Thinking that it was a work colleague calling me after 6 pm on a Friday evening, I picked up the 415 number.

“Hello?” I said.

“This is Scott,” the voice said. At least I thought he said Scott.

“Um okay…” I said, at that moment thinking which Scott it was. Maybe it was a former colleague from a startup asking for help.

“Hi Jennifer?”

“Um, Scott who?” I said.

“Garrett, [my friend’s name]’s ex.”

“Oh,” I said and completely regretted picking up.

“Today the divorce was finalized,” the voice continued. “17 years wasted.”

For the next 40 minutes, I regretted picking up. There are some days that I wish that I didn’t have this desire to help. I wish that I was more cold. I also wished that I didn’t enjoy confrontation. All those mixture of feelings led to this ridiculous amount of time plus the fact that I feared for my friend’s safety.

“I am so sorry,” my friend said later after I told her what had transpired.. “Block the number.”

“Yeah,” I replied. “I should stop picking up unknown numbers.”