This Doesn't Happen in Real Life

Chapter 48: Corrupted Lungs

I had originally planned on trying to build this massive sense of tension and suspicion within my retelling of my own tale. I have a funny sort of weakness for that; I don't usually like doing things quickly. I'm not the person who jumps headfirst into things, I don't yank the bandage off, and I certainly don't just tell someone the giant emotional moment right off the bat. So I had planned the story to start way back as I got off the airport, milled about, did nothing, and waited for David to pick me up. Then I was going to have the whole peaceful (almost) car ride to David's home and the late lunch with Georgia and the kids. All of that detail to either make you suspicious about the whole getup or get tired and grumble, "When the heck will this move forward?"

However, sometimes I've found the best thing really is to jump right into the middle of the action. So that is exactly what I shall do:

We'd had our lunch. I was contented and wishing for a good, long nap. David and I were lazily trading our stories from the past week. I fished my phone out of my jean pocket to show him a picture of Kana holding my hips while I kissed the Blarney Stone.

"Like you need to be bestowed with the gift of gab- HA!" David teased.

I rolled my eyes and pulled up the picture. "I can always use a bit more eloquence and persuasive skills, thank you." I retorted.

"The one holding you is..."

"Kana, I told you about her. She's a sweetheart. And Spence took the picture." I closed the photo and winced at the painfully red notification buttons on over my text, email, and phone icons. I always did my best to keep my phone off as much as possible on breaks and vacations. I'd checked it a total of three times in Ireland, the last having been two nights prior.

"147 unread emails, 72 new texts, and 19 missed calls and voicemails! It's been two days, not two months!" I said with mock surprise.

David chuckled, "And people wonder why some of us "celebrities" try to limit our social medias, between the basic three it's already enough to overload your poor phone."

I laughed, "Your fanbase would collectively faint if you even got a twitter and just updated it once a year."

I started clicking through the various notifications just so the annoying red bubbles would go away. One caught my eyes. I had a missed call and voicemail from Lilith. This struck me as very odd because though she had a phone (in her shop) she told me that she didn't prefer to use it, "A nice handwritten note is what I like, you can get a lot more meaning from looking at how they form the letter "o" than on a text or something. If the message has to be instantaneous though I will send an email or leave a voice message... but it's simply not the same!"

Lilith was an interesting character to be sure. I got the feeling I should definitely listen to the voicemail. It'd been sent yesterday at 4:08pm. I gave David a "pause" signal while I pressed the message and held the phone up to my ear.

"You'll want to call me back when you get this message my dear, trust me. Have a safe flight back home." The message was short... which was unnerving. Lilith had the more common gift of gab, meaning that she could talk and talk and talk and (while it was always entertaining) her messages, handwritten or not were always lengthy. Short was weird... maybe even bad.

I furrowed my eyebrows and pulled the phone back down. I quickly called back. The phone rang once, twice, thrice... "Lilith's Lovingly Looked after Flowers, how may I help you?" sang the familiar, chipper voice.

"Hi Lilith, it's Callia. You left me a message yesterday?"

"Oh. Hello, my dear! How was your adventure?" The chipper voice toned down from an 8 to a 4 on the Lilith scale.