Chase
When I roll over in bed, reaching for Kat, I find nothing but cold sheets. I sit up and look around, my body shivering without her there to warm my naked flesh with her hot skin. Outside my window, a brutal wind howls. The promise of a winter squall threatens to fall. I don’t care. Let the thunder and rain beat its vicious rhythm against the house, rattling my windows and shaking the walls. With her in my bed, we make our own storm.
Slipping from the covers, I pull on plaid pajama pants and an old Shinedown tee and stroll to the bathroom. Taking a piss with a raging hard on is next to impossible. I close my eyes, leaning a hand against the back wall, doing my business as best I can while thoughts of Kat’s lilting screams echo in my ears. Last night was incredible.
She’s incredible.
Yesterday’s waterlogged clothes hang from the rod in the shower, dotting the royal blue bath mat below it in droplets that darken the fibers. Kat’s nicely folded skirt and sweater are nowhere to be found. My gaze passes the gaping maw of the stall as I turn to leave, but something catches my eye. More like the lack of something.
The shampoo. It’s gone.
With clipped brows, I push the curtain back to see if it fell, but it’s not here. The simmering of nerves stew in my gut. I jog from the bathroom into the main area of the house. A young Dick Clark’s over-whitened smile reflecting from the television screen is the first face I come in contact with. The second is Grandma.
“Gram,” I say, squatting next to her leather arm chair. “Did you see Kat this morning?”
“We never had cats. Growing up, my sister was allergic.”
“No, Grandma. Kat. Who used to live here.” Her liquid eyes blink as they stare blankly ahead. Frustration gets the best of me. “Did you see a woman?”
She shifts her gaze from the television to the ceiling. “Yeah. She made me tea. Lovely girl.”
“Where is she now?”
“I don’t know,” she replies with a dismissive wave. “Disappeared like a fart in the wind.”
“Thanks.” I drop a kiss on her wrinkly forehead and wander off to find my phone. Branches tap a tune on the brick face of the house as I pace back and forth looking for her name in my contacts. The wind’s picked up, blowing old patio furniture across my lawn. It cartwheels, legs over ass before coming to a stop against the chain-link fence.
Straight to voicemail. Something’s wrong. She wouldn’t just get up and leave.
“Gram,” I shout, pulling on my shoes. “I need to run out for a minute. Don’t move, okay?”
A giant gust nearly knocks me on my ass as I sprint for my Jeep. Kat’s in trouble. I know it. She wouldn’t just go without saying something. It’s not like her. Lightning flashes brightly in the dull gray sky followed by bowling alley rolls of roaring thunder. It’s as if the Gods above are smiting the Earth, casting upon us blustering winds and streaks of fire. Punishing us for our sins.
By the time I’ve reached Athena’s house, the sky’s opened up, releasing buckets of ice down from the heavens. I fight through the gobs of frozen rain, shielding my eyes as I run to the door.
“Is Kat here?” I ask as Athena opens it, a look of surprise marring her face.
“Chase! Come in,” she tells me, opening wider to allow my entry. “Kat left for the airport early this morning.”
The storm slowly building inside me whips into a hysterical frenzy. “Airport? Where’d she go?”
“California. Didn’t she tell you? She and Nikos are on their way there now.”
Another earth-shattering blast shudders around me; only I can’t be sure if it’s the weather or the sound of my heart exploding in my chest. “When is she coming back?”
Athena cocks her head with softened eyes. “Chase. She asked Nikos to buy her out of her father’s estate, and she’s using the money to move to the West Coast.”
“No! You’re lying! Kat!” My voice booms through the quiet house as I try to brush past Athena, but only the howling of the wind answers back. The floor gives way beneath me. I fall to a crouch, hanging my head in my hands. “How could she do this?”
Athena rests her hand on my back, her voice soft as a lullaby. “It’s her dream. She found an opening and took it. It’s as simple as that.”
“When it comes to Kat, nothing’s ever simple,” I tell her, pushing to my feet and tugging open the door.
A cold blast sucks me from the warmth of Athena’s home into its frigid embrace. I lift my face to the sky, raising my arms in silent surrender and waiting for the moment it blows me away. This frozen tundra has nothing on Katarina Andropoulos. She is the end of days. A tornado. An unstoppable force destroying everything in her path.
The ice age that fell upon my heart left nothing but shattered shards of glass in its place. A reckless wasteland where nothing will ever flourish again.