Chapter 27 - Dominic #2
It wasn’t the only picture he’d posted. There were at least fifteen new photos, all posted within the last three days.
None of them were clear, and there was no text to explain them.
They were all just different lighting moods in various combinations.
The only thing they had in common was the vibrant colors.
I checked the chats, hoping maybe he’d sent me a message on Instagram, but there was just one from a certain ya.da.beck, someone I didn’t even follow.
Probably spam, I thought, but tapped on it anyway.
“Hi Dominic, it’s Yael. I wanted to ask if you’ve heard from my brother. Please call me back. We’re worried. - Yael”
And underneath, her phone number.
“Oh no,” I said. “This can’t be good.”
“What?” Nico asked, still busy taking a photo of his feet.
“Kilian’s sister is messaging me on Instagram because she can’t find him.”
“Really?” Nico furrowed his brow. “Since when?”
I stood up and dialed her number, walking into the kitchen to get something to drink.
“Hello?” I immediately recognized Yael’s voice on the other end.
“Hi, it’s Dominic.”
“Oh thank God you’re calling!” she exclaimed.
“What’s going on?”
“I was hoping he was with you,” she said. “But then I heard from Theo that you were at rehearsal today and … Kilian is missing.”
“Missing?” I asked, dumbfounded. “I just saw his pictures on Instagram.”
“Yeah … uh … no, that’s not …” Yael cleared her throat, and for a moment, it was quiet on the line. “He was at my place on Saturday morning, and he was already completely off.”
“What? I don’t understand …”
I had an inkling, but I didn’t have enough information.
“He probably didn’t tell you.” She sighed. “Anyway … what I wanted to ask … When did you see him last?”
Memories rushed to the surface, and I tried to hold myself together. “Friday night,” I murmured, my voice thick. “Just after midnight.”
“Did anything happen? I mean … was he acting different?”
I was speechless, not knowing how to answer. He had acted differently than usual—but there never really was a constant with Kilian.
“What’s going on?” I asked, sitting at the kitchen table.
I certainly wasn’t going to tell Yael about the chemsex party.
“I feel like this time he’s really losing it.
There wasn’t even a reason for it,” Yael said, sounding like she was on the verge of tears.
“He told me he’d stopped taking the pills—some time ago.
And it seemed to be going fine, but something must’ve happened, because that wasn’t him who confronted me on Saturday morning. ”
I felt deeply sorry for Yael, and if I could, I would’ve comforted her. But I also knew that I wasn’t entirely blameless.
“We were at a party,” I said finally. “He was already pretty worked up when he got there. And then he … well … he did a line of coke.”
Yael gasped. “Why is he doing this? Damn it! I knew something was wrong.”
I shook my head in disbelief, cursing myself for dragging Kilian into my mess. If only I’d been a little more attentive, I could have prevented this from happening.
“What kind of pills?” I asked after a long silence.
Yael sniffled and cleared her throat. “He has an unspecified bipolar disorder.”
“What does that mean?”
“Well, he … doesn’t fit the classic type.
Kilian has his phases, with the manic ones happening more often than the depressive ones, which subside after two days.
The manic episodes usually last about four days, but if you say he was already like that on Friday …
Today is Tuesday! And as far as I know, he was completely off the rails the weekend before. ”
The weekend before had been the wedding party, after which I woke up alone in his apartment. When I confronted him about his whereabouts, he refused to give me a clear answer.
“We’ll find him,” I said, partly to reassure her but also to encourage myself.
“When my parents found out he’d stopped taking his meds, they wanted to call the police, but I managed to stall them for another two days.”
“The police? Isn’t that a bit much?”
“You have no idea.”
“Looks like it,” I muttered. “What can I do?”
“Call him. Try to reach him somehow.”
“Okay. I’ll try, though I can’t promise he’ll want to talk to me. I really messed up.”
“He likes you. That’s the only thing I know.”
“Okay, I’ll get back to you if I hear from him.”
“Thanks.”
I hung up and stared at my phone for a while. I needed to process everything she’d said, because even though I had already started to figure out the truth about Kilian, knowing what was really going on was a whole different matter.
Had I ignored the signs?
Would I have acted differently if I’d known earlier?
I clicked on my contact list and dialed Kilian’s number. It rang a few times, then went to voicemail. I hung up and tried again. Before the voicemail kicked in, I hung up again.
“So, what did she say?” Nico asked as I retreated to the balcony.
“They argued, and Kilian apparently has bipolar disorder or something like that. I’m not sure how she exactly described it. But his parents were already considering calling the police.”
“The police? Isn’t that a bit much?”
“I asked the same thing, but apparently …” I shrugged.
“And now?”
“I tried to reach him,” I said, holding up my phone. “But he’s not answering.”
Just then, the phone in my hand vibrated, and Kilian’s name appeared on the screen.