Out Of Sight, Out Of Mind - Treebros

Chapter 31: "Such Small Doses"

Wednesday, April 10th

  Connor should have texted me almost an hour ago. He told me. He promised me that he would tell me when he got home. I always get worried when he takes the bus home, and he knows that.

But It's 4:30. School let out an hour ago. And no sign of Connor. Nothing. I think I've worried a hole in my shirt with how much I've been rubbing it.

He could have just forgotten. Maybe he fell asleep. Or got caught up on homework. Any of the perfectly reasonable explanations that could exist.

But maybe Connor got kidnapped as he was walking from the bus stop. Maybe he got hit by  a car. Maybe he got struck by lightning. Maybe he slipped in the pouring rain and cracked his skull on concrete, and now he's bleeding out all alone somewhere and I'm just sitting here not doing anything and letting my boyfriend die.

And now I'm hyperventilating. Which doesn't help anything. Breathing hard isn't gonna stop Connor from dying on the sidewalk. So I just need to sit down. And breathe.

My phone vibrates against my desk, and I lunge across my bed for it, ripping it off the charger. Connor's calling.

"Connor? Why haven't you called, what's wrong? Is everything okay?" I ask, trying to muffle my breathing so I don't destroy Connor's ears.

"Yeah, yeah. I'm fine. Is Heidi home?" he asks, except that he's wheezing too.

"What do you think?"

"Cool. Cool. Okay. Um. Do you have like, uh, y'know, access to a car or something?" Somethings wrong. I feel it in the way that dogs can tell someone's about to have a seizure. There's a deepset sickness that rocks my bones.

"Why? What's wrong? Where are you?" I question, even more worried than I was before. Now it's basically confirmed that he's hurt.

"Can you pick me up at school?" Connor asks, voice strained. I can hear small pants into the phone. He's too casual, like when someone walks in the room and you have to act natural. He can't quite hide the pain in his voice.

"It's, it's 4:30. Why are you still at school? Are you bleeding out somewhere? I thought you said that you were taking the bus because Zoe couldn't drive you and you're still at school so clearly the buses are gone, why are just now calling me? What's going-"

"Ev, calm down. Can you come pick me up? I can call Cynthia or something if you can't, it's fine," he says, voice crackling over the phone. Why did he say Cynthia? Why is he acting like it's completely fine when somethings obviously wrong?

"Why'd you call her Cynthia, what happened?" I ask, biting my thumbnail. There's so many things wrong right now. Connor never calls, he sounds in pain, he hasn't called Cynthia by her first name in months, he's not telling me what happened. Not to mention that normally he knows how stressed out I get and tries to quell my anxiety, but right now it's like he doesn't even remember.

"Evan. I just did, it wasn't on purpose. I'm not mad at her or anything," he justifies. If he's going for nonchalant, it's not working.

"Okay, okay. I'll. Um," I stammer. I want to help him so badly, and I feel physically ill that I can't. Self-loathing crawls up my throat and I choke.