Jules can barely speak at the sound of her voice. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cHello?\u201d he hears her say again. It\u2019s her. There\u2019s no doubt. Her tone sounds slightly irritated. He has to answer. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
He opens his mouth, but there\u2019s nothing left in his throat. No words come out. He tries again – a gravelly gasp emerges. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cApril-\u201d he manages. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
He can hear the rapid breathing on the other line. She doesn\u2019t say anything. She doesn\u2019t need to. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
There\u2019s a significant pause. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cSo you know, then,\u201d April says finally. Her voice is sharper than he remembers. She\u2019s lost her childhood spark, her gentle, curious voice disappearing with it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cYeah,\u201d he says. \u201cWhere are you, April? Where did you go?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI couldn\u2019t-\u201d She pauses. \u201cI couldn\u2019t do it anymore.\u201d She stops for a second. \u201cI couldn\u2019t deal with him.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
He\u2019s used it a lot with their father. He hasn\u2019t used it too much with April. But now, even though he can\u2019t see her, a feeling that she\u2019s lying overcomes him. He knows it. He just knows it. It didn\u2019t sound like she was lying in the first part – I couldn\u2019t do it,<\/em> 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. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Now he\u2019s even more curious than before. What caused her to leave, if not their father? Perhaps their father was part of it – he wouldn\u2019t 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\u2019s meaning to stay, or just get away for a little while. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWas it me?\u201d he asks. He knows he\u2019s pushing her buttons, but he needs to know. \u201cDid you leave to find me?\u201d He says this with a smirk hidden behind his words. He didn\u2019t mean to do that. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cNo,\u201d she says, as cold as the drinks they used to get every weekend. \u201cIt wasn\u2019t you.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n This stings, because it sounds like she doesn\u2019t care about him. He knows she does, though. <\/p>\n\n\n\n He presses his ear to his phone, anxious for an answer. He hears yelling and a crash on the other line. Shit. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cApril?\u201d he asks frantically. \u201cApril, are you there? Are you-\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n 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. <\/p>\n\n\n\n With this realization, he begins to panic. He calls her again. She doesn\u2019t answer. Who caused that crash? His inquisitiveness just won\u2019t go away. It surrounds him, wrapping around his mind and holding tight. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Was it an accident? <\/p>\n\n\n\n Was it someone else? <\/p>\n\n\n\n Or was it her? <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Jules can barely speak at the sound of her voice. \u201cHello?\u201d he hears her say again. It\u2019s her. There\u2019s no doubt. Her tone…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":36,"featured_media":1350,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1348","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blueandread.asbarcelona.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1348","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blueandread.asbarcelona.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blueandread.asbarcelona.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blueandread.asbarcelona.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/36"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blueandread.asbarcelona.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1348"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blueandread.asbarcelona.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1348\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1349,"href":"https:\/\/blueandread.asbarcelona.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1348\/revisions\/1349"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blueandread.asbarcelona.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1350"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blueandread.asbarcelona.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1348"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blueandread.asbarcelona.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1348"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blueandread.asbarcelona.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1348"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}