My Masturbation Recording Was Listened To 146 Times By The Ice Hockey Hunk Chapter 13
I took Zach’s phone home.
After sitting down on the edge of the bed, I stared at the screen for a long time.
Finally, I still entered the password.
The moment the screen lit up, my heart trembled slightly.
Zach’s phone was actually very clean—so clean it was almost boring.
There were only a few people in his Messages chat list. I was pinned at the top, with the note “Her Majestic.”
I almost wanted to laugh, but I couldn’t.
When I opened it, our chat history went all the way back to the first time I switched to a smartphone.
Zach’s first message was: “Tell me when you get home.”
I replied: “Okay,okay, you’re so annoying.”
After that came years of me sharing, complaining, and rambling to him every day.
I scrolled down, passing through year after year of messages.
All these years, he had kept every single one.
I even found many things I myself had long forgotten.
For example, one night I sent him a long string of voice messages that were pure nonsense.
“Zach Zach Zach—”
“I’m telling you, I saw a cat today, so so cute, black and white, sunbathing at the library entrance. I took a photo, do you want to see?”
“Oh, you’re definitely asleep at this hour.”
“I’ll send it first. Remember to reply when you see it tomorrow.”
“Good night good night good night.”
Something that simple, and I had split it into five separate voice messages to tell him.
How did I used to have so much nonsense to say?
I don’t know how he put up with it. The next day he even replied: “Just average, I guess.”
And so many more.
My vision suddenly blurred a little.
I exited messages and opened the audio files.
They weren’t the shameful things I had imagined.
They were backups of a pile of call recordings, spanning a very long time.
From my middle-school years all the way to university.
The first one was from when I was fifteen. I couldn’t sleep in the middle of the night and called him.
“Zach, are you asleep?”
Rustling sounds came from the recording. Zach seemed to turn over.
“I was asleep. Now I’m sleepwalking to answer your call.”
Teenage Zach’s voice still carried a slight hoarseness left over from his voice change.
I just kept talking: “My mom yelled at me today. I’m really annoyed right now.”
My voice back then was even softer than it is now—sounding both aggrieved and self-righteous.
“Serena, it’s eleven-thirty. Are you not satisfied with your mom yelling at you and want me to yell at you too?”
Zach’s voice sounded a little tired.
Fifteen-year-old me hummed, “Go ahead and yell. It’s not like you haven’t yelled at me before.”
Then I suddenly asked in a small voice: “Zach…will you ever stop talking to me in the future?”
The other end stayed quiet for a long time—so long that I started to wonder if the recording had broken.
Zach’s low voice finally came through: “No.”
“Unless you annoy me to death.”
I suddenly laughed for no reason, but my eyes felt a little hot.
All these years, even the casual things I said had been carefully kept by him.
From very, very early on, he had completely placed me inside his life.
A warm drop of water suddenly fell onto the screen.
I wiped it away roughly.
I kept scrolling down.
Finally I saw that file.
“study notes”
The play count stopped at: 147 times.
I froze.
That meant from the day I discovered the recording until now, the play count had only increased by one.
And that one time was me.
Zach had never opened that audio again.
Even though before that he had listened to it so many times.
From the moment I found out, he had stopped.
More and more water droplets fell onto the screen.
I plugged in the earphones and hit play.
That soft, thin voice rose again.
My face burned as I forced myself to listen through the more than four minutes of it, enduring the shame.
Then, in the second half of that chaotic, blurry sound, I heard myself very, very softly—almost like sleep-talking—call out:
“Zach……”
My whole body went rigid. My mind went blank for several seconds.
Thinking I had misheard, I dragged it back and listened several more times.
I really had called his name.
But I had no memory of it at all.
In that moment when my consciousness was hazy and completely unguarded.
The person I was thinking of…was Zach?
So I had already crossed the line a long time ago.
I just never realized it myself.
The next second, I suddenly remembered that night.
I remembered the dozen or so messages Zach had unsent.
My nose stung sharply.
When he heard this, what kind of chaotic storm had he gone through?
Chaotic enough that he sent me so many messages in a row, only to unsend them one by one because he was worried I would feel embarrassed when I woke up.
I suddenly understood, belatedly.
What Zach felt for me had never been only desire.