing. A necessary thing. A thing that leads to better things. Or so I’ve been told by every self-help podcast I’ve listened to

“I want you to be exactly who you are.” I want to ask her, And who do you think that is? And then, Do you mind letting me know? Because I’ve got no clue. I’m so used to everyone else defining me, I need the help.

I’m allowed to want soft, special things.

“What if this is what you’ve been waiting for? What if it’s all a string of choices and moments and events and decisions that have led you to exactly right here? And what if what happens next—what if what happens next is the good part? The part you’ve been waiting for.”

I did something for someone just by—just by being myself. Sharing my fears. Being vulnerable.

I want to believe in it, you know? That there’s something—someone—out there waiting for me. But it can be hard. Sometimes I lose hope.

Just because our love didn’t work as a romance doesn’t mean that love disappeared. For a long time, it was just the two of us against the world. He’s used to knowing everything about me. Every thought. Every fear.

“You’ve been carrying a big hurt around in your heart and I didn’t notice.”

I keep sharing things with him I don’t mean to. I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or not.

and maybe that’s the answer, really. That there is no answer. I don’t know if any of us have any idea what we’re doing. But we’re trying, yeah? We can all be trying together.

I need a door that locks and a soundproof window between me and the rest of the world.

Boy, me too.

I want her to sit and relax and maybe talk to me some more about the things she wants for herself, but I’m not sure that’s possible with the way she keeps shifting on her feet.

I’m not even sure I believe in. Something that’s never been good to me.

I asked you questions and you gave me answers. You didn’t hesitate. You didn’t waffle. You busted my balls and you charmed half the country while you did it.

you know exactly who you are, and you know exactly what you want. You’ve just buried it under everything else for so long you’ve forgotten.”

“What sort of traits do you find attractive in a partner?”