I rang Jack again. I was getting pissed off. ‘Jack you’re really late. I thought the plan was to go early.’ I ended the message. I’d left five messages so far. They were getting angrier.
It was seven-thirty. Where was he? He could be stuck in traffic, but if he was in traffic his car would pick up my call on Bluetooth, so he could answer – and if it was something else I couldn’t understand why he hadn’t called to say he’d be late.
He’d kissed me at work, before I’d left, with a glint in his eyes. It had been the most passionate kiss we’d risked at work. Phil had shaken his head at me after, but I think people were starting to get used to Jack and I being a couple, and since our fall-out there had been a lot of touching and kissing going on around the office. I’d wanted Jack to know I believed he was committed and he’d taken it as permission to be touchy. So we’d held hands and he’d put his arm around me when we were talking, and kissed me before he disappeared back into his office.
But our last kiss, when I’d said goodbye today, had included a tongue dance.
‘I’ll see you soon. I’m looking forward to being alone in the middle of nowhere with you. I love you.’ Those had been his last words to me. They were not words that implied he’d stand me up.
I rang his mobile again; it still didn’t answer.
By ten o’clock I was sitting on the floor in my room with my back pressed against the wall, trying not to throw up and ringing his mobile on constant redial. He hadn’t answered and I’d tried his landline at home and at work and no one answered. I’d rung Emma once at about eight, really embarrassed, but I’d been desperate. She’d thought he was with me. She hadn’t heard anything else.
My hand ached and trembled as my thumb continually touched redial. How could he do this to me? But he wouldn’t do this. He wouldn’t.
Something was wrong.
I swiped the tears off my cheeks with the back of my hand and stopped dialling. Then I just stared at his picture on my phone as if I could will him to call me, as if the strength of my need for him would make him call me.
He didn’t call.
I slept in the position I sat in on the floor with my forehead resting on my bent-up legs, clutching my phone in my lap, so I would feel if it vibrated.
Where was he?! The words shouted through my dreams as I drifted in and out of sleep.
Why hadn’t he called?
What was wrong?
I dreamt of our time at Christmas – of his hard edges and hidden depths. Captain Control in his cape; my fortress. I was shaken awake when I dreamt of my door being broken through – only in my dream the room had been smashed up and was unrecognisable.
It wasn’t really daylight but it was getting lighter outside.
I got up. I’d go over to his apartment. He’d be there. Maybe he’d lost his phone.
Maybe something had come up and he’d lost his phone.
I called his landline there again, but he didn’t answer. But it didn’t mean he wasn’t there. Maybe he was asleep. I used the bathroom then grabbed my coat and left.
I ran downstairs and I ran as fast I could to the bus stop. The tube line wasn’t running yet. I looked at the bus times. They’d take ages. I saw a taxi and lifted my hand to hail it – I had the money on me. I’d drawn cash out to go away with. The cabbie talked, but I didn’t answer.
When he stopped at Jack’s I threw thirty quid into the money tray. ‘Keep the change.’
My heart pounded as I ran through the main door and pressed the code to access the lift, but when I got up to his floor and knocked on the door, there was no answer. Silence.
Silence.
I turned and slid down the door, then pressed my head back against the wood. Why?
Was I going crazy? Was this a nightmare?
I wanted to wake up.
I shut my eyes and cried, making a noise that echoed around the small, square lobby outside his apartment. The sounds of pain tore my throat.
My heart was paralysed, cold and solid. What if he was hurt? He’d been travelling from work to here, and then from here to me – what could have happened?
He’d been on the bike. Hospitals… Maybe I should go to the hospitals. I stood up and went over and pressed the button to call the lift. I could go down to the car park and find out what time he’d got back here on his bike last night, and what time he’d left in the car, then I’d know—
But what would I know? He’d still be missing. Maybe I should go to the police.
My phone vibrated and rang out. I snatched it out of my pocket, my heart skipping, hoping it was Jack. It wasn’t Jack. It was Emma.
‘Hello.’
‘Hi, Ivy. Where are you?’
‘Outside Jack’s. He never showed.’
‘I know. His mum just called me. He had an accident on the bike. He’s at the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital, in intensive care. He’s badly injured.’
‘No.’ My palm hit the lift button. I kept hitting it. Hurry! Come on! You fucking thing! He’d been in hospital this whole time. ‘How do I get there? What tube station?’
‘It’s on the District Line going out to Wimbledon. Get off the line at Fulham Broadway, then walk up Fulham Road. I’ll ring and let his mum know you’re coming. But, Ivy, someone drove into him when he pulled out of the office car park last night. He’s unconscious. They aren’t sure if he’ll survive—’
The lift doors opened.
‘Thank you for telling me, Emma. I’m going to him.’ My heart beat with a heaviness that felt like stone smashing against my ribs, and the motion resounded in my legs and my arms and hands, and my head.
‘Bye,’ Emma said.
I ended the call. It would take me almost an hour to get to the hospital. I wanted to grow wings and fly there.