That one moment

I’m seated directly under the whirling fan, but I might as well have been out in the sun or waiting under some lamppost. I tilt my head from side to side loosening the knots in my neck. Had I stayed up all night, I would have been no more exhausted. At any rate by morning my bed sheets had been such a tangled mess that I had to literally extricate myself from its clasp.
I stare at my cellphone, my brain constantly searching for any signs of a message or a call, for any sign from him, like a phone seeking a signal when moving through a mountain pass. My stomach clenches uneasily and I find that I am hugging myself so tightly that my nails are pinching into my skin. Years of hard work and running around, sleepless nights, and it all boiled down to this one moment, the one crucial moment when dreams could either beget wings or fall like a stack of tumbling dominos.

A loud ring shatters the silence and I grab the phone with trembling hands. The unlock pattern goes wrong and for one brief horrifying second I can’t recall the password. And then I remember.

“Hello mom. Mom? Can you hear me? I got in, mom. I’ve been selected.”

In response to The Sunday Photo Fiction challenge of 7th May 2017.
Thanks to the photo prompt by A Mixed Bag 2012.