The Rubys

9| i n t r u d e

Sunday | 3:30 p.m.

By Sunday afternoon, Rey lost count of the number of times she had called T.J. There were no answers. No messages. Just like yesterday morning, all her calls went to voicemail.

This was very unlike T.J and she couldn't shake off the worry that was starting to overpower her thoughts. Finally tired of spamming his phone with messages and calls, she decided to actually go find him in person. Rey guessed he would either be at his apartment or his parents' house though they were currently out of town. She decided to check the former first.

T.J lived in one of those luxurious apartment complexes harbored in a gated community of beautiful four story buildings. Rey parked her car right across T.J's building and made her way up to the third floor.

Punching in his security code, she entered into the foyer and half-expected to see T.J sitting on one of his sleek leather sofas in the living room either reading or playing his PlayStation. Except that he wasn't. There was no sign of him in the seemingly vacant house.

The apartment was unlit, the curtains tightly drawn, and Rey opened the lights and moved towards the windows to draw the blinds to allow the sunlight in. The air in the house felt slightly stuffy and stale, as though the room hadn't been ventilated for a few days. Other than that, everything was exactly the way it had always been—the cushions on the sofa in their place, the books on the whitewood shelf neatly stacked, the TV remote in its usual spot on the glass coffee table. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary.

That didn't do anything to reassure Rey, but instead propelled her anxiousness further. T.J wasn't picking up his phone and he wasn't at his house, which seemed unused for days. This was out of his character and even then, Rey would have thought he was on some unplanned fishing trip or out hiking some rocky trails, except the last time people saw him was with her sister. On the night she died. And nothing good ever came out after meeting Chevelle.

Rey crossed the living room and walked towards T.J's king size bed at the other end of the huge open room. Just like the whole house, the bed was neatly made, the sheets unwrinkled. Then, something caught Rey's eyes.

There, on the bedside table, was T.J's phone, lying idly on the glass slab. She reached for it instantly and opened it, to see over ten missed calls and fifteen messages all from her. Rey cringed inwardly. For an ex-girlfriend, that was a whole lot of calls and messages. But T.J wasn't just an ex. He was one of her closest friends who she would never stop worrying about.

She scrolled down the lock screen to check if there were other calls from anyone else, but the phone screen went black, indicating the battery's gone. Sighing, she placed the phone into her purse.

This is weird, Rey thought as she moved towards the walk-in-closet. Why did T.J leave his phone if he was going somewhere? He was one of those people who would never go out without their phone.