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4
911
Jay
It’strulyamazingwhat a near-death experience will do to a person. Even if it isn’t my own. More than ever, I feel a need to step up for Julia. I’ve always wanted to be a safe place for her. To be the person she knows she can come to when she’s hurting or needs help. But today Julia had her life threatened, and those feelings are changing. I’ve been lingering on the edge of violence since then, but she’s been acting like it hasn’t affected her at all.
Julia knows how to do that, talk you off of a ledge. She’s good at wrangling emotions until you see more clearly. It’s what she does. She pulls people together and holds them there. Today, a gun was pointed at the woman’s head, and still she is taking care of me. She’s constantly doing it, giving and seeing to other people’s needs before her own. I want to see her take for herself, to witness her selfishness instead.
The ferocity of my anger thrums a brutal beat in my skull. I want to inflict a level of violence on the guy from tonight that no sane person should consider, but at the moment, I am convinced I will end his life if given the chance. The desire to feel his throat struggling for breath as I squeeze is strong. My sadistic thoughts of the harm I can inflict on him don’t concern me as much as they should.
At some point on the drive home, I started to breathe normally again. But it’s been an hour and a half since I left Bliss, and I’m starting to worry. It doesn’t usually take her this long to finish up, and the drive to my place is forty-five minutes. But after the one-hour mark, we’re well past her normal version of on-time.
It’s more than that though—she isn’t answering texts or calls.
The rational part of my brain tries to tell me this isn’t the first time this has happened. Every other time it ends up being because Julia fell asleep at her desk. She was too tired to drive and took a nap on the couch in her office. Nothing is really wrong; her phone died. Her neighbor might have texted her about her dog, Spencer. Maybe she went by her apartment to go get him.
There are so many things that could be going on.
Finally, I give up on staring at my phone and waiting for her to walk through the door. I get up and grab my keys. Only, I have no idea what I am doing. Do I go back to the club? Her apartment? The anxiety in my chest keeps me frozen, paralyzed by the number of possibilities in front of me.
Stuck with indecision, I call Rosie. She was with me when we left. She should have some ideas about what might have happened, and she is good at coming up with a plan. Although not quite as skilled at following through.
“I’m getting really tired of people not answering my phone calls,” I grumble when my call goes through to voicemail.
The clock says it’s nearly four in the morning.
Okay, I’ll cut her some slack, but I dial again.
There are some shuffling sounds, then Rosie’s voice comes through the phone. “Jay Bird. What the fuck. It’s the ass crack of dawn. I’m supposed to be asleep.”
“I know. I’m sorry. But Julia was supposed to come over to my place. It’s been well over an hour since I got home, but she’s still not here. I’m worried something is wrong.” The words rush out of me in one string.
“Jay Bird, you need to breathe and slow down, okay?”
“Okay.” I try taking a shaky breath.
“Start at the beginning.” The sleep is fading from her words. Her tone acting as a balm to my fried nerves. “I’m sure you’ve tried texting and calling.”
“Yes, of course I have,” I snap. “I’ve been staring at my phone since I got home.”
“Did you try calling the club directly? The line to the bar or to her office?”
I pause guiltily. “No.”
“Then we start there, okay? You call the office, I’ll call the bar. If she doesn’t answer, call me back.”
“I can do that.”
“It’s gonna be okay, Jay Bird. One step at a time. Her phone probably died or something.”
“Yeah. Probably.” I’m lying to myself, but it does help with the ache in my chest to hear someone else say it aloud.
“Call me back in ten no matter what. Got it?”
“Yes. Got it.”
She hangs up the phone, and I dial the direct line to Julia’s office.
