I was on the bus, practically in tears after a breakup. My heart felt like it had been put through a paper shredder, and my head was spinning with all the things I should have said but didn’t. I had just lost my old phone in the chaos of moving out of my ex-boyfriend’s flat, so I was using a cheap burner I’d picked up an hour ago.
New phone, so I dial my mom from memory, needing to hear her voice tell me that I wasn’t a total failure at thirty. Suddenly, the phone of the guy sitting right in front of me started ringing. It was a loud, jarring ringtone—some upbeat pop song that felt totally out of place with my miserable mood.
He picks up with a quick, practiced motion. I hear his “Hello” on the bus, and I’m confused because I’m hearing the same voice coming through my own earpiece. My thumb was still hovering over the end-call button when he turns around and looks at me with wide, shocked eyes.
He wasn’t an older man or a stranger who had somehow stolen my mom’s number. He was a guy about my age, wearing a worn-out denim jacket and holding a phone that looked just as cheap as mine. We both stared at each other as the bus jolted over a pothole in the middle of North London.
I was still sobbing, mascara running down my face, clutching my burner phone like a lifeline. He slowly lowered his phone from his ear, his mouth slightly open in disbelief. “Are you… looking for a woman named Martha?” he asked, his voice cracking slightly.
I just nodded, too stunned to speak, as the realization began to sink in that I had dialed a wrong number by one single digit. But the fact that the recipient was sitting right in front of me felt like a glitch in the universe. He looked at his screen and then back at me, a strange, sad smile touching his lips.
What happened next changed everything… FULL STORY on the next page.
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