Ruthless Creatures by J.T. Geissinger

N A T
A
fter that night, three days go by when I don’t hear
from him. I want to call, but keep stopping in the
middle of dialing.
He’s going to war, I remind myself sternly. The man is
busy.
I get a brief text on day four: Dreamt of you last night.
When I text him back asking what the dream was about, he
doesn’t answer.
By day six, I’m obsessing nonstop.
He’s dead. He’s been shot. Stabbed. Poisoned. He’s been
captured by the police or the FBI. Something has gone
horribly wrong, and I’ll never know what, I’ll just be left with
no answers and no way of finding out what happened to him.
The feeling is eerily familiar.
Still, I hear nothing.
Still, I wait.
School starts again. Teaching is a welcome relief from the
mania that overtakes me when I’m home alone. In the middle
of the second week of no contact with Kage, I start painting in
a frenzy, producing more work in three days than I have all
year.
By the middle of January, I’m going out of my mind.
“Just call him, babe. This is ridiculous.”