“What is it?”
He’s still not turning around.
“Carter?”
Are the O’Neills outside, about to break into my house and burst the perfect bubble I was just starting to get used to living in?
No.
I fear it’s something much worse.
Carter turns around, his eyes a scary shade of blue. “He’s not there.”
“Who’s not there?” I shout, even though I already know what he’s talking about.
Whohe’s talking about.
I swing through the double doors and take a look at Otis’s cot.
It’s empty.
“He has to be around somewhere,” I say, exiting the living room to search high and low for my boy.
That I might never get back.
I open the pantry door and search each of the shelves. No. What about between the general waste and recycling trash cans? Otis hid there during a game of hide and seek once.
Nope.
My hopes are crushed each time I check another location and leave it empty-handed.
“Otis!” I shout, running upstairs to check the bathroom.
Nope.
“Otis?” The second call sounds more like a cry.
I trash my own house in search for him.
Oh my god. This isn’t happening.
I always told myself that unicorns were more likely to fall out of the sky than Otis was to disappear. My biggest fear was losing him. To soothe myself at night, I told myself the above. He was never gonna leave my side, because I was simply never gonna allow that.
But I just have.
When I was upstairs having sex with Carter.
My heart enters my stomach. I already feel it being passed on into my intestines, where I’ll later shit it out and flush it down the toilet.
I might as well flush myself down there too. Nothing good happens when I’m around.
My breath catches in my dry throat. I heave and cough, walking my hands all over various walls as I guide myself back to the staircase. The panic has obscured my vision. I no longer know my left from my right, or how to walk normally.
In walking down the stairs, I bang against the two walls and use the painful whacks as guidance to keep myself in a straight line.
I collapse into a heap on the floor, tripping over the last step.
The embarrassment of welcoming the bikers into my home is nothing compared to the embarrassment I should be feeling now as Carter Trescott watches me crumble hopelessly to the carpet.
