Not A Temporary Love | Finley & Harlyn #1

Chapter 30

Harlyn

My phone vibrates against my desktop, and the music blaring through my headphones stops. My heart starts pounding before I even check the caller ID. Is it Elly? Finley? They're both not callers, but maybe? Or maybe it's just Bobbi asking me to come in to work today. I've been working all week because I took last weekend off to go to Paris and this weekend off to spend time with Marley and Mel while they're in town for Easter. But I wouldn't put it past her to try to call me in today. But when I finally turn my phone over, it's Max's name on the screen.

"Max?" I answer, letting my headphones drop to my lap.

"Hey, Harlyn," Max greets. "Sorry to call unexpectedly, but I texted and you didn't answer."

I pull my phone down from my ear, and sure enough, there's four missed texts from him. None from anyone else, of course. Just Max. It's just been Max this week. I've answered him sporadically on breaks from work or at 2 am when I can't sleep. It's been nice. But I can't help feeling like it's because he feels bad for me.

"Oh, sorry," I say, returning the phone to my ear.

"It's all good," he assures. "I'm just at my great aunt's house alone and I thought I'd call and see how you are." There's something in his tone that I can't read, like he's biting his lip and holding something back. But I don't comment. For now.

"Oh, I'm good. Marley and his fiancée are in town for Easter. They drove down this morning. They're downstairs with Mum and Dad. Playing Monopoly, I think."

"Did I pull you away? Sorry. You can -"

"No no," I interrupt. "It's all good. I lied and said I had a Zoom study group for a class. I've really just been listening to music for the last hour? I'm trying this being alone thing Finley's so fond of. I don't get it."

He chuckles, waits a beat, and then says, "Actually, I was going to ask you about him."

"Oh?" I choke. "There's nothing to say. I still haven't heard from him."

"He still hasn't texted you back?" Max asks, and the real reason he called clicks. He's worried. Of course, he is. "I've been texting and calling him all week, but he hasn't responded to me, either." There's definite worry in his voice now, dripping from every word.

My heart falls to my stomach. "He hasn't?"

"No," Max mutters. "I was hoping it was because he was too busy being all goony with you. But I knew that was too optimistic."

I sit straighter on my bed, switch the call to speaker, and thumb open my messages again. Nothing. I pull up his blog. No new posts. Instagram. No new stories. Not that he posts much on social media anyway. I try to keep the rising worry from surfacing.

"Do you think he's ok?" I ask, trying to imply without saying what I'm actually thinking.

Max seems to catch my drift. "I'm sure he's...ok. Like, if anything happened, Amelia would let me know. For sure. Or his parents would have told me. I'm not worried about...that. But -"

"You are worried," I say.

"Yeah," he sighs. "I'm worried that he's pushing everyone away again, hiding, avoiding. Slipping back into old ways."

It would make a lot of sense why he hasn't responded, not even with an apology or an explanation or even a "No, you're better off without me." He's talked before, of course, about his senior year, the months of college before going to therapy. And I've seen it a little, in the way he draws inward when he's thinking too hard like he was in Paris. The way he pretends like everything's fine and goes about whatever he's doing. How he talks about liking to be alone. He doesn't want to burden people, add to their worries, always apologizing when he's even the most minor inconvenience. But this is something else entirely. He's not even talking to Max. And that scares me.