She Looks So Perfect

Chapter Thirty-Two

Ashton's POV

Cailey, my absolutely perfect girlfriend, had finally arrived back to Australia. After nine months in America, she was in my arms once more. Her injury was so much better, and she was eager to start her modeling career back up.

The moment she informed me of her flight, I sprang into action, making sure I was able to be at the airport the moment her plane landed. The fourteen days between the time she had told me of her flight and the day she landed ticked by agonizingly slow, and I could barely concentrate on anything. I was so ecstatic to see my baby girl.

I arrived at the airport half an hour before she was to land, just to be sure I got to the correct terminal in enough time to get to her. I ambitiously waited in a lone chair right outside the door she was supposed to walk through at any moment, when someone noticed me.

"Ashton? Ashton Irwin?" I heard someone squeal from behind me. I turned to see a girl about sixteen years old staring at me with wide, beckoning eyes. I smiled, ready to give her a hug. But then someone else discovered me. And another. And another. Soon enough, there were at least a dozen teenage girls swarming me asking for pictures and autographs.

I started to panic, what if Cailey came out of the door ready to see me and instead is met with a bunch of screaming girls? I smiled lightheartedly and wiped my sweating palms on my jeans before hurriedly working on giving everyone a hug or picture. Just as I could see her plane land out of the corner of my eye, I had taken the last picture with the last fan that had noticed me.

Anxious to see Cailey, I grabbed my coffee from the table I had set it on and waited right outside the terminal doors. I was so damn excited.

Around fifteen minutes had passed before I noticed many people had come off the plane, but Cailey was nowhere to be seen. Without much panic, I mentally decided that she was just having trouble with her carry-on or had seen someone she knew and was merely catching up.

Twenty minutes had gone by and I started wondering whether she got lost on her way out.

After half an hour and the flow of people from her terminal had slowed tremendously, I decided to give her a call. She had to have been off the plane by then, and her phone should have been on. But it wasn't turned on.

I was extremely worried at that point, deciding to ask someone behind a desk nearby if they had any way of knowing where she was, "Excuse me ma'am," I said to some lady wearing a name tag that read 'Amber', "my girlfriend was supposed to get off that plane half an hour ago and she hasn't come in yet. Is there any way you could see if she's still on the plane or is having trouble or anything?"

She smiled a generic smile before clicking some things on her computer and picking up the phone, typing a series of numbers into the keypad and raising the phone to her ear. The wait for someone to appear on the other side of the phone was agonizing for me, but I continued to keep a watchful eye on the terminal door.

"I have a man here looking for his lady friend that was supposed to be on that flight... Yes.... Sweetie, what was her name?" "Cailey." "Her name's Cailey... Yeah, yeah that's what I'm thinking. Okay, thanks, Okay." and she hung up.

"Sir, there's no one else on the plane or littering the sidewalks surrounding it. All we can do is call for her over the entercom once or twice and tell her to meet you here and maybe search her up in our database to see if she had boarded the plane. Have you called her cell or family members?"

"Yeah, her phone is off. I don't really keep in touch with her family."

She was silent for a moment, "Would you like for me to call her over the entercom, sir?"

"Uh yeah, and you can call me Ashton," I found it strange for people to call me sir. I wasn't even 20 and the thought was just weird.

She got Cailey's information from me and called her over the entercom a couple of times. I returned back to the area I started, the lone seat across from her terminal. Chugging the last of my cold coffee, I sat back in the uncomfortable plastic chair and continued to call the phone that wasn't on. Over and over, I tried again until Amber called me back up to the desk.

"Heard from her yet?"

"No I haven't," the worry in my voice super evident.

"I'll check the database to see if she boarded her plane," she said to me, as I repeated her name and flight information as Amber, once again, pecked her rather chubby fingers at the keyboard.

I stood awkwardly, not able to keep still for very long, continuously turning to the terminal doors to hopefully get a glimpse of her shining hair or her perfect smile, maybe the stupid red and white carry-on that she had taken from my closet before returning home. But none of that ever appeared.

An hour after her arrival, I started to get sick. This was ridiculous, her phone was still off and I had no idea what to do. Amber had been replaced with Sebastian, an older man with a beer gut and 5 o'clock shadow. He didn't seem like much help. Although a part of me said not to, the majority of my being told me to venture off into other parts of the airport. If she was on that plane, she was most definitely off now, and she wouldn't be exiting out that terminal door. So what was it going to hurt for me to look for her elsewhere?

I went from terminal 225 all the way to 207, searching around the luggage returns, standing outside the toilets for periods of time, turning hundreds of corners, trying to find my baby girl. Although I hadn't actually done so, I felt like I had lost her, and the guilt and anxiety was settling in. I tried her cell one last time and when it started ringing, my heart skidded across the lining of my chest.

"Ash," she whispered lightly into the phone.

I started breathing again, "Baby, where are you? I've been searching for you for ages."

She was silent for a moment.

"Cails?"

"There's no easy way to say this, Ashton."

"Where are you?"

"Home."

"Like, my house? Who took you? Was it Ry?"

"No, Ashton, I'm at home. In America. I didn't board the flight."

I didn't speak and neither did she.

"Why not?"

"I'm not coming back."

She hung up the phone. 

I never heard from her again. Although she isn't mine,

She's perfect.