Chapter 12 - Same Time Next New Year's

I lean forward and bury my face into my folded arms on my counter.

“I’m so sorry, Jo,” Liz says, coming up behind me and rubbing my back. “This is really frustrating.”

I nod into my arms. “I don’t even know where to start.”

“Well first things first, we need to get you a new phone,” Liz offers.

“Already ordered one.”

“Oh, you can do that over the phone?” she asks.

“I guess so,” I say, lifting my head to rest my chin on my arms. “They said it should be here in about a week. Maybe less, but I’m not counting on it.”

“A week without a phone?” Liz gasps in genuine horror. “How are you going to survive?”

I roll my eyes. “I’ll be fine.” I bury my head back into my arms.

“But how will you keep talking to Mr. Wrong Number?” she jokes, continuing in her unnecessary dramatics.

Time seems to stop.

The air around me turns heavy. Dread seeps into me like ink in water, spreading until it stains every corner of my mind. My heart beats begin to pound violently in my ear. A cold knot forms in my stomach, tight and unyielding, as if it’s pressing down from the inside. My breathing grows slower, each inhale harder than the last, as if the air in my apartment thickened. The weight of this dread settles deep in my chest, spreading across my entire body, making everything feel heavier—like I am moving through water, struggling to break free.

I slowly lift my head as I’m punched in the face with this terrible realization. “Oh my God…”

I jump up, startling Liz who quickly moves out of my way. I run to the nightstand next to my bed and pull my laptop out of the drawer. I open it, impatiently waiting for the outdated thing to warm up and turn on completely.

When it finally does, I try to open the messages application but it prompts me to sign in. I’ve never used this on here before. I try to sign in but fail.

“No…” I whisper. I open the Contacts application next. It tells me that it is not synced and asks if I want to sync the information now. I press the ‘yes’ immediately and try to type in my information.

“What’s going on?” Liz asks, slowly walking towards my bed before sitting down about a foot away from me. “You’re freaking me out.”

“I’m trying to see if I can access the information from my phone on my laptop,” I tell her, still trying different passwords. “I never synced anything.”

“Why wouldn’t you sync your devices, Jo?” she asks me and I shoot her a glare.

“I never really had a reason to, Liz,” I snap back.

“So does that mean you lost all of your contacts?”

“That seems to be the case,” I mumble while still trying to log in somehow.

“Well that might be a blessing,” she offers. “There were definitely people in there that you don’t want to talk to again ever. But you can just add people again as they contact you.”

“No, Liz,” I cry in desperation. “They told me that the safest thing to do is to shut it all down, like change my number and everything.”

“What?” she says in surprise. “Why do you have to change your number?”

“I guess hackers are able to use your phone number to get access to things like bank information, private passwords, and stuff like that,” I say, my heart still pounding faster and louder than normal. “I don’t know, I just trusted that the phone professionals knew better.” I try to bite down on the hysteria.

“Okay.” She draws the word out, not fully understanding my panic. “It will take awhile, and it will probably be tedious, but we can figure it all out,” she says, trying to be helpful.

I shoot her a desperate look as I whisper, “I don’t have Leo’s phone number.”

“So look it up on your computer,” she says, like that’s an obvious solution.

“Liz! Are you listening to anything I’m saying?” I say loudly, in total panic. “I never synced anything. I don’t have anything on my laptop!”

“Check the cloud! Everything saves to the cloud,” she cries.

“What the hell is the cloud?” I yell back, both of us now close to hysterics.

“God, you are the most technologically challenged person I’ve ever met in my entire life.” She grabs my laptop from me. I’m too desperate to be annoyed, I just watch her as I bite on my nails trying to summon all the hope I possibly can.

She works quietly, opening applications and leaning into the screen to read before closing it and opening a new one. She does this several times and then switches to searching the internet for tips or help. She must spend about twenty minutes trying what has to be everything possible. But when she turns to me with defeat in her eyes, my heart drops.

“I’m so sorry, I don’t think I can recover anything.”

“I’m going to call my provider again. Maybe they can turn everything back on so that I can just get his number and then they can shut it down again?” I say, feeling a withering spark of hope in my chest. She nods, hopeful but also sad.

So once again I’m on the phone with my provider asking for any possibilities. The man I speak to is patient and apologetic, but has to tell me that he’s not able to help me.

I hang up and give Liz her phone. I feel myself deflating more and more as each dreadful minute passes.

“I didn’t think you were that into this guy,” Liz whispers hesitantly.

I nod, and take a few deep breaths to try and calm my racing heart. “Yeah. But then…” I clear my throat. “We talked most of the afternoon and then all evening, into the night.” I look at her, feeling tears well up in my eyes.

“Oh my God,” Liz says, obviously surprised by my flooding emotions. I’m not a big crier. So I can only imagine her disbelief in my unexpected turn of feelings.

“Liz,” I plead, feeling my heart start to crack. “I shared things, that—” I stammer. “That I haven’t told anyone before.”

She just watches me, sadly and helplessly. “I’m so sorry.”

“I know it’s insane,” I say, my eyes widen as I nod my head up and down in emphasis. “It’s insane and hard to believe—” I swallow. “But we had this connection.” At my words her eyes grow wider as her face falls sadder. I continue, “And now, oh my God, now I have no idea how to even try to contact him again. I don’t know his number…” More of my painful reality settles over me. “I don’t even know his last name!”

“Let’s search all the Leos in New York! That’s not a super common name, right?” she asks, her eyes turning hopeful.

I barely hear her as I keep processing my thoughts out loud. “He doesn’t even know my last name. I didn’t even tell him where I live…” I trail off.

She grabs my laptop again and opens it. When she types “Leo New York City” into the search bar, the results are useless and discouraging. “God, why are there so many Leos in this city? I’ve literally never met a Leo in my life,” Liz grumbles.

“He owns a restaurant. An Italian restaurant, and his parents own a deli!”

“Oh that could be helpful,” she says excitedly and starts searching again.

It turns out there are hundreds of family owned Italian restaurants and delis in New York City. We look up possible names that Leo could be a nickname for: Leonard, Leonardo. When Liz types in Leopold and Leonidas, I punch her in the arm. But despite our frantic searching, we’re met with nothing.

Next she tries searching on all of the social media platforms, but again, a first name—which is most likely a nickname—gets us nowhere. We have to be at it for almost an hour before she finally says, “I can’t even tell you how sorry I am, Jojo.”

I lean forward, resting my elbows on my knees and putting my face in my hands. “Why does the universe absolutely hate me?” I mumble into my hands.

“When you were talking, did you two make any plans to meet?” she asks hopefully.

I let out a long breath, staying quiet for a few moments before I start to laugh humorlessly into my hands. And the small laugh turns into a bigger one as I sit up straight before falling back onto my bed. I’m laughing to the point of tears falling down my face.

I see Liz looking down at me in my peripheral vision, her eyes wide as she looks close to terrified. “I’m not going to lie, you’re freaking me the hell out. What is happening?”

“We did make plans to meet,” I tell her, letting my arms fall to the bed. They do a small bounce before they become still.

“Okay,” she says tentatively. “So that’s a good thing, right? Are these tears of joy?” she asks optimistically.

“We made plans to meet next New Year’s Eve. In one year.”