by Cranford, B.
Lucas: The suspense is killing me.
The suspense wasn’t the only thing killing me. The fact that it had been three days since I’d heard from Bianca was also sending a potent mix of nerves and frustration funneling through my veins.
She’d said she had news—something to share. But then she’d gone dark and I hadn’t had so much as an “I need space” or a “My news is that it’s over.” All I knew was that she was supposed to be heading to Perth, though I didn’t know when . . . and she’d stopped talking to me.
And that’s not me being a drama queen king. I’d tried calling her three times and there was no answer; it rang out or didn’t ring at all. Either way, I was stuck leaving voicemails for her, asking her to please, just let me know she was okay.
“Hey, pretty girl. It’s me again. I don’t know what’s going on and if you don’t want me to know, then that’s cool. But could you—could you just let me know you’re okay? I just need to know you’re okay.”
I stood in front of my parents’ house, my mind elsewhere.
On Bianca. You know it, and I knew it.
“You coming inside, mate, or are you just going to lurk out here all night?” Dad stepped outside and walked toward me with purpose. “Whatever’s bothering you, the house can’t fix it. House can’t bloody fix anything.”
“What happened?” I asked, knowing that he’d made that comment for a reason. “And how much trouble are you in?”
His laugh was that of a man who knew that “trouble” wasn’t a bad place to be. It gave him a chance to charm his way back into Mum’s good graces and he seemed to enjoy that. “Flooded the laundry.”
“Again? That’s gotta be the, what, fourth time?”
His reply was a nonchalant shrug, which made me wonder if maybe he did it on purpose. I wouldn’t be surprised. My parents could be a little odd.
“Come on inside. Mum’s not here, so you’ll have to trust me for advice, I’m afraid.”
“I’m fucked then, Dad.”
He cocked his head. “I’d say so.”
I laughed, because his deadpan delivery, combined with the familiarity of being at Mum and Dad’s, made the knot that’d been forming in my chest for two long days ease. Not entirely, but enough to be able to see the humor in the old man.
“So, what about your girl?” Dad asked, no more preamble, no more delaying the inevitable. He knew why I was here without me having to say it, because if there was something I was good at, it was finding and losing women.
“I haven’t heard from her in a couple of days and I’m worried.” I looked away from his steady gaze, feeling exposed because no one knew me like my dad did.
“It’s not the first time you haven’t talked in a few days though, right? I thought you told us you were giving her space.”
And I had. It made sense that he’d wonder at the difference between this time and earlier in her trip when we’d gone days without communication. I had been trying to respect her need to do her thing, before she and I had tacitly agreed to talk more often. Daily, in fact.
I knew I had to respect her wishes, no matter what. Moreover, I wanted to respect them. So, if this silence was a prelude to the end, then . . . well, I could make my case but that was all I could make. But that didn’t mean it didn’t suck balls to be left wondering.
“Yeah,” I replied after a beat of silence and my whirring thoughts. “She didn’t want us to talk all the time. But things changed and now . . .”
Trailing off, I pulled my phone from my pocket, brought up Bianca’s last message, then handed it over to my dad.
“She said she needed to talk to you about something and then she never got in contact.”
#NailedIt. “Got it in one, old man.”
“What’re you thinking?” he asked, not jumping to conclusions. I knew that he did that for me—because if I wasn’t already thinking the worst, he didn’t want to be the one to plant the seed in my head. He’s the man I want to be, I thought, not for the first time.
“I don’t know. I’m torn between assuming she’s given up on us and wondering if she’s been in an accident or-or worse.” Stuttering over the idea of someone having hurt her, I pulled my shoulders back and stretched out, feeling the satisfying crack of my spine in three places. I probably shouldn’t relish the sound as much as I did, but who cared?
My girl was somewhere between Darwin and Perth, and I didn’t know when—fuck, if—I’d ever hear from her again.
“How many times have you tried to contact her?”
“Three calls. You can see the messages I sent.” I gestured to the phone, not worried that he might read the messages. In addition to the three I’d sent in reply to her initial text, I’d also texted her a few more times, just checking in.
Dad sucked in, then released, a long breath and I could feel the worry in it. For starters, I knew he was concerned about me, about how I was taking her radio silence. But beyond that, he was a father—he had a daughter in another country and was well-versed in picturing Rose in all manner of shitty situations. My dad might be built like a brick shithouse, but he had a big heart. A soft one, not that I’d ever let him hear me say that.
“Mind if I?” He held up my phone and I knew without him elaborating that he was asking if he could grab her number.
Shaking my head, I replied, “Go ahead. If she replies to you, then at least I know she’s okay.”
“On a scale of one to ten, how angry are you?” he asked, his head down and his phone having replaced mine in his hand.
“Fucked if I know. One, because I’m not angry, I’m worried. Five, because I know I’m not her keeper and she can take a break from me if she needs to. Ten, because she could at least let me know she’s o-fucking-kay before she disappears.” Tension settled over me when I finished talking, the truth of my words hanging about in the kitchen with us.
If I expected an answer from Dad, any kind of response, then I was shit outta luck. He quietly tapped at his phone, then set it aside on the table and looked up at me. “If she replies, I’ll let you know. In the meantime, all you can do is wait. I told her we were all worried and we just wanted to know she was safe, which I know you did too, but”—he pursed his lips—“can’t hurt to double down on the message.”
“Should I call the cops?” I asked, giving voice to the question that had plagued me since early the day before. “File a missing persons report or whatever people do in these situations? Or have I been watching too many crime shows?”
He considered it a moment, then shook his head. “Not yet. Give her another day, see if there’s perhaps an alternate way you can find out if she’s okay. You have contact info for her family back home?”
I shook my head and opened my mouth to reply when the memory of her in the backseat of Rose’s car, talking to her friend with the bar, popped up out of nowhere. Pausing, I reached across the table to grab my phone from in front of my dad and slid it back in front of myself. “She called a friend from my phone. It was before Christmas though, so . . .” I trailed off, picturing a scenario where my phone had eaten the number I needed, leaving me with nothing to do but keep waiting.
Dad nodded, standing and knocking his knuckles against the wood of the table. “I’ll leave you to do that while I go finish cleaning up the laundry. Stay for tea, or it won’t just be me your mother’ll be pissed off at.”
Smiling absently as he left the room, I swiped the screen to find and open the FaceTime app. The small list of names included a name I recognized as belonging to her friend, Ashton. It was a number with the American country code, so even if I hadn’t known it was her friend, that would’ve pointed me in the right direction. My finger hovered over Ashton’s name only long enough for me to figure out the time difference and determine that it was a reasonable time to call.
Shit, it wasn’t. It was the middle of the night over there, and if everything was fine with Bianca and she was just ignoring me, I didn’t want to be the arsehole who also disturbed her
friend at three in the freaking morning.
“Fuck,” I muttered, thoughts pivoting to another way of contacting Bianca’s friend. I’d only spoken to her briefly that one time, but most everything about Bianca was stored in my memory—and my memory reminded me that this friend was willing to hunt me down and hurt me if I did something to Bianca.
Tapping the little “i” to bring up the information, I opened a new message. After considering what to say to get what I needed—confirmation that Bianca was safe if not talking to me—without giving Ashton reason to panic, I soon realized there was no easy way to say it. Going with my gut, I typed the first thing that came to mind.
Lucas: Hi Ashton, this is Lucas, the guy who’s definitely not murdering Bianca. I’m sorry to text you out of the blue, but I haven’t heard from her for a couple of days and I wanted to see if you had? I just want to know that she’s okay. Thanks.
I reckon I stared at my phone, willing it to do something to let me know that Bianca was okay. A reply from Ashton would be good. A reply or a call from Bianca would be even better. The best. Because if she called me, I could get angry for real. And then I could figure out what was going on and if it was something I could fix.
I really needed it to be something I could fix—because I still wasn’t willing to give up.
If Rose could see me now, I thought without humor. I hadn’t forgotten her telling me that I always gave up at the first sign of trouble, and if this wasn’t trouble then what was?
“Lucas.” Mum walked into the kitchen and came straight at me, her mouth wide with a surprised smile. “Didn’t expect to see you today, baby boy.”
“I came to talk to Dad, and he told me I had to stay for tea.” I stood up and wrapped my arms around her. “Hi, Mum.”
Her arms wrapped around me and held tight, like she knew I needed the comfort. “Ah, then I’ve trained the old boy well. Come on, I’m making grilled vegetable wraps.”
Releasing her, I stepped back and chanced another glance at my silent phone. “Sounds yum. What can I do to help?”
* * *
My house was dark, but I didn’t bother to turn on any lights. After eating tea with Mum and Dad and staying long enough to help Dad finish with the laundry—not to mention a full day of work prior to that—I was too tired, and too worried, to care.
I still hadn’t heard anything and if you think a watched pot never boils, then let me tell you that a watched phone never bloody well rings.
Making my way back to my room and falling onto the bed, I kicked off my shoes and resisted the urge to both text Bianca again and call the police and get them looking for her. The only thing stopping me was my gut feeling that she was okay, that I would know if she was really, truly in trouble. Because for all my worrying, my main concern wasn’t that she was hurt—in this I trusted my instincts—but that she’d decided I wasn’t worth it.
The same way I’d decided Erin and Emily weren’t worth it.
It’s called Karma, you arsehole.
But did I really deserve this? Being ghosted by the woman I lo- . . . err, felt like I could have a life with? Maybe. I guess it depended more on what Erin and Emily thought than what I thought.
I mused on that for a few minutes before the ringing of my phone shattered the still silence of my bedroom. My heart pounding, I practically ripped it from my pocket and stared at the phone.
She was calling . . . but it was the wrong she.
Swiping the screen, I tried to give off a gives-no-shits attitude. “Hi, Ashton.”
“Lucas? It’s really dark.”
“Bugger, sorry. Just give me a sec—” Standing, I quickly flicked the light on and smiled at the pretty blond woman on my screen. She was holding a little girl and looking at me with worried eyes. I gave up on gives-no-shits and went straight into gives-all-the-shits. “Is she—have you spoken to her?”
Her smile was sympathetic, which I didn’t know how to react to. Was she sorry because I was being dumped? Or sorry because I didn’t know that Bianca was connected to an IV somewhere in the middle of Australia, whatever illness she’d picked up rendering her too ill to call me?
Ashton wasn’t crying, so I was at least able to strike “kidnapped and murdered” off my list.
“Ashton?” I prompted her, realizing belatedly that I hadn’t actually given her the time to answer yet.
“She’s okay. She’s just a bit overwhelmed and . . .”
The anger that hit me was swift and blazed like a bushfire in the middle of one of our famously dry summers. “But she’s all right and she didn’t bother to tell me?”
I could tell, even on the small screen of my phone, the moment Ashton stiffened. She lost the sympathetic smile and went into the kind of defensive mode I hoped someone conjured up for my sister if she ever needed it.
“Look, Lucas. I know you’ve been worried, but she’s just struggling with a few things and she didn’t mean to ignore you. You’re just—”
“Not a priority,” I finished for her, interrupting because I couldn’t bear to hear her say it.
“No, that’s not it.” The soft smile made a brief return. “I kind of love that you’re this worried and this angry with her.”
“I’m happy to be of service,” I retorted with an eye roll. I was pissed—I couldn’t help myself.
“That’s not what I meant. I’m sorry.” She turned away briefly, then handed her little girl over to the dark-haired man that had come to stand behind her. “This is my husband, Andrew.”
I didn’t care who he was, but I didn’t say that, knowing if I did, I risked her hanging up on me and never getting the answers I needed. “Hey, man.”
“She’s fine, Lucas,” was his reply, a brief nod letting me know he understood my predicament. “Ashton will explain, but she’s on Bianca’s side.”
“Yeah? Whose side you on?” I asked petulantly, knowing I was being a dick, but not caring. Although I was still risking being disconnected from Ashton—currently my only link to Bianca.
“Ashton’s, first and foremost. Which means Bianca’s.” He gave me a speaking look, then moved out of shot. My bet was that he was only just off camera, and still listening to make sure I didn’t upset Ashton.
For all intents and purposes though, it was just me and Ashton. And the tension of me not knowing what the hell was going on. “Ashton,” I started, only to be stopped with a hand in the air.
“Can I?” she asked with a lift of her eyebrows. When I nodded, she continued, “I talked to her before I called you, because I was worried. I mean, I knew she was okay, but I didn’t know she hadn’t talked to you. So, I’m going to act the middle woman because B is my person and I love her. But for the record, I don’t like that she didn’t at least send you a message to say she’s okay.”
“Because,” I filled in, “she’s not okay, is she?”
“No, she is. At least, she’s safe. She made it to Perth a few hours ago and checked into a hotel.”
“Not a hostel, huh?” Part of me wanted to smile at the memory of Bianca’s hostel complaints, but the rest of me was angry and getting angrier.
“Not anymore. She’s, ah . . . well, she’s been sick.”
“She said she wasn’t feeling well when she was in Yulara.”
“Yulara?” she questioned, a small frown forming on her face.
“Near Uluru.”
“Oh, right. Yeah, she went to the doctor in Darwin, and figured it all out. She’s doing better, but the doc wants her to slow down on the travel a little.”
I considered her words, noticing that though she sounded normal—or as normal as she could sound to someone who didn’t know her—her eyes didn’t meet mine. Despite the ream of questions I wanted to ask, I opted to stay silent and wait for her to keep talking.
Which she did, almost immediately. “She got an email from her ex, and it rattled her. He said some typically Mason-ish stuff, and she kind of . . .”
“Motherfucker.” My hands both clenched into fists�
��the one holding the phone squeezing the absolute shit out of the device, until I worried I was going to Hulk-out completely and break the damn thing.
“Yeah, that was pretty much my reaction. But anyway, she’s just going to take some time to figure some stuff out, but I promise you, she’s fine and she’s safe, and you have my express permission to yell at her when she finally contacts you.”
“Just like that?” I asked, wondering why she’d give me permission at all. “I thought you were on her side.”
She gave me a light smile in acknowledgment of my comment. “Well, maybe hear her out first, then decide if you still want to yell, okay?”
I tilted my head and thought about what she was asking. I could hear her out, but I could also (figuratively) shake the hell out of her for leaving me hanging. I guess I’d decide when the time came, not that Ashton needed to know that. “Yeah, fine.”
“Promise?”
“Lady, why should I promise?” My reply was borderline belligerent, but I couldn’t stop it from spilling out of my mouth.
“Careful,” came the warning from somewhere off screen. I knew her husband had stayed close by.
Ashton glanced toward him and shook her head before addressing me. “I know something you don’t, Lucas.” She didn’t say it smugly, though you could be forgiven for thinking that. Instead, it was said softly, like she was trying to prepare me for the news that Bianca herself had promised to share with me before she’d just stopped talking at all.
“I really wish I knew what it was,” I confessed. “When I got that message, I . . .” Trailing off, I shrugged, because I didn’t know how to finish that sentence. Her promise to share news with me was exciting, because I wanted it to be exciting. I wanted her to tell me something that would secure our future, or at least make me feel like we were still moving forward.
“I’m sorry. I would tell you if I could. And for what it’s worth, I did yell at her on your behalf.”