Jules can barely speak at the sound of her voice.
“Hello?” he hears her say again. It’s her. There’s no doubt. Her tone sounds slightly irritated. He has to answer.
He opens his mouth, but there’s nothing left in his throat. No words come out. He tries again – a gravelly gasp emerges.
“April-” he manages.
He can hear the rapid breathing on the other line. She doesn’t say anything. She doesn’t need to.
There’s a significant pause.
“So you know, then,” April says finally. Her voice is sharper than he remembers. She’s lost her childhood spark, her gentle, curious voice disappearing with it.
“Yeah,” he says. “Where are you, April? Where did you go?”
“I couldn’t-” She pauses. “I couldn’t do it anymore.” She stops for a second. “I couldn’t deal with him.”
Jules has a talent, a knack for telling when people are lying. He notices the way their eyes fall to the ground or they fidget with their hands or the way their tone wavers.
He’s used it a lot with their father. He hasn’t used it too much with April. But now, even though he can’t see her, a feeling that she’s lying overcomes him. He knows it. He just knows it. It didn’t sound like she was lying in the first part – I couldn’t do it, after all, could refer to many different things. But dealing with him? That was a stone cold deception. Maybe not a full lie, but not a full truth.
Now he’s even more curious than before. What caused her to leave, if not their father? Perhaps their father was part of it – he wouldn’t doubt that. Perhaps she needed a little break. Perhaps she wanted to see him, as reluctant as she would be to admit it. He wonders if she’s meaning to stay, or just get away for a little while.
“Was it me?” he asks. He knows he’s pushing her buttons, but he needs to know. “Did you leave to find me?” He says this with a smirk hidden behind his words. He didn’t mean to do that.
“No,” she says, as cold as the drinks they used to get every weekend. “It wasn’t you.”
This stings, because it sounds like she doesn’t care about him. He knows she does, though.
He presses his ear to his phone, anxious for an answer. He hears yelling and a crash on the other line. Shit.
“April?” he asks frantically. “April, are you there? Are you-”
He cuts himself off, with the realization that she hung up. She slipped out of his fingers like water once again. Well. Either she hung up, or someone forced her to.
With this realization, he begins to panic. He calls her again. She doesn’t answer. Who caused that crash? His inquisitiveness just won’t go away. It surrounds him, wrapping around his mind and holding tight.
Was it an accident?
Was it someone else?
Or was it her?