Page 15 of Heal Me, Love Me

Instead of Rowan’s name appearing like I hoped, I saw a group text from Mason:

Heard from Rowan. He’s back in Sac and fine. He said he needed to handle something and will explain later

He was okay. He wasn’t hurt, stranded somewhere, or worse. Everything in me relaxed, and that’s why it took me a moment to realize he’d texted Mason.

Not me.

The relief I’d felt lasted all of two seconds before frustration shoved it aside. If he wanted everyone to know he was okay, why hadn’t he told me first instead of one of our roommates? I was supposed to be his person, and he couldn’t even respond to me.

I opened his contact and hit call again.

It rang once, then went straight to voicemail … again.

I swore under my breath and typed out a text:

Call me and tell me what’s going on

I hit send, and the message just sat there with no “delivered” notification.

I tried again, and the same thing happened.

Only a few explanations came to mind for that. Either his phone had died, he’d turned it off, or he’d blocked me.

None of those made me feel better.

The next morning,my body ached, and my head felt too heavy, but none of that compared to the way my thoughts picked right back up where they’d left off.

Rowan.

The messages.

The calls.

The silence.

I pushed through my routine on autopilot despite my bad mood.

Once showered and dressed, I made my way to the lobby where I was supposed to meet Devon before heading to Elevate.

Mason, Derek, and Enzo were downstairs at a small table with coffee cups in hand. None of them had any reason to be awake this early, but that was how things worked in our group. After living together for a while, we’d formed a solid friendship, so when something mattered, the others showed up.

Derek took one look at me and winced. “Jesus. You look like shit.”

“Feel like it too.” I dropped onto the empty chair next to Mason.

“Bet that guy you fought last night looks ten times worse.” Mason chuckled.

I huffed out something that sounded like a laugh. “You’re probably right.”

“Did you get any sleep at all?” Enzo asked. “Or were you too busy thinking about the meeting?”

“Yeah, something like that.”

“At least we know Rowan’s okay,” Derek added. “So we don’t have that hanging over our heads.”

If only that were true.

Just because I wasn’t worried about Rowan’s safety anymore didn’t mean everything was okay.