I’m not big on writing these things down but a friend told me I should, so here goes.

Back in high school, junior year I think, my friend group had this thing we did at sleepovers instead of actually sleeping.

Somebody’s older cousin always seemed to have a new scary cell phone trick to try, and we’d sit there half the night daring each other to go first.

The one that stuck with me started with Jenna, who honestly wasn’t even that into scary stuff normally.

She just liked stirring things up. Said her cousin in Ohio tried calling a random number, changing one digit from her own, putting it on speaker.

If someone answered, you had to keep talking until they hung up first. That was the whole rule.

I want to say I thought it was stupid. I did think it was stupid.

But it was midnight and we were four girls with nothing better to do, which is basically how every one of these scary stories for friends starts if you think about it.

Boredom does more damage than curiosity most nights, I’ve come to believe.

Amy counted the seconds out loud while it rang. I don’t remember exactly how long, maybe under a minute.

Then the ringing just stopped. No voicemail. No “the number you have dialed.”

Just quiet, except it wasn’t really quiet quiet, more like someone had picked up and was deciding whether to say anything.

Jenna said hello. Nothing for a second. Then breathing, close to whatever mic was on the other end.

I want to skip ahead because honestly the middle part is fuzzy to me now, years later.

What I remember clearly is the voice, when it finally came, saying “you called me” in this tone that wasn’t scary exactly.

More just flat, like it had said that sentence a hundred times before to a hundred different girls at a hundred different sleepovers.

Jenna tried to apologize, wrong number, the usual thing you say. The voice told her not to hang up first. Said that was the rule.

None of us had told it the rule. That’s the part that still gets me sometimes, randomly, like when I’m doing dishes and my brain just decides to bring it back up.

I asked, I think it was me, who told you that. And it said we did. Just now. In our heads.

I’m going to be honest, I don’t remember exactly what happened right after that.

I know Amy grabbed my arm. I know nobody hung up even though every single one of us wanted to.

I have a vague memory of Jenna’s phone showing the call had ended on its own after a little over a minute, but I couldn’t tell you if that’s real or something I added later because it sounded right.

What I do remember, clearly, annoyingly clearly, is that two days after this, Jenna’s house phone started getting missed calls.

From her old number. The one she’d had before her family moved from Michigan the year before.

Nobody in our group even knew that number existed until she told us, freaked out, over text.

I never asked her mom about it. I don’t think Jenna did either. Some things you just decide not to poke at.

We didn’t play that game again after that night, obviously.

Amy tried to bring it back up once, months later, half joking, and Jenna just looked at her in a way that ended the conversation before it started.

I saw Jenna a few years ago, we’re not super close anymore but we grabbed coffee when I was back visiting my parents.

I almost didn’t bring it up. Felt like ancient history, the kind of thing that gets embarrassing to mention as an adult.

But I did, mostly out of curiosity, and she got quiet for a second before saying she still doesn’t have a landline anywhere she lives. Cell only, every apartment since then.

I asked if that was because of the thing. She said not really, just easier, cheaper, whatever reason people give when they don’t want to say the real one.

I believe her, mostly.

Anyway. That’s the story. No big ending, no twist, nothing happened to me directly, I just sat in a room while it happened to my friend.

Sometimes I think about trying it again myself, just to see. I never will though.

Some curiosity you’re allowed to just let go unsatisfied, and I think that’s fine, honestly. Not every question needs an answer.