Chapter 18 #2
I patrolled the hospital floor to floor, from top to bottom, just in case Kai was hiding somewhere, ready to jump out and surprise me.
Next, I walked around the parking lot, looking for expensive looking cars, or any cars with dark tinted windows – no one jumped out from any cars to surprise me.
Then reluctantly, like a drunken ex-girlfriend on Valentine’s Day, I drove around different places looking for him.
I even went to all the restaurants and establishments that I knew he owned.
I could have picked up the phone and called him. But I wasn’t sure I could face what he was going to tell me. I was a grown up and this wasn’t my first rodeo with being dumped. Yet, I’ve never felt like I needed to know the reason why I got dumped or ghosted until now.
Kai came on to me so hot for the last few days that a small moment of cold felt odd and unacceptable.
I parked my car across the street from Kai’s building and waited, entering a stalker mode that I didn’t know I had in me.
This must have been how stalkers started obsessing over their subject.
Shaking off the thoughts – a loud laugh escaped me.
“What the fuck is wrong with me?” I asked myself.
A knock on my window startled me. I recognized the face next to mine, only inches away separated by a piece of glass.
“Hi Dr. Bennet, are you here to see Mr. Li?” The doorman asked politely. Their security camera must have seen me. Kai would want a building with good security. It still surprised me how fast someone came checking on me. I’d barely been stopped there for five minutes.
A career as a spy or private investigator was definitely out of the question for me. So was obsessive stalker girlfriend.
“Yes, I was supposed to check on Jenny,” I lied smoothly, “Mr. Li’s guest. I am a little early, so I thought I would wait in the car.”
I felt guilty for being caught red-handed. I wondered if he saw right through me.
“Oh, of course.” Then it occurred to me that I had completely forgotten that Kai had deliberately tried to hide Jenny’s whereabouts.
And I had accidentally mentioned her name.
He mumbled into his tiny mic on his collar before looking back at me.
“Ah I see, no one is at the property I’m afraid.
They haven’t returned since this morning. ”
No one? What did he mean?
I thought about asking him to call me when someone returned, but that would just raise some red flags. Besides, he probably wouldn’t anyway. “Thanks, Mr.…”
“Jeff. Just call me Jeff.”
“Thanks Jeff.”
Driving off was the only thing a sensible person should do. What made me drive here and camp out in front of Kai’s building in the first place was probably hurt. That was the only explanation that I could think of.
Or I could wait here until he gets back .
Shit! He had done it again.
Three years ago, I thought that we were going somewhere, and then he left without saying goodbye. The only difference was that we didn’t sleep together back then.
The hurt was worse this time. Tremendously worse. I thought sleeping with him would fix my obsession. I was wrong.
I drove away, to my place, looking around as though my apartment was unfamiliar to me. Home didn’t feel like home. His ghost remained there, even though he’d only spent a very short time here. The mug he used for coffee sat there next to the sink mocking me about his disappearance.
The quicker I accepted this change, the better. Life must go on.
I flattened out, face up, on my bed. My eyes fixed on a spot on my ceiling. My face felt heavy from the mixture of oil and make up on it, and my body felt a tad sticky for whatever reason, yet I had no will to drag myself to the shower.
The room wasn’t really quiet. It never was here in my apartment. However faint it was, I could hear the street, sirens, cars honking, and occasionally people shouting. Then my tummy decided to join in, like it had a mind of its own.
If I hadn’t had lunch today, I wouldn’t feel hungry at this point in the evening. This has been my experience with fasting. The more often I eat, the more I feel the urge to eat.
I dragged my unwilling limbs to the kitchen. I knew I wasn’t going to find anything in the fridge apart from some sparkling water. I hadn’t bought any food for a while since I started trying out intermittent fasting. I opened the door anyway.
Food.
I rubbed my eyes, just to make sure I wasn’t dreaming.
Pre-packaged food stacked neatly on the shelves.
Fruits and what looked like salad filled the vegetable drawer.
A tray of eggs. A loaf of bread. Who put all this food in my fridge?
There was more than one person with access to my apartment.
Mom, Dad, Lincoln, Chloe, Liam and my assistant. It could be any of them. But why?
I wanted to know who did it, but my need to know wasn’t as strong as my need to avoid social contact.
It was one of those people who cared about me, that much I knew.
For now, it was enough. There were still people in the world who loved me.
Even though Kai Li didn’t. Not that I ever asked him to.
But our one date together was so bad that he gave up after that.
I took out the first box I could grab and opened it. Lasagna. Perfect.
I stuck the whole box inside of my microwave. The plastic that came with it was safe to be microwaved, even though I could totally hear my mother nagging me for doing so. I couldn’t care less about eating microplastics or having negative energy in my blood. Any kind of energy will do.
Not caring how the lasagna looked, I tipped the whole thing upside down onto a plate and stabbed a fork in it. I could have eaten it straight out of the plastic tub. It would save me from washing one less thing.
Damn. That was what being civil did to me.
Whatever. I could just throw away the plate when I was done with it.
The lasagna tasted fine. It was definitely not my mother’s cooking.
Not that she was a bad cook, but her version of lasagna was comforting, greasy and ugly .
Even when it was upside down, I could tell that the person who made it definitely put a lot of care into it.
It was so good that it could rival some upper-class restaurants.
Wait. Who actually bought this?
Mom was the only person who would cook lasagna.
No one else in my family would choose to buy a lasagna like this.
Not even Chloe. Sure, they might buy something from a supermarket, but not in a good quality reusable Tupperware container like this with ‘cooked with love’ written all over it.
There was no way you could get something like this in New York City.
I rushed to the fridge and opened the tubs one by one. Pork chops. Steaks. Steamed vegetables. Egg fried rice. Chicken fried noodles. Vegetarian looking sausages. None of these things were from the same restaurant. Unless it was made to order. Still no clue of who brought the food.
Turning around, I headed right for the bin underneath the sink. There I found it. A large paper bag with the word Calling on it. One of Kai’s restaurants.
Kai did all this? It was probably his assistant. Still…why?
I refused to believe that it was just something he did for everybody. Nobody would do that. Mr. Doorman confirmed that he hadn’t returned.
I’d had enough of these mixed hot and cold messages.
I picked up my phone and dialed the only number I knew who could explain all this.
“Where is he?” I demanded without a hello from the other end.
“June?”
“Where. Is. He?” I repeated. My impatience was going to pierce through my phone.
“Kai?” My brother’s thick skull finally registered. “I haven’t heard from him.” Shit . My hand lost its grip, and my phone dropped on my floor.
“Hello.” I heard my brother shouting from the phone. “Are you okay?”
A chill traveled up my spine. Something had happened to Kai. Or Jenny. Or Lucy.
I didn’t want to imagine the worst. But this was the kind of shit that happened to him.
The mean, billionaire dude with a reputation like his.
I knew in my gut that they wouldn’t all disappear at once. It must have something to do with the missed calls that he got during lunch.
Picking the phone back up and putting it on speaker, I left it on the kitchen island. “He’s gone.”
It hurt when I heard myself saying that.
“Where is he?” Lincoln sounded shocked. It had to be the first time he’d heard this information.
“I asked you that question first.”
“Right, I don’t know. But it doesn’t make sense.”
“What doesn’t make sense?” I needed to know if he had any clue that could point me to Kai.
“He, um…” I could hear Lincoln’s hesitation.
“Now is not the time for bro code.”
“I wasn’t supposed to tell you this.”
“He’s gone missing for fuck’s sake, whatever it is, you can tell me.” I stopped caring about the way I talked to my big brother. And it apparently didn’t seem to bother him either.
“Right. He might be mad at me for telling you, but I’ll deal with it.” Lincoln said. And I wanted to kick him for wasting another second with that stupid intro.
“Get the fuck on with it.” Said the erratic woman that was me.
“He asked for my blessing to be with you.”
“What did he do that for?”
“Bro code. Of course.”
“Right. Continue.”
“He said he wanted to stay in New York, for good, to be with you. So, it doesn’t make sense for him to be gone.”
“Are you sure he wasn’t kidding?”
“No, I know him. He was dead serious about you.”
“Then how do you explain this? Another disappearing act!”
“What do you mean by another?”
I felt embarrassed about telling Link that it was the second time he ditched me. But I knew he would keep asking if I didn’t.
“Three years ago, he asked me on a date. Then he just up and left.”
“Oh that.”
“Oh what? I know that oh . You know something. You better tell me about it.” I said, though my big brother wasn’t normally one for revealing secrets.
“His father was dying then. Kai went back to say goodbye to his father.”
“He didn’t say.” He should have told me. Did he think I wouldn’t understand? “ You didn’t say.”
“It wasn’t my place to say anything.”
“His dad…”
“Still alive. Hung on and got stronger after they made peace with each other.”
“Link, I’m scared.” I took a deep breath in and breathed out the words. “I have a bad feeling.”
“Are you sure he wasn’t planning some kind of surprise?”
“I don’t think so. He’s gone. Everyone’s gone.”