I Was Saved... by the Jerkface

Boxing

{Two Weeks Later}

I stumbled clumsily through the apartment door, having just gone grocery shopping and carrying five heavy bags. I flipped on the light switch, which was suspiciously off. Blake never left the family room light off - mostly because he was always in there doing something rather.

"Blake?" I called into the house. I got no response. The house appeared to be empty.

I huffed. This was a little strange, but I didn't get too worked up about it. He probably just went on a walk or something. I set the bags down on the kitchen counter, leaning on it to catch my breath from the trek up here.

A blinking light caught my attention out of the corner of my eye. I looked over to find Blake's phone on the far edge of the counter. It was blinking every ten or so seconds, announcing that he'd gotten a text.

I went over to it and stared at it for a few minutes. This was just getting even more strange by the second. Blake never left his phone at home, no matter what he was doing or who he was with. If he went somewhere, even in the apartment, his phone went with him.

I'd never paid much attention to who Blake texted, and admittedly he wasn't addicted to texting or anything, but his phone never left his person. Occasionally he'd pull out his phone and send texts back and forth to someone or maybe more than one someone that I'd never bothered to figure out who it was.

I cautiously picked up his phone, pressing the button at the bottom of his touch screen to get it to unlock and light up.

One Text Message:
Jillian

I idly wondered who Jillian was, but didn't pay too much attention to that. I felt like a snoop and extremely guilty looking through his messages, but I decided to do it anyway. It might give me an idea as to where he was, at least.

Using that as my excuse to ease my conscience, I tapped the message to open it.

Hey babe, i'm near the lower west side, we should get together. Jimmy's? We should catch up, cuz i haven't seen you in FOREVER! love you, Jillian xoxo

I stared at the message for a moment after reading it, not quite comprehending. I exited out of it as fast as I could and set the phone back down, precisely where it was before.

I didn't know where this Jimmy's was, but I was pretty sure that's where Blake went off to. He'd also been in quite a hurry to get there, otherwise he wouldn't have left his phone. Why was this Jillian so important?

In the back of my mind, I knew that really wasn't what I wanted to know. I didn't want to admit it, even to myself, but I knew that I wanted to know why Jillian was calling him babe.

Maybe it was a friendly type of "babe." I hoped so.

*****

I had just gotten comfortable on the family room couch with my blanket and a bowl of popcorn, ready to watch a movie that was on TV when the door opened and Blake came in.

It was about ten o'clock at night – hours after I'd found the message on Blake's phone. I decided it would be suspicious if I outright asked him who this Jillian was and why they were at a guy named Jimmy's house, so I said, "Hey, where've you been?"

At that he didn't say much of anything, just half-grunted an excuse and stumbled off to his room clumsily. I hadn't taken a good look at him, because all the lights were off so I could watch the movie, but from the way he walked I could tell he was more than a little drunk.

This sent me into a minor panic. Blake never got drunk. What the hell was wrong with him today?!

I quickly dropped my bowl of popcorn on the coffee table, shoving the blankets off of me, and made a beeline for his room, bursting through the door that he'd just slammed shut.