Maybe I should head to the pool, do some laps to stretch out this kink in my back, while my phone powers up. I can always message Alexander when I get back to the room.
I put on my swimming trunks, a T-shirt, and my Nike sliders, and grab my door key. As I pull the door open, I’m almost sent flying backward by two paramedics shooting by me.
Panic grips my heart, the same feeling I experienced with my father, and I turn to follow them. They run into Alexander’s suite, where Rob holds the door open for them.
I go to follow them in, but Rob blocks me from entering.
“What happened?” I look past him into the suite, but there’s no sign of Alexander or the paramedics inside.
“You need to leave,” Rob says, his commanding tone addressing me as if I’m some kind of nuisance.
“But what’s happened? Is Alex okay?” Panic seeps into my bones. My thoughts start to race as I fear the worst.
I just need to know he’s okay.
“Don’t make me tell you again,” Rob says. I can tell from the look in his eyes that he isn’t in the mood to deal with me, but he’s also afraid. Afraid of what, though?
He steps inside, closing the door behind him, and leaves me alone in the hallway.
I stand shell-shocked for a moment before making my way back down the hallway, past my room and to the elevators. There’s a churning discomfort in my stomach, the same feeling from four years ago when I entered the hospital looking for my father. That time, I couldn’t stop replaying the last words I’d said to him, thinking I’d caused his accident.
I don’t think I could live with myself if the same thing happened again.
By the time I reach the pool, I’ve tried every calming technique I know.
Mindfulness. Word association. Breathwork. But nothingpushes away the sheer state of terror gripping my body. Each lap I make in the pool seems to pass quicker. I keep trying to work my way through the notion that something terrible has happened to Alexander. For each intrusive thought that comes up, I try, unsuccessfully, to counter it with an opposing viewpoint.
Surely if it was that bad, the paramedics would have come with a stretcher rather than just a medical backpack? I finally settle on a plausible reason to believe that things aren’t as dire as I fear when I lift myself out of the pool.
When I finally make it back to the fifth floor, after a quick pit stop in the atrium to pick up some fruit and a chocolate croissant from the breakfast buffet, the hallway is deadly silent. There’s no sign of Rob or anyone outside Alexander’s suite.
My knock on his door goes unanswered, and after three rings of the doorbell, I head back to my room. I go straight to the phone on the bedside table, dialing reception. But when they answer and I give them Paul’s name, I realize I don’t know his surname, or any of Alexander’s entourage’s surnames.
“I’m afraid that unless you have their full name I can’t put you through, sir.”
I hang up in defeat, sighing.
My hope rises again when I see a notification light emanating from my cell phone.
Heading across to the table, I unplug it to see a load of email notifications, a couple of messages from my family group chat, and three voice messages from Alexander. The last one was left at 2:10 a.m.
I’m sorry, Chris. Please talk to me, I need you.
His speech is slurred to the point that I almost don’t recognize that it’s him.
I immediately call him back, but it goes straight to voicemail, and I hang up. There’s no point leaving a message. I don’t wantto say anything that someone might come back and use against me.
Think, Christopher, think.
I tap my fingers on the table.
That’s it.
TheLive Lounge.
I lift my laptop open, pull up Radio One on my web browser, and click play on the livestream. Sabrina Carpenter’sEspressoblasts out when it finally stops buffering.
It’s 11 a.m., and I’m assuming Alex would have to be there by now if he is still going to be on the show.
