AQUIVER || Award-winning short stories about love won and lost

Obsession

Despite the destruction our relationship had wreaked on my life, his departure was much worse.

I stopped painting. I stopped leaving the apartment.

For the past week, I've woken up on the cold, tiled floor every morning, not knowing where I am or what happened the night before.

This morning, I wake up next to an oil painting I can't remember making. It's a paltry echo of my earlier work, sucked dry of inspiration. The slashes are raw and clumsy, crimson droplets spattered over the canvas like blood.

When Nathan left, he took my muse with him.

Maybe all I need is closure. I need to tell him I'm sorry for the pain I've caused. I need to see the finality in his blue eyes, before I can accept we're really over.

My fingers shake so badly I have trouble finding his best friend's contact in my phone. It takes me an hour before I work up the courage to press the call button.

"How dare you call me?!" Her shriek startles me into dropping my phone on the counter. I grapple with it only to find she's hung up on me.

For the first time, I realise that Nathan may be hurting as much as I do. He was the one to leave, so I never dreamed I still affected him.

Clearly, calling his friends or family won't do me any good.

I should just let go.

I find I can't.

That night, he haunts my dreams, and I wake up gasping for breath with the tie tight between my fingers.

Staring out of the window, I count the seconds until the morning sun lights up the facade of the quaint pub across the street.

Dressed in jeans and a white T-shirt that's too large for my dwindling body, I leave the apartment and shiver in the morning chill. I can't be bothered to go back upstairs for a jacket.

Shoving my hands deep in my pockets, I set a brisk pace towards the tube station to get across London. If I want to 'run into' Nathan for a face-to-face conversation, starting at his parents' place in Hammersmith seems like the most logical option.

I will find him. I have to.

An hour and two crowded tube rides later, I arrive in the bustling street his parents live in. When we first moved in, Nathan took me to meet his parents, and the same sense of overwhelming panic strikes me now. Then, all I wanted was to impress the most important people in Nathan's life. Now, I crave to see Nathan's face—stubble on his pale face if he's staying in, or clean-shaven and ready for work.

I can't imagine he's found a new place yet. He must be here. He must be.

Cappuccino warming my trembling hands, I sit at the window of the coffee shop across the house and watch, wait.

The curtains are drawn. Nothing moves.

As the minutes crawl by, the nerves bloom into full-blown panic, and my ever-present headache turns into a thunderstorm of pain.

What if he's not here? I don't know where his friends live. We used to meet in bars and restaurants in the city, until our relationship soured too much to be together in public. Until we'd become a dark secret, hidden in our apartment.

Finally, the white of the curtains flutters. I see the flash of a pale face before it's gone again, and hope overwhelms me.

Maybe he's there after all.

I wait.

Dark eyes look straight in mine the next time the curtain moves. I wonder if it's his father; I seem to remember dark brown, friendly eyes meeting mine during our slightly awkward dinner.

The face disappears again, and I'm reduced to tapping my foot in drawn-out waiting.

A police car draws up to the curb in front of the house, lights flashing so brightly I have to close my eyes for a moment. Two police officers walk up to the dark green door, and fear strikes me.

What if something happened to Nathan?

Cold coffee spills over the edge of my cardboard cup as I squeeze too hard. I reach for some napkins to clean up the mess, never taking my eyes off the front door.

Another police car arrives, in silence and without flashing lights, thank god. This time, the officers come my way and enter the coffee shop.

I guess everyone needs their morning cup of bittersweet wake-me-up goodness.

When they approach me, I plaster on the friendliest smile I can manage. It's crazy how nervous police makes me, even when I've done nothing wrong.

The eyes of the female officer remind me of Nathan's, striking blue and stern. The man stares at me with a fierce scowl, before he proclaims, "Will Jones, you are under arrest on suspicion of involvement in the disappearance of Nathan Hart."