Getting Over Cameron Grey

4 | Why Am I Like This?

I considered Amara's recommendation for a few days. I kept the card under a basket of fruit in the kitchen, glanced at it every morning for the next four or five days and thought about it every time the situation seemed to get worse. Although it was clear to me in both Cameron and Hannah's notes that they had no expected return date from the start, it apparently wasn't so clear to my mother. She spent more and more of her free time crying in the stock room at The Sweetest Gift when she thought no one was listening, and it was sad and awkward to listen to. Speaking of sad and awkward, the emptiness of my own apartment became almost unbearable. It'd been six years since I slept alone. Every creak in the apartment seemed even scarier to me during the night since it was just me, and I had never realized before how comforting it was to have someone with you all the time. Even when Cameron wasn't there, I at least had Ruffles. But I had neither at that point.

I barely slept from that Friday night to the following Saturday. I tried to sleep, several times, in fact, but woke up scared out of my mind at the smallest sound coming from outside of the bedroom. But I was too scared to open the door. So I sat in my bed and distracted myself with every available readable thing in the room and waited until the sun shone in so that I could sleep in peace. But I couldn't even sleep then, because I decided that speaking to the detective was a must. I was too exhausted to weigh my options as much as I usually did. I circled the living room and scratched my head while I waited for someone to pick up. The phone rang once, twice, thrice, and then someone answered. There was a short pause before a man spoke up. "This is Cody Tae, P.I. How can I help you today?"

He had a nice voice. It was about as deep as Cameron's but a little raspier, and he spoke slowly and wasn't particularly friendly or unfriendly-sounding. But I found his voice strangely attractive. Is this what happens when Cameron goes missing for a few days? I'm just in love with the first man voice I hear? 

"Hi, hello." I cleared my throat awkwardly. "I... uh, I need help with something. I don't really know how to start because this is my first time needing this sort of, um, service. I'm sorry."

"It's fine." Something rustled in the background and he paused again. "This – the consultation – is free, which means you can ask me any questions you have about my capabilities as an investigator or about the agency itself. Things like that. If you don't have any specific questions, then you can tell me a little bit about your situation and I'll tell you if there's anything that I can do to help."

"Okay." I continued to circle my living room. "Okay. I'll just jump into it then."

He didn't say anything and neither did I, at least for half a minute. Then I jumped into it. "My boyfriend broke up with me last week. And it seems like he left me for my little sister. Nobody knows where they've gone to, and I guess that's what I want to know. They took my dog too, so I mostly just want to get my dog back. I don't know if there's anything exactly that you can do, but my friend gave me this number and told me to try so..."

"And trying is good. Unfortunately, I can't do anything about your dog. But I can probably find your boyfriend and your sister. Once you know where they are, you can ask the local police department in their area to seize the dog for you."

Somehow, involving the police made me nervous. Hannah had a few run-ins with the police during high school, and the last thing I wanted was to irritate her and the situation by somehow getting her arrested. But he didn't need to know all of that. "Okay. So how much would it cost for you to find them? How would that work?"

"The cost depends on the difficulty of the search. Would you be available to discuss this further, in-person, sometime this week? Or would you rather do it over the phone?"

I considered it. "I could meet you."

It was hard to put a face to the voice. I imagined someone ruggedly handsome and maybe with a full but neatly trimmed beard. I plopped down on the couch and checked my phone. My shift started at noon.