Chapter 28
The morning was a blur of coffee and nerves and the kind of focused panic that only came from knowing that months of work were about to be judged in a single hour.
I had checked my phone before I left the apartment, nothing, and I had checked it again on the subway, still nothing.
By the time I reached the office, I had convinced myself that he was fine, that he was just busy, that he would reply when he could.
I didn't have time to dwell on it. The Arclight final review was at ten, and I had been preparing for this moment for weeks.
The review was in the main conference room, the one with the floor-to-ceiling windows and the long table that could seat twenty people.
The Arclight clients were already there when I walked in, three of them in expensive suits, looking bored and impatient.
Sienna was at the head of the table, her laptop open, her expression unreadable.
I took a deep breath, set up my materials, and began.
The presentation lasted an hour. I walked them through every phase, every revision, every decision we had made along the way.
I answered questions I hadn't anticipated and clarified points I thought had been clear the first time.
I smiled when I wanted to cry and spoke when I wanted to scream, and somewhere in the middle of it all I forgot about my phone and the silence and the weight in my chest.
By the time I finished, my hands were shaking and my throat was dry and I had no idea if I had done well or completely bombed.
The lead client, a woman with grey hair and sharp eyes who reminded me of Sienna actually, looked at me for a long moment. Then she nodded.
"Excellent work, Ms. Carter. We'll be in touch about the next phase."
I must have said something appropriate because Sienna gave me a small nod, and the clients stood and shook my hand, and then they were gone and the room was empty and I was standing there with my heart pounding and my palms sweaty and the realization that it was over.
The Arclight project was finished.
"Well done," Sienna said, and then she walked away before I could respond.
I stood there in the empty conference room for a moment, just breathing, just letting myself feel the weight of what I had accomplished.
Months of late nights and early mornings and more stress than I had known how to handle, and it was finally over.
The project was done. The client was happy.
And I had done it. Me, Elera Carter, who had almost let Oliver and Anne destroy everything.
I pulled out my phone to text him the good news, but the screen was dark and the chat was empty and the last message I had sent was still sitting there, delivered but unread.
When will you be back?
I tried to ignore the way my stomach tightened as I walked back to my desk, tried to focus on the emails and the follow-ups and the small tasks that needed to be finished before I could leave.
But the hours crawled by, and my phone stayed silent, and by the time five o'clock rolled around I had checked it so many times that the screen had started to blur in front of my eyes.
I called him on my way out of the office.
Voicemail.
I called him again on the subway.
Voicemail.
I called him a third time while I was walking to the store to buy something for dinner, something good, something to celebrate because I had finished the project and he would be proud of me and we would eat together and everything would be fine.
Voicemail.
I stood in the middle of the grocery aisle with my phone pressed against my ear and my heart pounding in my chest, and I told myself that there was a reasonable explanation for this.
He had said he had work. Maybe his work had taken him somewhere with no signal.
Maybe his phone had died. Maybe he was on his way home right now, walking through the door at this very moment, wondering where I was.
I picked out the nicest pasta I could find, and a bottle of wine, and the kind of chocolate he pretended not to like but always finished before I could have any.
The cashier smiled at me and asked if I was celebrating something, and I said yes, because I was.
I had finished the biggest project of my career, and I was going home to the man I loved, and everything was finally going right.
The walk home felt longer than usual, and the stairs felt steeper, and by the time I reached the door I was practically running, already imagining the smell of something cooking, already imagining the sound of his voice asking how it went,
already imagining the way he would look at me when I told him that we could start looking at apartments now.
I unlocked the door.
The apartment was dark.
The kitchen was cold, the stove empty, the counters clean. No smell of garlic or herbs or whatever he had decided to cook. No low music playing from his phone. No big man who looked too big for my small space standing at the counter with a dish towel over his shoulder like he had always been there.
He wasn't here.
I stood in the doorway for a long time, the grocery bags heavy in my hands, and I told myself that he was just late.
He had said he would be late. He had told me not to wait up, and I hadn't listened, and now I was standing here like a fool, surprised that he had done exactly what he said he would do.
I set the bags on the counter and pulled out my phone.
I finished the Arclight project. It went really well. I bought stuff for dinner. Want me to wait for you?
I stared at the screen, waiting for the little bubbles that meant he was typing, but nothing happened. The message sat there, delivered but unread, the same as all the others.
I called him again.
Voicemail.
I called him again.
Voicemail.
I set my phone down on the counter and looked at the food I had bought, the pasta, the wine, the chocolate he pretended not to like, and felt something crack open in my chest that I had been trying very hard to keep closed.
He wasn't here. He wasn't answering. And for the first time since he had walked into my life, I didn't know what to do.
I sat on the couch with my knees tucked under my chin and his hoodie pulled tight around my shoulders, and I waited.
The television flickered through channels I wasn't watching, and the city hummed outside the window, and the hours passed like they had somewhere else to be.
I checked my phone every few minutes, hoping for a message that never came, and every time the screen stayed dark I felt a little piece of my hope crumble away.
He's fine, I told myself. He's just busy. He'll come home soon, and you'll yell at him for making you worry, and he'll look at you with that infuriating half-smile and say something like "I told you not to wait up" and everything will be fine.
But the minutes turned into hours, and the hours turned into midnight, and the door never opened.
I pulled out my phone and called him again, and my hands were shaking now, because the worry that had been building all day was starting to overflow.
Please, I thought as the phone rang. Please be okay. Please just be okay.
Voicemail.
I called again.
Voicemail.
I called a third time, and when the beep came I didn't know what to say anymore. I just stood there in my dark kitchen with my phone pressed against my ear and my heart pounding in my chest and tried to find words that wouldn't sound as scared as I felt.
Caspian, it's me. I'm home. The review went well. I got the bonus, I got the promotion. I bought food to celebrate. I was hoping you'd be here.
I swallowed, my throat tight.
I don't know where you are or what you're doing, and I don't care about any of that. I just need to know you're safe. Please call me when you get this. Just let me know you're okay.
Something had happened to him. It was the only explanation that made sense. He wouldn't just disappear, not after everything, not after the way he had looked at me, not after the way he had held me. He had promised to stay. He had promised.
So if he wasn't answering, it wasn't because he didn't want to. It was because he couldn't.
The thought should have been comforting. It wasn't.
I fell asleep on the couch again, still wearing his hoodie, my phone clutched in my hand like a lifeline. The food I had bought sat untouched on the counter, and the wine grew warm in the bottle, and the city hummed outside the window like nothing had changed.
I dreamed of him. He was walking away from me, down a long dark street, and no matter how fast I ran I couldn't catch up. I called his name, and he didn't turn around, and when I woke up my face was wet and my phone was still silent.
I checked it anyway.
Nothing.
I called him again.
Voicemail.
I pressed my face into the pillow that still smelled like him and closed my eyes, and I let myself feel the fear that I had been trying so hard to push away.
He was out there somewhere, alone, maybe hurt, maybe in trouble, and I couldn't do anything to help him because I didn't know where he was or how to find him or even his last name.
All I could do was wait.
And hope.
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