A/N: Aren't you glad I didn't leave you hanging after chapter four?
Chapter Five
~ I could tell you
His favourite colour's green
He loves to argue
Born on the seventeenth
His sister's beautiful
He has his father's eyes
And if you asked me if I love him
I'd lie ~
I'd Lie by Taylor Swift
I rang James on Saturday and got Renee Swan who told me, her voice sounding tired and worried, that James hadn't come home last night.
Panic had swept through me at her words and I said good bye, hung and then instantly dialed the police station. Charlie Swan had confirmed Renee's story and said that he was just about to go out looking. I said that I wanted to come but Charlie told me, very firmly, that the best thing I could do was to stay at home in case James rang me. Before he hung up Chief Swan said, with tears in his voice, "If anything's happened to my boy I'll never forgive myself"
I hung up, ran into the bathroom and spent the next five minutes dry retching. My mother came in to see what was the matter and I told her that James was missing and that it was all my fault. My mother had told me not to be so stupid and had asked why I thought that.
"Yesterday, when we were over here doing homework together, he got really upset and said that he should be going home. I let him go, mother, I let him go! He was so upset, I should have made him stay or at least driven him home! I..." I couldn't go on and my mother swept me into her arms.
"Victoria, darling, listen to me" my mother said gently "James will be perfectly alright, he might have gone to a friend's place for the evening, or he may have just decided to get out of town for a few days. He's an adult who can look after himself. If something has happened to him it will be a terrible tradgety, Victoria, but not your fault"
But I couldn't ignore the awful, nagging feeling in my stomach that, if I was a good friend, I would have done something. Anything! I should have insisted on driving him home, he'd been so upset...
What had made him upset? I thought back to yesterday. We'd been talking about Laurent and James had gone on a rant about my friend and mentioned that Laurent would probably end up in jail one day 'just like mum'! Renee had been in jail once and, when James mentioned it he'd gotten really upset. It wasn't much, but it was something...
I rang Chief Swan and told him what had happened and, after several explosive swear words he said, "I guess that makes sense, it was tough on the kid. Thank-you, Victoria" and then hung up.
I sat by the phone all morning. Mum tried to tempt me with breakfast but I just couldn't eat, I felt sick with worry for James and all sorts of horrid scenarios kept playing through my head.
Mum all but force fed me at ten o'clock when she threatened to unplug the phone if I didn't eat something. I made myself two slices of toast and managed to spread jam on them and went to eat them by the phone.
At midday the doorbell rang.
"JAMES!" I shrieked, leaping to my feet and flying to the front door, mum close behind me. But it wasn't James.
"Laurent," I said to my friend, staring at him. He'd been smoking recently, he stank of marijuana. In fact, forget the smoking, he looked like he'd woken up, had a smoke and then come straight over to see me. His dreadlocks were rumpled, he hadn't shaved yet and he was wearing yesterday's clothes. But the look on his face made all that insignificant; his eyes were clouded with concern for me and, to my surprise, a fierce protectiveness that I'd never noticed before. My bottom lip started to tremble.
"Victoria come here" he said, stepping forward and putting his arms around me. He held me tightly to his chest and I broke down in tears.
"It's all my fault!" I wailed while Laurent stroked my hair. "It's all my fault, Laurent! What if something terrible happens to him? What if it does? It'll be all my..." I couldn't continue. The idea of something terrible happening to James was too horrible to consider.
"Shh, shh" Laurent hushed me gently, still stroking my hair while we stood in the doorway. "It's not your fault. You didn't make him go missing. Shh, clam down now so I can close the door"
I couldn't calm down and Laurent was unwilling to let go of me either. We stood awkwardly for a moment until my mother said "Victoria; take a few deep breaths, honey. I just need to close the door and then you and Laurent can go and talk in the lounge room"
I knew immediately that, while I'd been eating my toast, my mum had been through my phone and probably called a few people to see who could come over. Funny, in a strange way, that my drifting, pot-smoking, homeless, unemployed friend would be the person who dropped everything to come rushing to my aid. I'd never thought of Laurent as that kind of person before.
I managed to stop sobbing - but I was nowhere near finished - for a few moments and Laurent took my hand. We walked inside the door a little and my mother closed it behind us.
"I'll be upstairs in my room should you need me" my mother said and Laurent nodded. "Thank you, Mrs. Sutherland", he was talking about more than just closing the door and giving us some time alone.
I started crying again the moment Laurent and I were seated on the couch on the lounge room. He pulled me into his lap and made gentle hushing noises and rocked me slightly while I wept into his shoulder. On another day I would have never let him sit on the couch. The only places he was, strictly speaking, allowed to sit were the floor and the chairs in the dining room; the reason was because the dope smell clung to the fabric like you wouldn't believe and I could get it out of the house much easier if I didn't have to soak the couch with bleach. But today I didn't care and it appeared that my mum didn't care either because there was no way she'd missed the smell coming off my friend. They'd never met - for obvious reasons - and he probably hadn't been what she was expecting.
To an observer my position on Laurent's lap might look romantic, but, to the pair of us, it was everything but. We were friends, best friends. The term sounds childish but it was the only term I could really use to describe my relationship with Laurent. James was my closest friend, but I was so in love with him that 'best friend' didn't seem the right term to describe him; words such as 'world' and 'heart's desire' seemed more appropriate.
"Calm down, Victoria," Laurent soothed, rocking me slightly. "You need to stop crying. Crying won't help James."
No, he was right, it wouldn't; wherever James was, he needed me to be strong, so I would do that. However, that was easier said than done. By the time I'd mastered my tears, my throat felt like four o'clock in the Death Valley in the middle of June, my face was puffy and my eyes were red and swollen.
"Laurent," I croaked, "Can I have some water, please?"
"Of course," he said to me. I slid off his lap and he went over to the fridge and poured me a glass of cold water. I gulped it down and he went to get me another.
"He likes green," I said to Laurent when he was pouring me my third glass of water.
My friend turned to stare at me, one eyebrow raised, "Beg yours?"
"James," I said, as if it was obvious. "James likes the colour green."
Laurent nodded at me, looking as if I'd just told him that James was an alien from Jupiter with seven heads.
"He argues a lot," I went on, not sure why I was telling Laurent this, but wanting to say it anyway, "and he was born on the 17th of March 1987, making him six months, six days older than me. I don't know if you've seen Bella, or, Isabella is her real name, but everyone just calls her Bella; she's really beautiful, takes after her dad, dark hair, pale skin, shy disposition, but she's got her mum's eyes, they're a chocolate colour. Her boyfriend is Edward Cullen and he's a possessive asshole, James said once that he would like to cut Edward's balls off and make him eat them, but Bella won't dump him. James takes after Renee, except he's got Charlie's eyes, light blue. But they change colour a lot, he's got a different eye colour for every mood he's in. He started playing acoustic guitar when he was six and hasn't stopped since and..."
"You're in love with him," Laurent interrupted me and I flinched.
"No!" I said, far too quickly. "I'm just..."
"Victoria, admit it, you're addicted to him! If you were me, he'd be the weed you smoked even though you knew it was destroying your lungs and wrecking your heart; and if he ever heard I said that he'd probably kill me, but I don't care. I can see it, Vicki, there's nothing wrong with being in love."
"Unless you love a blonde, Russian slut," I told him and he chuckled darkly.
"Admittedly, I could do better, but we are not talking about my love life, Victoria. We are talking about yours."
"There is no love life, Laurent," I told my friend, getting up from the couch. "None! Alright? I don't even know why I told you those things and... Why are we talking about this, anyway? James is still missing! He could be dead for all we know and...!"
"He's not dead," Laurent voice was cool and firm. "He's not dead. If you believe nothing else, Victoria, believe that."
"How do you know that?" I demanded of my friend. "How can you possible know that?"
"I don't," Laurent said, his voice still cool and firm. "But I do know that people don't just disappear, Victoria, other people loose faith and stop looking for them."
There was something profound about Laurent's statement and I stood staring at him for a good minute. He stared back at me and, as I had done numerous times since meeting him, I marveled at the way a homeless, jobless man who was addicted to marijuana and had a limited education could use words so profoundly. It was acctually a little bit scary because, if my father was to be believed, skills like that needed to be learned and perfected and, as my father liked to constantly remind me, only a good college education could do that.
My father had obviously never met a man like Laurent.
That minute I stared at him seemed to go on forever. His words hung thick between us, his strange belief that something as insignificant as believing someone was alive could keep them so. The air seemed to slip out of the room until the only thing in the space between me and him was those words: people don't just disappear, Victoria, other people loose faith and stop looking for them.
If Laurent could believe that James was alive then surely...
The phone rang and the moment was gone. The world snapped back into focus, the air rushed back into the room and his words were, once again, just words. There was nothing special about them.
Laurent, who was closest to the phone, reached down and picked it up.
"Hello, Sutherland residence? Yes, she's right here."
He handed me the phone and I took it, my heart thumping in my chest.
"Hello, Victoria Sutherland speaking"
Please God, I prayed, let it be James, let it be James, let it be...
"Victoria," Bella sounded tired, frightened and her voice was tight, as if she'd been crying, "we've found him."
A/N: Sorry about the cliffy, chapters six and seven will be up today but, as I mentioned in the notes for chapter four, I needed to do an edit because I accidently left something out. A review would brighten my day and might make my headache go away!
