That he isn’t keeping secrets.
Sometimes I wish I could live outside my own mind.
Campus is still slushy from the night’s snowfall. As I head to the Old Main building, students hurry past bundled in coats and boots, heads down against the chilly wind, breaths clouding in the cold.
During the day between lectures, my eyes drift to every doorway. Every corner of the hall. Usually, I’d see him at least once or twice among the crowd of students. Not today.
My mind wanders. Into shadows. Into memories of all the ways people have left me without warning.
My parents.
My little sister.
Elijah.
Dylan.
I keep glancing at my phone between lectures, convincing myself he’d text while I wasn’t looking. Nothing. I checked again. Nothing.
Halfway through my office hours, I gave up pretending to work. Students came in one by one, asking about assignments, deadlines, and grades. I answered every question like I wasn’t fully present, like half my attention was fixed on the glowing screen of my phone.
By noon, worry had curdled in my chest like spoiled milk.
By two, I’d started rehearsing worst-case scenarios.
By three, I was hovering on the edge of driving across town just to check his father’s guesthouse myself.
Toward the end of the day, I almost texted him to ask if he was okay but deleted it before I could hit send. Maybe he just needed space. After everything he’s been through with his father, with the investigation, with the stress of reporting us to the university…space might be the only thing he feels he can control right now.
I need to trust him enough to give him that.
But it’s not him I don’t trust. It’s myself. It always has been.
Old wounds don’t listen to reason.
When I get home, the house is still too quiet. His shoes aren’t by the door. His hoodie’s not on the hook. The air doesn’t hold that faint trace of his scent.
For the first time since he started staying here, the silence feels like an omen.
I turn on the lights, feeling foolish when I hope to see a note or a mug on the counter or his bag of chips a little less full. Any sign that he’s been here. But there’s none. Just the house settling around me like a sigh.
I cook dinner alone, but only because I need something to do with my hands. I eat two bites before checking my phone again.
This time, I’m going to text him.
I can’t keep pretending that I’m not worried, so I start typing out a message. Before I finish it, one comes through from him.
Finally.
Jackson:Can you meet me at the bridge tonight? Around 10:15. Please.
The breath leaves my lungs all at once.
The bridge.
My throat goes tight, and my pulse stutters and then pounds. There’s nothing else to the text. No explanation. No reassurances this time.
Something’s wrong.
