Head in the clouds

Thirty Six - Theo

"I love you Morgan." I watched her face closely as she went through a range of emotions. Her eyes fell to the floor and when she lifted, she chuckled.

"I need to pee." She pulled her hand from mine, ducking out of my arms and across the room. I wasn't expecting her to respond. At all, truthfully. But the last few days away cemented it in my mind and I knew it for certain that I did. This isn't one of those things that you keep locked up when you feel it.

She ducked down at the table, moving out of the room, purse in hand. I'll give her a few minutes. I did just kind of drop that on her, she'll go to the bathroom, breath for a few minutes and come back and I can finish telling her she doesn't need to say it back.

"What happened?" Cohen grabbed my arm, pulling me off the dance floor.

"What do you mean? She needs the loo." He nodded. "Want a drink?"

"I will never turn down a drink." We moved through the crowd, landing at the end of the bar. We waited our turn, ordered two whiskeys on ice and sipped them quietly there. Chatting about everything and nothing. Turns out he followed his dad into music but didn't want to teach or go into music properly so he just started selling instruments. Makes him a decent amount of money and he's flexible on timing now too. Cohen said Morgan bought all of her instruments, recording equipment at both her places from him and it set him up for a good year. Even now, she will only buy her guitar strings or picks from him. Which the most Morgan thing I've ever heard. "Where is Morgan anyway? We've been stood here like 45 minutes." I looked at my watch, then put my empty glass on the bar, grabbing my phone out of my pocket.

21:36I'm sorry

"Shit." I looked around quickly. No where. With my heart pounding in my chest, I headed out to reception. I'm not sure when she was having the rental car picked up but it wasn't there now.

"What's up?" Cohen tried to keep up as I walked to the lift quickly, hitting the button over and over again like it was going to make any difference on how quickly it was going to get here.

"I don't know." I tried calling her. Phones off. Keep calm Theo. The last thing anyone needs right now is a scene. I called Ava, if anyone had spoken to her it would have been Ava or Noah and I didn't have the time to call them both.

"Theodore Wright. What?"

"Have you spoken to Morgan in the past like 45 minutes?"

"Is this important? We're kind of-"

"Ava, I don't know where she is." The bed creaked on the other end of the line. "Cohen can you tell your mum to keep an eye out. She has my number."

"What did you do Theo?"

"I didn't do anything Ava for fuck sake. She was fine. She smiled and she laughed and then she went to the toilet and 40 minutes later she's text me saying she's sorry and the car's gone but I don't know if it's been picked up already but her phone's off." I stepped into the lift, Cohen walking back towards the party and I sighed. "I told her I loved her Ava."

"YOU WHAT? Why would you do that?"

"Because I thought it's a fun joke. Why do you fucking think I told her that? For shits and gigs?" She sighed.

"She's a flight risk Theo."

"The fuck you mean she's a flight risk?"

"Okay. Look if you're telling her you love her I'm guessing you two are a thing and you've been lying to everyone? Which you're lucky I'm skipping over right now but I will rip you to shreds when I see you, don't be thinking you're getting away with it. Did she at least tell you about Cole?"

"Who's Cole?" She sighed.

"Cole is why Morgan doesn't do dating and relationships. She makes up the whole tour shit but it's Cole. I don't think this is-"

"Ava, I swear to god." She sighed again, muttering something to Jasper before grumbling.

"Give me 2 seconds. I'll grab Noah." The lift doors pinged and I breathed for a second, praying that she was just sat in her room. That she'd had too much to drink when I wasn't looking and was throwing up and that's why she's apologizing. Because she ran off to be sick when she was having fun. So, I kept praying as I ran down the empty hallway, tapping my key on the door and walking into the empty, abandoned room. I'd drunk too much tonight to be able to drive back too and I know she'd only had 2 glasses of wine tops. I hadn't drunk a lot. the same 2 glasses of wine and honestly, I'd be fine to drive if it hadn't been that whiskey making my head the slightest bit fuzzy.

"What do you mean he told her he loves her? In Leeds?"

"Noah." Ava sighed as I heard Noah's voice break me out of my thoughts.

"Is he fucking dumb?"

"Noah, she didn't tell him about Cole."

"Who the fuck is Cole and what does it have to do with why my girlfriend is nowhere to be seen?" The line went quiet and I was losing my temper. "Hello?"

"Did you say girlfriend?" I groaned.

"That's not important right now can someone tell me who the fuck Cole is?"

"Are you really going to tell him? Will she not go mad?"

"Doesn't he deserve to know though?"

"HELLO?" I fell back into the bed, getting more and more pissed off the longer this went on. "Look guys. I'll deal with whatever fall out she has for it just tell me who he is." Ava sighed.

"Cole was an ass Theo. They were together for a while. It was 10 months right Noah?"

"About that."

"He was with her just before her uncle died when he was getting sick and he was great but then like just as she was getting ready for the tour, he changed, became super controlling. By the end Morgan was just a fucking mess. You know what she's like for putting on her smile and carrying on but she was just gone inside. It was kicking off at home, there was loads of drama with her aunts and cousins and her parents and Kennedy coming out and he kind of used that. Told her he loved her and that' why he was keeping her away from everything. She nearly cancelled the tour and a shit tonne of other stuff. But we managed to convince her to go and a few months in, he called her up, told her he loved her but she was never going to be enough for him, never going to be there 100% of the time, never going to be tall enough or thin enough or quiet enough and ended it."

"Yeah, see that's something it'd be nice to have known before today guys."

"Well, WE didn't know you two were a thing did we?"

"Well, we are now can we stop and work out what to do because she's obviously on her way either to you guys or back to London and I've drunk too much to follow her and there's no trains until the morning now." Noah sighed.

"I'll drive up to meet her in London I doubt she'd come here because then she'd have to answer why. Don't flood her with calls or anything. Give her some space. I'll let you guys know when she's with me. Theo get the first train you can. I'll talk to her in the meantime. It's fine. We've talked her off this ledge before V. We'll do it again. Don't worry. Either of you."

This is going to be the longest night of my life.