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Exhausted, they fell into bed before having to wake up early for work the next day.
Hurts just Enough
The next morning, Olivia parted ways with him without going up to his office. Colin tried to call her several times with no luck.
It was getting to be almost afternoon when he lost his mind, calling Olivia's cell repeatedly and not getting an answer. She was supposed to be back at his office almost two hours ago and never showed up.
God fucking damn it. Where is she?
He paced his office, breaking out into a cold sweat. Feeling his heart pound.
Ok, don’t overreact, maybe she got caught up designing. Maybe she doesn’t have good phone reception.
He checked his phone for her location, seeing her a a little over an hour away. His eyebrow raised. What fucking cathedral is she at?
Eventually, her phone went dead after a few more hours and Colin left so many voicemails that they filled up her mailbox. Rendering him unable to send out another one. He went downstairs repeatedly, asking the receptionists if there was any chance they’d seen her. They all responded no, every time he asked.
Colin went back to his office, feeling insecure and worried for her. Suspecting he’d done something wrong. He knew he’d been working overtime, but he tried to make it better by bringing her with him. His anger mounted.
Did she run away? I thought we were doing so well…. She gave me gifts just yesterday. Maybe they were goodbye gifts? Did I do something wrong? She wouldn’t leave me without at least telling me, would she?
His receptionists’ lack of concern burned him to his core, and he had to go through the day with a heavy lead feeling in his chest, weighing him down. As the hours passed, and after multiple failed attempts to reach her, his breathing began to be affected.
Uncomfortable, he had to massage his chest several times to help ease the god awful painful ache that had settled and made its home in the spot he knew his heart to be.
Colin was so pissed that he thought about firing his receptionists, but then quickly corrected himself. Because rationally that wasn’t fair and he wasn’t thinking right, obviously.
Continuing to call her just in case she’d found a way to charge her phone, he cursed audibly at every automated “We’re sorry, the person you are trying to reach has a mailbox that is full.”
As he looked out the window at the sun going down, his anger settled deep inside next to that heavy, uncomfortable feeling in his heart. Amplifying into a terrifying emotion that he hadn’t felt in two decades.
Now truly panicking, Colin called Vanessa and Mary back for an update, and his anger burned brighter when they reported that neither of them had heard from Olivia. He refused to leave, staying at the office just in case she’d returned. As it became dark and there was still no sign of her, he broke down and called the police, officially thinking the worst.
Almost an hour later, he was outside the office in the dark, giving the cop a report. His despair mounted when the cop told him that he couldn’t file a missing person’s report until Olivia had been missing for forty-eight hours.
Keeping his back purposefully to the cop’s vehicle, Colin was trying desperately to ignore the police lights lighting up his office building and making his chest tight when he’d spotted Olivia walking up the long street towards them. Her long red hair whipped around her in the night breeze.
She was walking slowly in her green heels with her arms wrapped around herself and looking like she’d been crying. His heart stopped at the almost unbearable sensation of relief, and he fought hard to keep from falling to his knees at the sight of her.
Thank God she’s ok! the rush of relief made him weak, and for a moment he wondered if he would be able to hold it together enough in front of the cop.
Colin broke away from the cop, running to her and snatched her up to him, burying his face in her neck. Relief washed over him in waves, making him feel slightly sick. Olivia let out a strangled sob and wrapped her arms hard around him, shaking. She was cold as she sagged against him.
“Where the hell have you been?!” Colin gritted out at her, grabbing her face and kissing her roughly, visibly trembling. Olivia started crying harder, trying to talk, but he couldn’t hear her pass the blood rushing through his head. She was gripping his shirt desperately, making the material stretch uncomfortably across his chest.
It was suddenly too much, the hours of worrying, the police lights giving him flashbacks, the cold sick feeling that had setttled deep in his stomach.
He placed a hand on the side of her face, assessing her carefully and mentally tamping down the rising anxiety and memories that were trying to break through his mind.
“Amor, are you ok? Did anything happen to you, are you hurt?” he swallowed thickly past the terrified lump in his throat. Feeling himself break out into a sweat at the thought of her being injured, assaulted, possibly violated.
Tears streaming down her face, Olivia shook her head no.
Colin pulled her quickly over to the cops, his hand hard on hers, urging her to tell him what happened so she didn’t have to repeat herself again. He needed to get out of there and quickly before he had an anxiety attack.
He listened to the sharp cracking and scraping of her heels on the concrete as he pulled her up to the officer, the familiar noise momentarily calming him.
“Ma’am,” the older police officer spoke kindly to her. “Can you tell me what happened? This gentleman was so worried about you, are you ok?”
