When Jade heard the phone ring that day, she just knew. Knew what the other person on the line would say, and she didn't want to hear it.
So she didn't answer.
Instead she ignored it as it rung exactly twenty-six times and turned the TV up.
It was when she flipped to another channel, to find something better to watch than the soap opera that she had no interest in, that she heard.
The reporter started that Jordan Taylor Hanson , of the group Hanson, had died from acute leukemia that morning at exactly 8:22 AM.
Ten minutes before the phone rang, Jade remembered.
****
Jade had never thought about that particular detail until then. She sat up suddenly in Isaac's bed and felt his eyes on her.
"Someone called me,"she said softly, looking him into the eye."They called me less than ten minutes after Taylor died."Her eyes silently asked him who.
He sighed."I wanted you to know,"he said simply.
****
To tell the truth, the first thing that Isaac had thought when the line of Taylor's heart monitor went flat was,"I have to tell Jade."
Those ten minutes were torture for him. All he wanted to do was make sure Jade knew, but instead he held one of his sisters as they cried. After staying for what he perceived as an acceptable amount of time, he bolted from the room towards the pay phones, wishing that he had his cell phone with him.
Then he let it ring a full twenty-six times, knowing full well that she was sitting next to the phone.
****
Jade spontaneously reached out and hugged Isaac tightly. It was the first time that she realized just how much Isaac and his family really meant to her. She realized that he cared so much for her that he had put aside his own grief just to make sure she knew first, before any of the news crews.
He was as surprised by her sudden show of affection as she was. His family was kind of a huggy, touchy-feely kind of a family, but since Jade had been Taylor's girlfriend, he couldn't remember a single occasion where they had hugged before.
He guessed there was a first time for everything.