[Fiction] Unread

Read the winning entry for our week of March 23, 2025 prompt, On Tenterhooks

Unread
by Amy Eustace

Tonight, the phone is on the dresser, far from its usual spot under the pillow where its radioactive waves can be funnelled directly into my brain. To tune out the phantom buzzing, I listen to the sounds of the street. Dogs bark, tyres roll through puddles, but then headlights graze the curtains and my eyes burst open, hunting for the blue light of the phone.

I crane my neck. The screen is dark.

Already I have clambered out of bed to check it three times. There’s only been one actual notification: a two-factor authentication e-mail for the address I maintain for online shopping newsletters, airport Wi-Fi logins. Strange to think that someone, somewhere, is attempting to hack you, but any prickle of concern is deadened when I flick to WhatsApp. Two ghostly ticks hover beside my last message. Short of hurling it across the room, I turn the phone off and crawl back under the covers.

My friends don’t send risky texts. They don’t obsess over the men that might be slinking into their DMs while they sleep, don’t curate their lives to draw them there. For the most part they are loved-up, settled into the arms of hangdog accountants or IT technicians who courted them predictably, reliably, who’ll do whatever they ask.

My romantic life is Schrödinger’s cat; it exists as long as I don’t open my inbox.

Sal, my best friend, says I need to relax. She believes you attract a lover by being your most authentic self, not caring what anyone thinks. Hugh, her husband, first saw her ¾ unguarded, laughing ¾ across a crowded bar. He whisked her away to Paris the following weekend, proposed within the year.

I tell her she has survivorship bias. She grasps my hand, looks into my eyes and says, with vivid sincerity, ’Someone is out there for you.’

I visited her today, gooed at her newborn, played cars with the elder toddler so that Sal could shower. Her hair was greasy and knotted, her sweatshirt covered in what looked like dried-in vomit but could just as easily have been carrot puree. Hugh came home for his lunch while she was bathing, complained that she had nothing ready. Bouncing the child on my hip, I cobbled something together. Cold roast chicken, wet strands of rocket unearthed from the back of the fridge. He looked down my blouse when I pushed the sandwich across the counter.

That evening, I plugged my best lamp into an extension cord and carried it into the bathroom, leaving the overhead light off. I taped my phone to the mirror, touched up my make-up, stripped down to a black lace bra and thong and arched my back. It wasn’t enough.

I lifted a hand to my collarbone, dragged it down to my left nipple, unsheathed it from the lace. I didn’t flinch when the shutter sounded, didn’t feel a thing when the image swished into the ether.

There she is, I thought. My most authentic self.

A Note From Our Guest Judge, Eimear Ryan

I admired the narrative confidence of this piece. From its opening lines it launches us into a relatable dilemma, as the narrator struggles with dependence on her lifeline, her phone. It incorporates so much about modern life, and about the unique pressures placed on women, whether single, partnered or parenting. I loved the knowing irony of the last line.

About Amy Eustace

Amy has practiced as a lawyer in Dublin in London, and before that her sports writing was published in The Guardian. She can be found on Substack at @readingetc.

This piece was written in response to the prompt On Tenterhooks.