The second-to-last was a message from about thirty minutes ago, telling me that if he didn’t hear from me this morning he was going to call the police to file a missing persons report. He’d already asked and they’d told them he had to wait forty-eight hours. The last message came through as I was reading the rest, and I was bawling by the time I finished reading them all.
Drake: Baby, please come home. Jackson told me he finally talked to Aubrey & you’re safe. I get that you’re mad and hurt, but please come back so I can see you. I know I fucked up big time, and you don’t owe me anything. If you don’t want to talk to me yet, I promise to leave. I just need to see you with my own eyes.
It was the longest text he’d ever written me. I had several voicemail messages from him as well, and I played them all in succession, their tone echoing the texts I’d already read. My box was full by Saturday afternoon, which must be why he’d sent so many messages. Once I was done, I looked at Aubrey and realized she was crying too.
“You ready for this?” she asked.
“Not really, but it’s not like I can feel any worse after talking to him than I do right now,” I said as I dialed the number and held the phone to my ear.
“Alexa,” he breathed into the phone after picking up before the first ring was even done. He didn’t say anything else. He just waited for me to pull myself together so I could speak.
“Drake, I need to see you, too,” I choked out in a raspy voice, my throat sore from all the crying I had done.
I heard him heave a big sigh on the other end of the phone. “Where are you? I’ll come to you right now.”
“I’m at the Holiday Inn, but I can have Aubrey bring me back,” I protested.
I could hear tires squealing in the background. “No, I’m already on the way. Don’t go anywhere. I’ll be there as fast as I can.”
“Okay,” I agreed. “I’ll text you the room number.”
When the call ended and I’d sent him the text, I turned to Aubrey. “Drake is on his way so we can talk.”
“Do you want me to stay? If I leave, you won’t have a car here in case your talk with him doesn’t go well,” she warned.
“Go ahead. I can always call you if I need a ride.”
“Are you sure? I can hang out downstairs just in case,” she offered.
“I’m not sure about anything right now, Aubrey,” I admitted. “The only thing I know for certain is that I need to find out what happened. Why Drake would believe that about me.”
“I don’t feel right leaving you alone yet. I’ll pack up the car, make sure Drake shows up like he said he would, and then I’ll wait until you text me that it’s okay for me to leave. Okay?”
“Yeah, that’s probably for the best. If you don’t want to be here when he gets here, then you better move fast because he didn’t give me a chance to say much before he was already on his way. You’ve only got a couple minutes left.”
“Then it’s a good thing I packed light,” she said as she threw our stuff back into her bag. “Don’t forget to let me know if you need me to come up or if you want me to go. If I don’t hear from you in thirty minutes, I’m coming back up.”
I gave her a quick hug and ran into the bathroom to make sure I looked decent. I didn’t really. Two days spent agonizing over what I thought was the end of our relationship, crying, and having nightmares that kept waking me up didn’t leave me looking my best. The shower helped a lot, but nothing was going to get rid of the red-rimmed eyes and dark circles. My hands trembled as I played with my hair. I was so nervous about what would happen next.
After a couple minutes, there was a knock on the door. I went to answer, and there he was. He looked as tired as I felt. He had a black eye and a puffy, bruised lip from his fight with Jackson. I wanted to reach out and hug him close, but I stood there with my arms wrapped around myself instead. I was unsure of how to act because everything seemed so awkward. I took a step backwards to let him inside the room. He grabbed one of my hands as he walked past and pulled me along with him. We sat down on the edge of the bed and just looked at each other for a couple minutes. Drake hadn’t let go of my hand and couldn’t seem to look away from me.
“Why, Drake? What could I possibly have done to deserve your accusation?” I finally asked.
He looked down at our hands and shook his head. “Fuck, Alexa. This wasn’t your fault. I never should have yelled at you the way I did. Don’t talk like that.”