After hours

Chapter Forty-Three

~*~*~*~ Daniel’s POV ~*~*~*~

                “Damn it Ryan, will you pick up the phone!” I yelled into her voice mail.

                I didn’t know what was going on. I had tried countless times to reach her and she wouldn’t take my calls! I’d gone back to her house that night and she was gone. I knew she was probably shaken up and excited and went to her sister for support. But damn it. This was getting ridiculous.

                I had to talk to her. I had bought her ring. Had gone home to Victoria who had already packed her things. So I hadn’t been completely honest. Victoria and I had already decided it was time we try a separation. But I wasn’t planning on separating, I was planning on humoring her and letting her think she came up with the idea of divorce.

                I was going to be with Ryan. I just didn’t want Tori to hurt anymore than she had to. I was biding my time. But I was choosing Ryan. No questions asked. She was the one my heart beat for, the one I went to sleep thinking about. God it hurt to be away from her. Laying in an empty guest bed as I had for months now. I wanted her with me.

                But why wasn’t she taking my calls? The final straw was when she didn’t show up to work on Monday. I’d left early and was making my way to her cozy little apartment now, still trying to reach her on the phone. And still, she wasn’t picking up! It had been three Goddamned days!

                I couldn’t stand to take the elevator. If I’d stopped moving I was going to implode. I ran up the stairs faster than I knew my feet to move and plundered through the doors.

                I nearly collapsed when I threw the door open.

Everything was gone.

                Her apartment. It was empty. The coffee table where a pizza box always rested, the couch where we’d nuzzled together on countless nights, the TV that housed out favorite reruns. I went through the whole apartment frantically. Our bed was gone. The shower curtain, the cupboards were empty, even the room that was filled to the top with junk she insisted she was going to use some day. Gone, gone, everything GONE!

                Everything except for her cell phone which she’d left plugged in on the counter and the promise ring I’d given her so many, many months ago rested on top of the screen.

                I went through her phone, but the call logs (except for my own frantic calls) had been wiped clean since Friday, browser history cleared, contacts deleted, text logs, the phone itself had been restored to factory settings.

                In my despair I smashed the phone off the counter before crumbling to the ground.

~*~*~*~ Ryan’s POV ~*~*~*~*~

                I rested on the couch in a bathrobe. It seemed unnecessary to make robes this soft, I mean, weren’t you just going to put them on, get them wet, and then take them off?

                “How are you feeling?”

                I glanced up swiftly. “Awful.”
                He grinned and the familiarity of his dimples nearly sent me into another hysterical break down.

                “That sounds about right. I’ve got to say, I was surprised you called.”

                “Me too.” I admitted and turned my gaze back to the floor.