Revenge by Phone

I had to go back for the car on Sunday afternoon. It was still parked in front of the house where the party had been. The drive out there felt longer than it should have. When I pulled up and saw the quiet building in daylight, my stomach tightened for a moment. What the hell was I thinking, leaving it here overnight? I sat in the driver’s seat for a minute, sober now, keys in my hand, before starting the engine and heading home without looking back at the house. Monday morning came with a dull headache and the memory of Anna still sitting in the back of my mind. I opened my laptop while drinking coffee, went through the folder with the pictures I had taken of her during our earlier meetings, and deleted them one by one. No dramatic gestures, just quiet clicks. I also decided there would be no photo shoot. If she called, I would be surprised, but I doubted she would. At work I went straight to the IT room and stayed there most of the day. I locked the door and worked with some random colleague so no one would come in and bother me with small talk. The fluorescent lights hummed steadily overhead. Every now and then, while typing or staring at lines of code, the sound came back — the loud, unrestrained scream Anna had let out when she came upstairs that night. It rang clearly in my ears for a few seconds each time, then faded again. I kept working. The day passed like any other.

When my phone rang in the afternoon, I answered it through the Bluetooth headset without even glancing at the screen. I was deep in some routine server maintenance and assumed it was work-related.

It was Anna.

“Hello?” she said.

My breath caught. I couldn’t speak right away. The line stayed silent for a long stretch. I fumbled with the earbud, trying to find the hang-up button, but my fingers didn’t cooperate. Twenty seconds passed in heavy, uncomfortable quiet.

“You? So?” was all I managed.

Another long silence stretched between us. I could hear her breathing on the other end.

“I still have your camera,” she said finally. “That guy borrowed it at the party and gave it back to me later. You left so suddenly ... I didn’t have a chance to give it to you. Can we meet somewhere so I can return it?”

I didn’t answer immediately. The memory of her on that bed flashed through my mind again — legs spread high, the men around her, her smile when she saw me in the doorway. I stayed quiet.

“Look, I know how it must have looked,” Anna continued, her voice unsteady. “I didn’t plan any of that. It really wasn’t supposed to happen like that. We were all drunk, the music was loud, people were having fun ... one thing led to another. I got carried away. I wasn’t trying to hurt you or make you feel like shit. It just turned out this way. You have to believe me.”

She paused, waiting for me to say something. I didn’t.

“I meant what I said about loving you,” she went on, the words coming faster now. “At least in that moment I did. After so many years of nothing in my marriage, everything felt so intense and free. I didn’t imagine it would go that far. It wasn’t the plan. It’s not like I’m some kind of person who does this all the time. It just ... happened. I’m sorry you saw it. I really am.”

The conversation dragged on like that. She kept explaining herself in circles — the alcohol, the atmosphere, how she never meant for me to walk in on it, how she wasn’t that kind of woman usually, how everything had built up after the divorce. Her tone shifted between apologetic, defensive, and almost pleading. I gave short, flat replies. The tension hung thick between every sentence.

“I just want to give you back the camera,” she said eventually. “Can we meet for five minutes? I feel terrible about how it ended.”

I rubbed my forehead. Part of me wanted to tell her exactly what I thought, but the words didn’t come. The call went nowhere. She explained, I stayed mostly silent, and nothing was resolved. Just long, heavy pauses and the same points repeated until the conversation slowly fizzled out, unresolved.

I sat there in the IT room, staring at the monitor while Anna kept talking. The camera. That stupid little digital camera. I had been turning the problem over in my head since the call started — how to get it back without seeing her. I didn’t want a meeting. I didn’t want explanations. I just wanted the thing back and to be done with all of it. When she paused again, I finally spoke.

“You can leave the camera at the magazine’s front desk,” I said. “I’ll pick it up later today or tomorrow. I don’t need to see you.”

The silence on her end felt heavier this time.

“No, please,” Anna replied, her voice cracking slightly. “I really want to give it to you in person. It wasn’t even my idea, you know. They tricked me. They kept bringing me drinks, telling me how free I should feel now that I’m divorced, how I deserved to enjoy myself. I got deceived. It all happened so fast and I ... I wasn’t thinking straight. Let me explain it to you properly. Face to face. Just five minutes.”

I didn’t answer right away. The tension stretched out between us, thick and uncomfortable. I could hear her breathing faster now, waiting.

“I don’t need an explanation,” I said eventually, my voice flat. “Just drop the camera at the front desk.”

“But I need to tell you what really happened,” she insisted, sounding more urgent. “It wasn’t me. They pushed me into it. I never wanted you to see any of that. Please, just meet me for a moment so I can explain—”

I cut her off quietly.

“No. The front desk is fine.”

Another long, painful silence followed. I could almost feel her frustration and embarrassment through the line. She started to say something else, but the words trailed off. I waited a few seconds, then ended the call without another word. The Bluetooth earbud went quiet. I took it out and set it on the desk. My hands were slightly unsteady. The conversation had gone nowhere, just as I expected. Tense, circular, and unresolved. She wanted to explain herself in person. I wanted nothing more to do with it. I went back to work, but the knot in my stomach stayed for the rest of the afternoon.

The rest of the workday passed slowly. I tried not to think about Anna, but every now and then a tight tension rose in my throat. How the hell had I let things get this far? She was 48 and I was only 29 — maybe that’s why she saw a child in me. Someone younger, safer, easier to handle at first. Enough of that. When the workday finally ended, I stepped out of the elevator carefully. If Anna was waiting at the front desk with the camera, I would slip out through the back entrance to the parking lot. I didn’t want to see her. She wasn’t there. The front desk was empty, and no camera had been left for me either. So she hadn’t brought it. Of course. I walked to my car without looking back. She would probably keep calling.

On the way home I decided to stop at the mall for some last-minute shopping. I picked up a few things I needed and thought I might as well catch a movie while I was there. I bought a cookie, found a seat, and settled in. The film turned out to be long and pretty bad. It was supposed to run two and a half hours, but after two hours I had enough and left the theater. By then it was already dark outside. A sudden spring storm had rolled in — strong wind, heavy rain, and thunder. Luckily the mall parking lot was covered, so I stayed dry while loading my bags into the car. The twenty-minute drive home stretched into an hour and a half. The roads were full of slow, nervous drivers, water was pouring down, and visibility was poor. I kept both hands on the wheel and just tried to get back safely. When I finally reached my apartment building, the rain was still coming down hard. I grabbed my umbrella from the back seat, opened it, and stepped out. As I walked toward the entrance, I saw her. Anna was standing in the doorway of the shared stairwell, completely soaked. She looked smaller somehow, her shoulders tense under her jacket. Our eyes met. For a moment neither of us moved. I stopped a few steps away, the rain drumming loudly on the umbrella. The tension I had been carrying all day tightened again in my chest. Water dripped from her hair, her clothes, and her shoes. She looked cold.

I walked over to her with the bag of groceries in one hand. The rain was beating down hard even under the umbrella and had already soaked through the bag. Her dark hair was wet and plastered to her head, with strands clinging to her face and neck. Water ran down her skin in steady streams. She wore a light beige blazer over a tight color-block top in turquoise and purple that now clung transparently to her breasts. Below that was a shiny red leather skirt that glistened with rainwater, water dripping from the hem down her legs. She held a red handbag in one hand, her large dangling earrings catching the light. Her makeup had held up but looked darker and more intense with the rain — heavy eyes and wet lips. The sky was dark with storm clouds, lightning flashed in the background, and heavy rain poured down around her, creating puddles at her feet. The whole scene felt cold and tense. I stopped in front of her. Without thinking about it I moved the umbrella over her head. Anna reached out and took the umbrella from my hand. She didn’t say anything at first. She opened her bag and took out my camera. It was completely wet. Water ran off it as she held it out to me.

“It’s ruined,” she said quietly. “It’s done for.”

I looked at the camera. “Yeah, it’s a goner. You might as well throw it away.”

Anna held the umbrella tightly with both hands. She looked me straight in the eyes. Her lips were trembling. It was hard to tell whether she was crying or if it was just the rain running down her face.

“Can I come in just for a minute until the rain stops?” she asked.

I sighed. Lightning flashed nearby. I opened the door to the stairwell and let her inside, then led her up to my apartment. When she stepped into the entryway a large puddle immediately started forming on the floor beneath her.

I didn’t know what the hell to do. Anna stood in the middle of the entryway, completely soaked. Water dripped steadily from her dark hair, her beige blazer, and her tight red leather skirt onto the tiled floor, forming a growing puddle around her feet. She held the red handbag in one hand and looked straight at me, her wet clothes clinging to her body. I took the soaked bag from her hand and carried it into the kitchen so it wouldn’t make even more of a mess. I closed the umbrella and left it by the door. Letting her come further inside right now would mean the whole place getting wet. I spent a few minutes moving around. I took off my shoes, put the groceries away, wiped my hands. Anna stayed near the entrance the whole time. When I finally turned back, I stood across from her at the other end of the entryway with my hands on my hips. Water kept pooling around her feet.

“Can I use your bathroom?” she asked. “I can’t sit down anywhere like this.”

I looked at her for a moment. She was shivering slightly in her wet clothes, hair plastered to her head. The situation felt heavy and awkward. I didn’t want her here, but I also couldn’t just leave her standing in the entryway like that.

I nodded toward the hallway.

“Down the hall on the left,” I said.

She moved carefully, trying not to drip too much, but it was impossible. The sound of her wet shoes on the floor and the continuing rain outside filled the quiet apartment. I stayed where I was, listening to the water dripping. The thought kept repeating in my head: what the hell is going to happen now?

Anna closed the bathroom door behind her. I went into the kitchen, pulled out a chair, and sat down with my face buried in my hands. The rain kept hammering against the windows. I could still hear water dripping from her clothes onto the floor in the entryway. A few minutes passed.