Checkmate | JB

IX.

Nine.

✘

↠ November 15: Lunch ↞

I hurried out the door, I was already calling the police at that point but no one was catching on what I was saying. I ended up hanging up, realising they weren't going to help me anyway. I heard that the person on the other line had talked about a person having to be missing for over twenty-four hours before they could start looking. They were, obviously, all stupid. I knew something was wrong, there was a crime scene in my fucking bathroom and no one was taking me seriously?

The police could go fuck themselves.

It felt like my lungs would explode due to the need of oxygen. Pure terror filled me as I searched the streets for my car, shaking uncontrollably. Once I found it, I sat down and tried to inhale deeply. I counted to then before I let the air out again. It was my anxiety tricks my therapist Kristen had taught me and usually, they would work but this time, they didn't help.

There was a tingling feeling that felt like numbness in my chest when I sped off in an extreme pace. I could hear the honks outside my car, telling me I was dangerously close to crash. I didn't care. In fact, I wouldn't mind crashing right about now. I felt like a complete asshole for letting her out of my sight.

I tried to go through our conversations, to see if she had mentioned anything about some kind of dangerous person to me. If she had mentioned about being in trouble to me. That, someone, was looking for her.

But nothing entered my mind of being out of the ordinary.

Her scream was on repeat in my head. I cursed myself for not getting inside the bathroom quicker, for being in panic at that moment that I must have completely lost my mind. It wasn't the way I should have reacted. I should've broken in quicker. It is my house, I should've known how to open the goddamn door and help her.

Whoever broke into the bathroom, hurt her. Her scream was deafening to me, the numb feeling in my chest only increased when I thought about it. I left her to suffer. All that blood, someone hurt her. In my own house.

My thoughts were brought back to reality when I heard a honk and a passenger that passed right in front of me scream through their car window, "Asshole!"

I nodded and agreed with them, feeling like that exact word. I could come up with so many disgusting words to call myself right about now. I wasn't a gentleman. I didn't save her when she needed me to. What kind of man was I? I should have saved her. This is all my fault. If I only would have broken in, perhaps I wouldn't be sitting in this car right now and she wouldn't have lost that much blood in my bathroom.

Whoever broke in must have known my house. It must be someone I know, that have figured out my house. Spied on her. Who would have known she was in there, at that exact moment? And knew that I didn't know how to open the bathroom door.

As quickly as I had reached the bar, I stepped outside while trying to see if there were other people there. It must have been my lucky day because when I walked in, I was met with a huge grin from the male bartender. Any other day that I would walk in here and see him, I would be disappointed. I think this may have been the only day that I was happy to see him.

"I need to speak to you!" I said as I jogged up to the bar's disk. I could sense all gazes towards me, everybody seeming extremely interrupted (in what I assumed were their heartbreak grieving) by my presence, "Is Bella here?"

He gave me a confused look and motioned with his hands to continue talking, "Bella...? What's her last name?"

I blinked a few times, realising I didn't know the answer to his question. I had been with this girl for slightly more than a week but still, I didn't even know her last name. It didn't take much for me to curse myself out again but I didn't have time to blame myself for things. All I was focused on was finding Bella.