Chapter 3
The door seemed oceans away.
Jude didn't want to get up.
He didn't want to move.
He wished the ground would open up beneath him, and he could fall through fifteen floors of his apartment building and hit the ground beneath.
Okay." Murmurs.
Maybe the door was, in fact, in the ocean, and Jude was beneath the waves, because everything sounded like it was echoing, dull and distorted, through water.
"Jude, I'm sorry, bud, but I'm using my key, okay?
We're coming in."
He didn't hear the door open, but he heard it slam shut, and he heard two frantic sets of overlapping footsteps running down the hallway, rounding the corner.
"Oh my god, Jude," Molly murmured, and he shuddered.
"Here, here." She pulled a blanket off the back of his couch (it was mostly decorative, but at least it was soft) and started wrapping it around him, hands touching him all over, fluttering, as she tucked it beneath his thighs and over his feet and around his shoulders, binding his arms to his chest.
Jude kept his eyes covered.
"Jesus, Jude, you're freezing," Molly said, and her voice was trembling.
She sounded as if she had been crying.
"Travis, will you turn up-"
"Yup, got it." Travis's footsteps were loud.
Jude wanted to tell him to walk more softly, lest he disturb his neighbors.
Then he remembered that he had bought all the adjacent units, and they were all empty.
Hollow.
"Jude," Molly said slowly.
"Can you hear me?"
He didn't want to respond.
He didn't think there were any words left in his chest.
He couldn't make himself nod.
"This is important," Molly said.
She reached for his face.
Jude flinched at the first touch of her fingers, but he didn't pull away.
She did not drag his hands away from his face, but rather set her fingers on top of his.
She felt warm—or, he realized, he really was freezing.
"Jude, we love you," she murmured.
"We love you.
It's going to be okay.
We are so, so sorry, but this doesn't change anything, okay?"
"Yeah, buddy," Travis said.
His voice sounded shaky and tight as well, anxious or uncomfortable, but Jude couldn't tell.
He sat next to Jude on the couch.
Jude shied away, shifting until he had wedged himself against the armrest, but Travis put his arm around his shoulders and pulled him against him.
Strong arms wrapped around him and pulled him down, now wrapped in his decorative but soft blanket, against a chest.
Jude didn't resist.
Another set of arms, Molly's, encircled him from behind.
Her soft hands pulled his face into the crook of her neck.
"Buddy." Travis's voice broke.
"It's okay.
We love you.
It's okay."
Jude sobbed out the first real breath he had taken in hours.
"It's okay, it's okay," Travis said, wrapping his long arms around Jude and Molly both, "It's okay, bud, it's fucking fine, okay?
You're fine, you're good, you're gonna be good.
I promise.
We've got you.
Your parents are on their way, okay?
They'll be here soon, and-"
"No," Jude said quickly, gasping through his sobs.
"No, no, no. I can't—I don't want to see them.
No. No fucking way."
Travis looked stricken.
Molly responded quickly.
"Okay, okay, Jude, I'm sure they'll understand.
They can stay at our house, okay, how about that?
They just want to be nearby, in case you need them, but they can stay with us."
He cried in their arms, clutching them, until he ran out of tears.
They never let go.
A part of him, still capable of conscious thought, was surprised by that.
Eventually, he pushed out of their grasp, feeling suffocated and hot, feeling gross from the sweat sticking to his skin.
He needed a fucking shower, but now that they were here, he realized he didn't want to be alone.
Which was... surprising.
His phone had never gone silent, but it began to buzz persistently anew.
Jude glanced at it in horror and again fantasized about throwing it out the window, or down the garbage disposal, or into the shower.
Maybe, if he brought it into the shower, he could crouch in the corner with his back pressed up against the tiles and watch his phone slowly die in the drain, drowning, until the screen went dark forever.
The buzzing continued, text after text, layered and overlapping with the occasional chime of a different notification, but consistent, like a steady drumbeat.
"Can I...
?" Travis asked hesitantly.
"I'll just—maybe I'll turn it off, okay?
Would that be better?"
"No," Jude said.
"I can't—we can't—there's a game tomorrow.
I have to be available."
Molly and Travis shared a look.
"Can I check for you, then?" Travis asked, and Jude wanted to point out that his phone was right there, the previews visible and flooding in, and he could have just looked.
But he didn't care, it turned out.
Jude jerked his head, not quite a nod so much as a spasm, and a whine tore out of his throat when he tried to say the word, "Sure."
"Okay, it's okay," Travis said, patting his arm as he leaned away.
"It's just—oh."
"What?" Molly asked quietly.
"If it's—don't say if it's-"
"It's Dove," Travis said, lingering on the simple, two-syllable name.
"That makes sense, I guess."
Jude sobbed again, pressing his hands back against his eyes.
"Oh, fuck," he cried, like he hadn't been staring at his phone for two hours, waiting for exactly one person to call him, not brave enough to call first.
(Had it really only been a day since they had talked?
Less than that?
Jude had been in a different city, crouched in the cold stairwell of a mediocre hotel, this same phone pressed to his face as it served as a bridge between him and the man he—between him and Andrei, in a moment when Andrei needed him.
It was impossible to conceive that this was the same phone.
The same object.
That it was his only connection to Andrei, and also ruining his life.)
"She's," Travis said, then shook his head.
"Whoa.
That makes a lot of sense."
"Travis," Molly snapped.
"We were, we had all these theories, dude," Travis said.
"I thought she was, like, married, dude, I was convinced-"
"Travis!"
"But, no, okay.
Okay." He picked up Jude's phone and pulled his hand away from his face.
He pressed it, still buzzing with a continuous roll of messages, into his palm.
"She—sorry, he, whoa—he wants you to call him.
You should call him."
The phone unlocked with the inadvertent press of his thumb, directing to the flood of messages piling in, and Jude stared with one eye at the screen.
Dove
Call me
Where are you?
Jude
Call me, please
Are you alone?
I won't stop
Read!
It says read!
Fucking call me Callahan
It says read
I'm calling you
Can I call you
Fucking Jude
"I can't," he choked, eyes welling with fresh tears.
He looked helplessly at Molly and Travis.
"I can't—he—he isn't—he isn't out, oh my god-"
Molly jumped up so abruptly that Jude wobbled and almost fell, but Travis grabbed his shoulder, steadying him.
She darted toward his counter, toward all the ingredients for his smoothie, still neatly lined up next to his blender in the specific order he always added them.
Molly picked up a cable of neatly corded earbuds and held them above her head victoriously, darting back to the couch.
"Here," she said, slipping them into Jude's ears so, so gently while he watched her with watery eyes.
"We'll clean up the kitchen, okay, Jude?
We won't listen in." She took his wrist and steadied his phone as she plugged the earbuds in, then kissed his cheek.
"Call him," she said.
Travis squeezed his shoulder and stood.