Mum. When Mum died.
For Christ’s sake.
Fumbling with the cold water tap, I tried to bury my head under it.
“You all right, mate?” a bloke to my left asked.
I didn’t answer, and he departed the restroom while I rubbed the cold water into my face and stared into the mirror.
Breathe, just breathe,I heard Sarah’s soft imaginary voice coax.
“Theo, you all right?” A hand slapped my back and I straightened, trying to focus.
Scott stared at me in concern.
Scott.
He was here?
“Where’s Sarah?” I practically barked.
Scott grimaced. “Your little cocktease changed her mind as soon as we got back to my flat. I put her in a cab. Next time you tell me a woman is up for it, make sure she’s actually up for it, mate. It’s not like you to pick the prudes.”
Rage filled me and I grabbed him by the shirt front and slammed him into the wall. “Did you touch her?”
Scott shoved me away angrily. “I don’t touch women who don’t want to be touched. Why do you give a shit? You passed her to me like she was a toy you got bored with. Doesn’t exactly scream that you care, mate.” He cut me a dirty look before marching out of the restroom.
Guilt tightened in my chest, but the panic receded. I needed to get to her. To apologize. To explain. Yanking my phone out, I tried calling Sarah, but she didn’t pick up. I called and calledthe entire way out of the bar and out in the city as I tried to flag down a cab. The cab ride was a torturous forty minutes back to my place. I must have called Sarah forty times and she didn’t pick up.
Worry cut through my shame. What if something had happened to her? Women weren’t supposed to be out alone. What if the serial killer was a fucking cab driver?
My melodrama and fears became monstrous things over the next forty minutes, and I rushed up the stairs to my flat like I’d lost my damn mind. I burst into it, shouting Sarah’s name as my eyes drifted over the living room. Rushing into the bedroom, I skidded to a halt at the sight of her missing luggage.
“No, no, no.” I threw open the wardrobe where I’d made space for her, and my heart sank. The hangers were empty.
That’s when I finally noticed the paper on my pillow.
Fingers shaking, I lifted it reluctantly and felt my panic build again at the words she’d scrawled in her pretty cursive.
If you need to discuss the adaptation, please do it through my agent.
Don’t call me again.
Goodbye.
Sarah
My legs gave out on me as I slid down the side of the bed, landing on the floor with a thump. She’d warned me.“But next time you tell me to go like I don’t matter … I will go.”
I’d acted like a swine.
The way I’d treated her tonight …
All because I’d let my fucking brother get in my head.
And now Sarah was gone.
Black spots covered my vision as I struggled to breathe, hyper-fucking-ventilating.
