shook his head and seemed to seriously consider the possibilities before he answered, “I don’t know.”
I turned to look out the passenger side window and went over in my mind the conversation that Trevor and I’d had the evening before. “It’s my fault. I scheduled it two weeks before his real birthday so he wouldn’t suspect anything and then I was too evasive with the plans for tonight. Maybe we had a miscommunication. He probably thought I meant come by if he had time. He’s been really busy lately. I should have told him all of his friends and family were coming down for a party.” I shook my head and sighed. “The surprise was definitely a bad idea.”
We parked on the south side of the campus and walked along the sidewalk to the dorms. When we entered Trevor’s building, I led the way in front of Murphy down the hallway because his massive frame took up almost the entire width of the corridor. I had to take a few deep breaths to prepare myself for heartbreaking news before I lifted my hand and knocked on the door to his room. There was movement inside and then the door opened. It was his roommate. “Hi, Derian. What’s up?”
“Hi, Nick. Is Trevor here?”
“No. I thought he was going over to your place.” He looked over my shoulder at my hulking, bald bodyguard.
“Oh, sorry. This is Trevor’s best friend, Murphy. Murph, this is Trevor’s room-mate, Nick.” They shook hands. “Trevor was supposed to come over, but he didn’t show up and he’s not answering his phone.”
“Hmm. That’s not like him. I haven’t seen him since this morning. I think he planned to study with some classmates at the library this afternoon, but it’s probably closed now.”
I already knew that much, so I hid my disappointment with a forced smile. “Okay, thanks.” I glanced into the room that was only big enough for two desks, two beds, and the one closet that they shared. Who knows why I felt the need to see for myself? He wasn’t going to appear out of thin air. “If you see him will you please ask him to give me a call?”
“Yeah, of course. I’ll text a couple of our buddies too. Maybe I can track him down.”
“Thanks, Nick. We’ll just be walking around campus to see if we run into him.”
“Okay. Good luck.”
Nick closed the door and my phone buzzed with a text from a number I didn’t recognize: Dealing with something serious. Will call when I can.
My heart pounded with dread as I held up my phone for Murphy to read the message. “Do you think it’s from Trevor? It must be. Why isn’t he using his own phone? What does he mean by ‘serious’? It’s kind of cryptic. That’s weird, right?”
Murphy raised his eyebrow in a way that upset me. He didn’t say anything. He didn’t have to because the deep crease that formed between his eyebrows, and the fact that he wouldn’t look me directly in the eyes, told me he was concerned. I typed a reply, asking for more details, but got no response.
Murphy and I rushed down the path that led to the centre of campus. Huge cedar and fir trees lined the walkway and it was dimly lit, so I was extra glad Murphy was with me. I didn’t know if Trevor had meant personally serious like depression and suicidal thoughts, or medically serious like heart pains and broken bones, or mechanically serious like a basement flood, or academically serious like quantum physics. The possibilities were endless.
With nothing to go on, we checked the library Trevor and I both usually studied at first. It was closed. Sometimes he studied in a student lounge, which was open twenty-four hours, but he wasn’t there either. The campus was essentially a small city with restaurants and coffee shops spread throughout the streets. It would be impossible to check them all, so I focused on places where he hung out the most.
“Maybe we should check the pubs,” Murphy suggested.
Even though the thought of Trevor being at a pub instead of on an agreed-upon date with me hurt my feelings, it was the next probable place he would have gone on a Friday night, but still not likely a place where he’d be dealing with something serious. Unless it was a bar fight. We crossed the campus towards the Irish pub he liked the best.
He wasn’t at the pub so we circled around by the football field and then headed back in the direction of his dorm. About one hundred metres down the dark path, a couple walked towards us. I could only make out their silhouettes and I wouldn’t have thought much of it if I hadn’t recognized the outline of Trevor’s broad shoulders. I stopped walking and stood frozen in the middle of the path as they approached. Murphy didn’t seem to realize it was Trevor, but as they got closer, we heard his voice. The girl laughed as if she’d been drinking. My heart contorted into some sort of seizure and slammed against my lungs, which pushed all the air out. I couldn’t make the breath suck back in.
She was the something serious he was dealing with? Seriously?
Murphy reached over and wrapped his arm around my waist to hold me up. Somehow he knew before I did that my knees were just about to get weak from the shock of seeing Trevor with someone else. My eyeballs burned because I hadn’t blinked since I first spotted them. The girl stumbled sideways and had to place one hand down on the ground to steady herself. Trevor attempted to prevent her from falling but she landed on the grass and pulled him as if she wanted him to topple down on top of her. He caught his balance in time and said something to her that I couldn’t quite hear.
I turned around, twisted out of Murphy’s arms, and hurried down the path away from them.
“Wait,” Murphy called after me.
“I’ve seen enough, thanks.”
“Murphy?” Trevor shouted, and seemed relieved to see him.
“Is that your friend?” the girl asked. “He’s gigantic.” She laughed. “That’s a funny word—ji-gan-tic, guy-jant-tic. Say it. It sounds funny.”
“Deri,” Trevor called as I walked away. I didn’t want to know why he was stumbling around at midnight with a drunk girl, so I kept going.
Murphy ran after me, caught my elbow, and turned me towards him. He leaned in closely and said, “Let me talk to him. Just wait here.”
“I can’t watch,” I said and fought to hold back tears.
“You don’t even know what’s going on. I’m going to talk to him. Don’t go anywhere.”
“Give me the keys. I’ll wait in the truck. And his explanation better be really good.”
Murphy handed me the keys and turned to go back to where Trevor was helping the woman to her feet as she sang off-key. I hurried back to the parking lot, climbed into the truck, and stared out the window dumbfounded. I thought things had been good between Trevor and me. As far as I knew, everything was great. I was so in love. I would have sworn he was too. I was glad he wasn’t lying dead in a ditch somewhere. But it was completely shattering that he would blow me off to get drunk with some other girl. And then lie about it. It was shocking. It was devastating. It was so not like him.
Maybe things between us hadn’t been as good as I thought. Maybe I wasn’t putting enough effort
