And Then What?

by D. R. Graham

  Sophie didn’t say anything and I could tell by her silence that she didn’t think it was good.

  Trevor’s dad wandered into the kitchen and ate a few chicken wings before he realized there was tension. “What’s going on?”

  “Trevor was supposed to be here at eight and he isn’t answering his phone,” I said.

  Jim grabbed another chicken wing. “He’ll be here.” He piled a few other appetizers on a plate, then went back into the living room. When he sat back down, he leaned over to say something to Murphy. Murphy nodded and then got off the couch, walked towards the hallway, and pulled his phone out of his pocket. He rested up against the wall with his enormous back to me. Less than a minute later, he went back to sit beside Jim on the couch and whispered something. They both turned to look at me. When they saw that I was staring at them they both forced smiles before they turned back and pretended to watch the game.

  By nine-fifteen, more people started asking when Trevor was supposed to be arriving. By nine-forty-five, they made polite excuses for why they needed to get back up to Squamish. By ten o’clock, the only people left were my mom, my granddad, Jim, Kailyn, Sophie, and Murphy.

  “Why didn’t Trevor come to his own surprise party?” Kailyn asked her dad in a heartbreaking way.

  “I don’t know, Kiki. Something must have come up.” He patted her shoulder in a reassuring way, even though his expression didn’t sell it.

  There was a long, heavy silence as they all either stared at the floor or fidgeted with whatever happened to be within reach. “I’m sure he’s fine,” Sophie finally said and hugged me.

  “I had a vision this morning,” I blurted out. The words dropped like a grenade. Everyone except Kailyn turned at the same time and stared at me. “In the vision, I couldn’t find him. He was lost and I was calling his name, but he didn’t answer. I’m scared it means something bad has happened.”

  They shot uneasy glances at each other. Ever since I was a kid I’d experienced intuitive visions. I hadn’t had many since I moved away from Britannia Beach, but the ones I did have were very accurate and gave me warning before things like a pop quiz in my lab and when my granddad fell from a ladder in his condo in Squamish. Unfortunately, I didn’t see that one quite early enough to warn him and prevent him from getting a concussion, but luckily I sent Sophie over to check on him. She found him on the floor and took him to the hospital.

  I had assumed the vision I’d had in the morning was a mixed signal or symbolic of something else because Trevor never got lost. He found people who were lost. It still didn’t make sense, but the fact that he was not where he was supposed to be was a very bad sign.

  Sophie dropped dishes into the sink of soapy water and scrubbed vigorously. Murphy left the room, probably to call Trevor again. He returned only a minute later and shook his head at Jim, which made my mom walk out of the kitchen. She sat down in an armchair and stared out the floor-to-ceiling window. Her hand shook as she pressed it to her mouth.

  “Maybe he’s studying and lost track of time. Or, I bet he fell asleep,” Sophie offered. “Doug missed a gig once because he fell asleep. The band tried to get a hold of him, but he’d turned the ringer off on his phone.”

  “You’re probably right.” I checked my phone again to see if I had missed a text. “You guys can head back to Squamish. I’ll go by his dorm to make sure he’s okay.”

  Sophie put her coat on. Jim looked as if he didn’t want to leave, but it was getting late and they still had to drive back to Britannia Beach. “I’ll take Kailyn with me,” Jim said to Murphy. “Thanks for bringing her down.”

  “No problem. I’ll go by the dorm with Derian and call you later,” Murphy said.

  Everyone except Murphy left. I rushed to my room and changed into yoga pants and a sweatshirt, then grabbed my purse. Mom was still sitting in the armchair staring out the window with a distant look on her face. It was the expression she got whenever she was thinking about my dad and the accident. “I’ll call you when we find him,” I said as I took long strides through the living room and met Murphy at the door. It was hard to tell if she heard me. She didn’t move.

  Murphy and I didn’t talk as we waited for the elevator, or as we walked to his old green GMC pick-up truck that was parked on the street in front of the building. He opened the door for me, then walked around the back to get in the driver’s side. The truck shocks shifted and squeaked from his weight.

  “Do you think he fell asleep?” I asked as we headed to the university.

  He took a deep breath. “Probably.”

  “What else could have happened?”

  “Lots of things. I’m sure he’s fine, though.” His fingers tightened around the steering wheel, making his knuckles turn white.

  “The hospital would have contacted Jim by now if he was in an accident. Right?”

  “Probably. I’m sure he’s fine.”

  I looked at Murphy and bit my bottom lip to make it stop trembling.

  “What?” he asked.

  “It’s just as upsetting if he’s fine. It means he forgot about me and didn’t even call to make up an excuse for why he bailed on our date.”

  “I’m sure he’s fine, and I’m sure he didn’t just forget about you. He has worshiped you our entire lives.”

  “Then where the hell is he?”

  He shook his head and seemed to seriously consider the possibilities before he answered, “I don’t know.”

  I turned to look out the passenger side window and went over in my mind the conversation that Trevor and I’d had the evening before. “It’s my fault. I scheduled it two weeks before his real birthday so he wouldn’t suspect anything and then I was too evasive with the plans for tonight. Maybe we had a miscommunication. He probably thought I meant come by if he had time. He’s been really busy lately. I should have told him all of his friends and family were coming down for a party.” I shook my head and sighed. “The surprise was definitely a bad idea.”

  We parked on the south side of the campus and walked along the sidewalk to the dorms. When we entered Trevor’s building, I led the way in front of Murphy down the hallway because his massive frame took up almost the entire width of the corridor. I had to take a few deep breaths to prepare myself for heartbreaking news before I lifted my hand and knocked on the door to his room. There was movement inside and then the door opened. It was his roommate. “Hi, Derian. What’s up?”

  “Hi, Nick. Is Trevor here?”

  “No. I thought he was going over to your place.” He looked over my shoulder at my hulking, bald bodyguard.

  “Oh, sorry. This is Trevor’s best friend, Murphy. Murph, this is Trevor’s room-mate, Nick.” They shook hands. “Trevor was supposed to come over, but he didn’t show up and he’s not answering his phone.”

  “Hmm. That’s not like him. I haven’t seen him since this morning. I think he planned to study with some classmates at the library this afternoon, but it’s probably closed now.”

  I already knew that much, so I hid my disappointment with a forced smile. “Okay, thanks.” I glanced into the room that was only big enough for two desks, two beds, and the one closet that they shared. Who knows why I felt the need to see for myself? He wasn’t going to appear out of thin air. “If you see him will you please ask him to give me a call?”

  “Yeah, of course. I’ll text a couple of our buddies too. Maybe I can track him down.”

  “Thanks, Nick. We’ll just be walking around campus to see if we run into him.”

  “Okay. Good luck.”

  Nick closed the door and my phone buzzed with a text from a number I didn’t recognize: Dealing with something serious. Will call when I can.

  My heart pounded with dread as I held up my phone for Murphy to read the message. “Do you think it’s from Trevor? It must be. Why isn’t he using his own phone? What does he mean by ‘serious’? It’s kind of cryptic. That’s weird, right?”

  Murphy raised his eyebrow in a way that upset me. He didn’t
say anything. He didn’t have to because the deep crease that formed between his eyebrows, and the fact that he wouldn’t look me directly in the eyes, told me he was concerned. I typed a reply, asking for more details, but got no response.

  CHAPTER 2

  Murphy and I rushed down the path that led to the centre of campus. Huge cedar and fir trees lined the walkway and it was dimly lit, so I was extra glad Murphy was with me. I didn’t know if Trevor had meant personally serious like depression and suicidal thoughts, or medically serious like heart pains and broken bones, or mechanically serious like a basement flood, or academically serious like quantum physics. The possibilities were endless.

  With nothing to go on, we checked the library Trevor and I both usually studied at first. It was closed. Sometimes he studied in a student lounge, which was open twenty-four hours, but he wasn’t there either. The campus was essentially a small city with restaurants and coffee shops spread throughout the streets. It would be impossible to check them all, so I focused on places where he hung out the most.

  “Maybe we should check the pubs,” Murphy suggested.

  Even though the thought of Trevor being at a pub instead of on an agreed-upon date with me hurt my feelings, it was the next probable place he would have gone on a Friday night, but still not likely a place where he’d be dealing with something serious. Unless it was a bar fight. We crossed the campus towards the Irish pub he liked the best.

  He wasn’t at the pub so we circled around by the football field and then headed back in the direction of his dorm. About one hundred metres down the dark path, a couple walked towards us. I could only make out their silhouettes and I wouldn’t have thought much of it if I hadn’t recognized the outline of Trevor’s broad shoulders. I stopped walking and stood frozen in the middle of the path as they approached. Murphy didn’t seem to realize it was Trevor, but as they got closer, we heard his voice. The girl laughed as if she’d been drinking. My heart contorted into some sort of seizure and slammed against my lungs, which pushed all the air out. I couldn’t make the breath suck back in.

  She was the something serious he was dealing with? Seriously?

  Murphy reached over and wrapped his arm around my waist to hold me up. Somehow he knew before I did that my knees were just about to get weak from the shock of seeing Trevor with someone else. My eyeballs burned because I hadn’t blinked since I first spotted them. The girl stumbled sideways and had to place one hand down on the ground to steady herself. Trevor attempted to prevent her from falling but she landed on the grass and pulled him as if she wanted him to topple down on top of her. He caught his balance in time and said something to her that I couldn’t quite hear.

  I turned around, twisted out of Murphy’s arms, and hurried down the path away from them.

  “Wait,” Murphy called after me.

  “I’ve seen enough, thanks.”

  “Murphy?” Trevor shouted, and seemed relieved to see him.

  “Is that your friend?” the girl asked. “He’s gigantic.” She laughed. “That’s a funny word—ji-gan-tic, guy-jant-tic. Say it. It sounds funny.”

  “Deri,” Trevor called as I walked away. I didn’t want to know why he was stumbling around at midnight with a drunk girl, so I kept going.

  Murphy ran after me, caught my elbow, and turned me towards him. He leaned in closely and said, “Let me talk to him. Just wait here.”

  “I can’t watch,” I said and fought to hold back tears.

  “You don’t even know what’s going on. I’m going to talk to him. Don’t go anywhere.”

  “Give me the keys. I’ll wait in the truck. And his explanation better be really good.”

  Murphy handed me the keys and turned to go back to where Trevor was helping the woman to her feet as she sang off-key. I hurried back to the parking lot, climbed into the truck, and stared out the window dumbfounded. I thought things had been good between Trevor and me. As far as I knew, everything was great. I was so in love. I would have sworn he was too. I was glad he wasn’t lying dead in a ditch somewhere. But it was completely shattering that he would blow me off to get drunk with some other girl. And then lie about it. It was shocking. It was devastating. It was so not like him.

  Maybe things between us hadn’t been as good as I thought. Maybe I wasn’t putting enough effort into the relationship, or maybe I was a disappointment to him. Did our relationship go from inseparable as children into teenage sweethearts and then slip into the someone-I-used-to-know category without me noticing? Maybe adulthood changed us. It was possible that after waiting thirteen years to date his life-long crush, when it actually happened, I was a colossal let-down. I didn’t feel that way about him. In fact, dating the guy who was not only an amazing friend but also someone I had dreamed of being with for years had turned out to be a million times better than I had even imagined it would be.

  It was my fault the relationship had unraveled. I hadn’t been spending enough time with him. My course load was ridiculously heavy. And even when we did have some spare time between studying, with me being at my mom’s and him having a roommate, we barely had enough privacy to even make out. Maybe he compared us to Sophie and Doug, who had plans to move in together. Or to Murphy and Rene, who already lived together and were ready to start a family. I wasn’t ready for that. Maybe Trevor was.

  I winced when I realized that’s what my vision was about. I lost him.

  The truck door opened, but I didn’t look over because I already knew it was Murphy, not Trevor. “He’s just walking her home. He’ll be right back to talk to you.”

  I shook my head and mumbled, “I’m tired. I just want to go home.”

  “You need to give him a chance to explain, Deri. A situation came up and he didn’t feel she was in a state to get home safely by herself.”

  “I’m really tired and upset. Just call him and tell him I’ll talk to him in the morning.”

  “I can’t. He lost his phone somewhere.”

  “Convenient,” I mumbled.

  Murphy shot me a grow-up-Deri expression. “He’s walking her home so she’ll be safe. You know that.”

  Obviously it was more in character for Trevor to get involved in a situation where someone in trouble needed help rather than blow off plans with me to hang out with some random chick. I knew that, but I also had to face the possibility that I wasn’t cutting it in the girlfriend department. It was late and I was already being snappy and rude due to the lack of sleep from earlier in the week. I was afraid I would make everything worse if I tried to talk about it when I was so exhausted and emotional. “I just want to go home. Please.”

  Murphy sighed and then reluctantly started the truck. He was quiet for most of the drive, then he said, “I know that looked bad, but he’s a good guy, Derian—you know that. And I’ve known him for almost fourteen years; he would never cheat on you. He was just helping someone who got caught up in a dangerous situation. That’s all.”

  “Maybe I did something to push him away, or maybe he wanted something new,” I said as he turned out onto the street.

  “He wants you, Deri. Trust me. He waited until you graduated to ask you out, but he wanted to date you for at least three years before that. And he’s loved you since the day he moved to Britannia Beach. He wouldn’t do anything to disrespect you or screw up what you guys have. If I could get him to stop constantly talking about how great you are, I would.” He smiled as he reached across the cab of the truck and shoved my shoulder. “I’m sick of it, frankly.”

  It did make me feel better to hear Murphy say that, but then the image of Trevor and the woman catapulted me right back into a sludgy pool of self-doubt. “Did he seem unhappy about our relationship lately?”

  “No. A bond like what you two have always had doesn’t just disappear. He’s been stressed out with school and coming up to Britannia Beach for rescues on weekends. But he has never said anything negative about you or the relationship. In fact, when he talks about the future, you are always included in that con
versation. There is no doubt in his mind what he wants.”

  It was true. Trevor never came across as unsure or as losing interest. He had been working really hard at school and still volunteering for Search and Rescue. That girl was definitely too drunk to safely walk home alone. It was most likely all innocent, but because of my vision about losing Trevor, I couldn’t help obsessing about the things I could have done to be a better girlfriend and a better friend to him. I should have never taken what we had for granted. I should have seen the signs that he was drifting away.

  Or maybe he wasn’t. In his defence, he didn’t know about the party. If everybody hadn’t been at the condo waiting it wouldn’t have even been that big of a deal that he didn’t show up. But the vision bothered me. It was trying to warn me that I was losing him. And if that was true, the girl was potentially more than just someone he walked home. Or she might be, at some point in the future. It was an omen. Or not. I didn’t know what to think. And it was giving me a headache.

  When Murphy pulled up in front of my mom’s condo, I opened the door and climbed out of the truck. “Thanks for the ride. Be safe driving home.”

  “Just hear him out.”

  I nodded. “I will. Good night, Murph. Thanks for everything. Don’t forget to call his dad. I don’t want him to worry.”

  I took the elevator upstairs and stood in the hall. I was hesitant to go in because I didn’t want to deal with a million questions from my mom. I couldn’t avoid it forever, though, so I finally decided to plaster a smile across my face and act as if I was totally relieved. My plan was to lie and tell her that he just fell asleep. I opened the door, expecting to see her still sitting in the armchair. Fortunately, it looked as if she’d gone to bed and left one lamp on in the hallway for me.

  I got ready for bed as quickly as I could and dove under my sheets in case she got up and asked me what happened. Only a second after I clicked my lamp off there was a knock on my door. She opened it a crack and poked her head in. I cringed.

  “Everything okay?”

  “Yeah. Everybody is safe and sound. Good night.”