He had set the ridiculous photo as the background and then never changed it. He stared down at it for a moment, wavering on the edge of succumbing to memory-fueled introspection, but stopped himself before falling down that particular rabbit hole. Shrugging off the urge to mope and get lost in the picture, he went back to doing what he originally intended to, and it didn’t take him long to scroll through the few remaining contacts on his phone to find the name he was looking for: Liu.

He hesitated as he read the name and saw her image. Liu wasn’t like her older sister in any department. Even though they were both Asian immigrants, Liu had quickly adopted American habits, particularly in fashion. She quickly began curling her hair and changing how she dressed so that she would fit in. The picture of her in a relaxed t-shirt and yoga pants was the best one that he had been able to snag of Liu after he failed his chance to get a respectable picture of her posing at his wedding.

As he was mustering up his thoughts on what to say to her, he fat-thumbed the call button. The old electronic device was extra finicky, and the screen was sometimes a little too sensitive. He had just brushed the screen, but that had been enough.

He switched it to speaker as it was ringing and listened as each of the loud, alarm-bell-like rings went off in succession. By the third one, he started to think he had gotten lucky. He’d be able to leave her a voicemail and deal with the issue later, gaining the satisfaction and credit of having tried to reach out after so long but not actually having to do it. On the fifth ring, however, right before the call would normally be forwarded to the voicemail, he heard the click that let him know she had picked up.

“Lucas? Are you okay? Are you hurt?! Is this a medical professional going through his contact list?! Just let me know what hospital, and I’ll be right there!” Liu rapid-fired each word one after the other in a hurried frenzy.

So, the only reason my phone would call yours is if I were seriously injured? Lucas sighed inwardly, but he couldn’t blame her. He had ignored her for over seven months. A call out of the blue from him had to be shocking. “It’s me, Lucas, and I’m fine,” he said. His words produced a moment of stunned silence and then a sigh of relief from Liu. “How have you been?”

“O-oh . . . uh . . . umm . . .” She stuttered for a moment, clearly caught off guard by the mere fact that he was actually returning her call and making casual small talk. “I’ve been holding on. It’s been hard . . . not that I need to tell you.”