Love Persists

Chapter 21

Mandie's POV:
I waited in homeroom for Erik to show up, mindlessly playing with the treble clef ring that he had given me for my birthday. I still could not believe how much money he had spent on me, purchasing four gifts with none of them being all that cheap. In addition to the ring, I had received from him a theatre shirt which said love but the o was in the shape of the comedy and tragedy masks, a signed copy of the playbill from the original production of Dracula on Broadway which he had bought me as I had just done the show, as well as the most expensive present: two tickets to Wicked on Broadway.

We were planning to go see it together, the show he had scheduled being towards the beginning of summer. I was very excited to be able to do something out of state with him and now that I was an adult, my parents no longer having any authority yell at me if I wasn't texting them every hour.

I glanced up at the clock, beginning to grow a bit nervous. Erik was always at school on time, he had never been late once, except for the first day when he was technically not late, but he had missed homeroom. The bell rang to signal the end of homeroom and I immediately sent him a text, asking if he was alright.

Throughout the day, I checked my phone for a response whenever I was given the opportunity, but still he sent no answer. I grew increasingly more worried and was close to leaving the school just to check on him to make sure that he wasn't harmed.

I managed to suffer through the rest of my classes, but immediately drove over to his house as soon as we were dismissed. Knowing that my parents wouldn't even be home anyway, I didn't bother letting them know that I was stopping by his house, focused solely on getting there.

There came no response when I knocked on the door, but I did find the front door unlocked. Glancing around to make sure no one was watching, I opened the door and stepped into the still house. Shivers ran down my spine as I began to look around the seemingly abandoned house for either Erik or Nadir.

After searching thoroughly and repetitiously calling out their names, I finally convinced myself that they were not home and that I should return to my own house. The discovery of an empty house, only caused more worrying on my part, but I tried my best to believe that they had most likely just gone somewhere else for the day and potentially didn't have internet access wherever they were.

To keep myself from going insane, I told myself that I wouldn't jump to any conclusions until I didn't hear from him for twenty four hours. If he didn't show up to school tomorrow then I would allow myself to start worrying and trying to decipher what could have happened to me.

Instead, I drove home and began to work on my homework, of which I had lots. We were getting into the time of AP testing so I had many exams to prepare for. Although on the bright sight, I wouldn't have much else to do after the exam period was over as the majority of my classes were AP.

I used the preparation for the exams as a distraction from Erik, but it didn't work very well. Instead the of the exams taking my mind off of Erik it was more like Erik was taking my mind of the exams. I hated myself for letting a guy affect me academically like that, but at the same time I was terrified that something bad had happened to him.

The following day, he was absent from school once again and people other than me began to notice. In the hallways I would be mocked about his disappearance, which normally wouldn't have affected me except for I was genuinely concerned that something terrible had happened to him and Nadir, so it pained me to have them mocking the dire situation.

By the end of the week I could only come up with one solution for their sudden disappearance without a trace or warning: they had been sent back to their own time, which meant I would never see them again.