Unexpected Voices

The phone rings. A familiar voice. The last voice you expected to hear. Not the first time you’ve received a call from someone you didn’t think you’d ever hear from.
You pick up the phone. And can’t believe your ears… after all you put him through. He says hello. Your jaw drops and not a sound emanates from you. He thinks there’s a problem with the line, hangs up and calls back. You’re delirious with relief: you haven’t driven him away.
It’s another voice this time. In another lifetime. A voice you love, your feelings so sacred to you that you never publicised them — they required no external validation. The only problem was that you never told the man the voice belongs to how you felt either. You know you’ll always be grateful that he hasn’t chosen to hold that lapse in judgment against you forever despite the pain it caused him.
A third voice: instantly recognisable but which you don’t know how to react to. Once enthusiastically greeted but now painful even to be reminded of. Hearing it takes you by surprise and for all the pain it’s caused you, you have no desire to reciprocate in kind. Once again, you’re speechless albeit for a different reason.