|| Theo ||

From the moment Ara left this morning, I had been on edge. There was a churning feeling in my stomach that told me something would go wrong today, and I couldn't stop fidgeting as I worried about her.

"—Theo? Theo!"

I snapped out of my trance and looked up to see my friends staring at me. "Ah, I'm sorry."

"Where are you lost, bro?" Jeremy asked.

I shook my head and said, "Nowhere."

"I bet he just misses Annabelle," Taylor commented and laughed by himself.

"Yeah, I'm just gonna check up on her for a bit," I said and got up from the living room floor.

"Hey, that's the fifth time you're calling Annabelle after we came. Won't she get irritated?" Jackson said.

I huffed and sat back down. "I know, but I'm just getting a bad feeling."

"I never thought a day would come when I would see Theo's nose buried in his phone for his girlfriend during a math session," Rose commented, and everyone laughed from my team.

I checked the photos that Ara sent me last from her lunch, and I smiled seeing her happy face.

She's fine, I told myself and took a deep breath. "Never mind. I'm sorry for getting distracted. Let's start again."

The five of us worked on a few advanced problems. Somewhere in between that, Wyatt came back home. He stayed in his room after greeting my friends.

It was around nine at night when I finally bid goodbye to them and plopped down on the couch.

"When's Ara coming back?" Wyatt asked after coming out of his room.

"I don't know. Late, probably."

Wyatt hummed. "Bachelorette parties sure take a lot of time." He was scrolling through his phone and suddenly exclaimed, "Holy shit! Ara is drunk."

"What?" I bolted up and snatched his phone to check Coral's Instagram story where Ara was slurring something gibberish to a good-looking man in his early twenties. "Her friends better be fending off these creeps hitting on her, or else, I swear to God..." I trailed off and immediately called Ara.

She didn't pick up the first time. "Why did you get so drunk?" I asked immediately when she received the call the second time.

"Heyyyyy, baby," Ara greeted in a shrill voice. I could hear loud music being played in the background along with cheers and glasses clinking.

"Hi," I greeted back, trying to keep my calm. "Why are you drunk?"

"I— not drun— I think you are." She giggled. "Do you— to come and grab— lemonade with me?" Some of her words were cut off due to the loud noises from her side.

"Yes, I'll come, but not for lemonade. To pick you up. So now, tell me where are you," I asked.

"No. They said no o— leave— before twelve— I won't leave. I wanna dance more!"

"Yes, yes, you can. But can I join you, please?"

"No, thi— isn't for guys. No men allo— unless you— a stripper."

"You've got a stripper there?" I asked, mortified.

"What's a bachelorette party without a stripper?"

"I just saw a guy in Coral's story a few minutes ago!"

"That was— stripper before he stripped!" she exclaimed, sounding like she was about to cry.

Oh, shit. Here we go.

"Theo is mad at me," she cried out.

"No, no, I'm not mad at you. I'm just worried about you. You getting drunk is a mess. And a stripper—a freaking stripper is hitting on you."

"But that's—"

All of a sudden, Ara's voice was cut and replaced by another slurry voice, which I recognized this morning from Ara's phone. "Let her have fun. Stay out of it. She will be back home by one. Bye-bye!"

I gritted my teeth and clutched my phone tightly in my hand.

"What's wrong?" As Wyatt asked that, I glared at him since he already heard the entire conversation. "Yeah, I get it. So what are you going to do?"

I huffed and laid back down on the couch, turning my back to him. "Sleep, what else?"

"You're not going to pick Ara up?" he asked.

"No. If she's having fun, who am I to stop?" I grumbled.

"Even if there's a stripper in the party?"

I threw a cushion back at him. "You don't have to remind me!"

I heard Wyatt sigh. "Well, if you can stay quiet after this, then sure. But I can't. I'm going to pick up Coral."

I grunted as I heard the main door close. I closed my eyes, hugging a cushion close to my chest, trying to keep the burn in my chest low. After a few seconds, I sat up.

Just then the front door opened again and Wyatt peeked his head out, asking, "Where is the party again?"

"Like hell, I know!"

Wyatt gritted his teeth and entered the apartment again while calling someone on his phone. I sat on the couch with my knees pulled up to my chest, watching him make a few more calls.

"Only the invited people know where the bar is," he said with a defeated sigh.

"I'll call Ara and ask."

"I already tried. No luck. Coral is not picking up either, nor are her other friends. I think they all switched off their phones," he said.

"Then what are we going to do? I'm worried. What if something bad happened to them?" I asked.

"I don't know. I'm worried too." Wyatt ran a hand through his hair and sat down on the beanbag.

I buried my face in my knees in hopelessness. That's when I remembered something. "Can we find out Coral's location from her last Instagram story?"

"I think we can. I'll have to ask a friend of mine who is good at this stuff," he replied and immediately started dialing someone else's number.

Meanwhile, I stared at the photo that Ara sent me from the beauty parlor after getting ready in her dark pink dress. She looked absolutely stunning. It was no surprise that someone would be hitting on her, but I wasn't there to protect her, nor was she in her senses to say that she has a boyfriend.

What if someone took advantage of her and took her a room to—

Stop!

"Theo, they are at a bar in LA," Wyatt informed.

"What? They went to LA?" I asked in disbelief.

Wyatt nodded and said, "It's gonna take at least an hour with the traffic."

"Then let's get going." I picked up my long coat from my room and hurried out with Wyatt.

Please be safe, Ara.

———

"God, why is the traffic so bad?" I asked, slamming my palm on the steering wheel, letting out a honk.

"It's late. The traffic shouldn't be this bad. I wonder if there's some problem," Wyatt said.

"I don't care! I just want to get to that bar!" The more we waited in the traffic, the more my temper went out of control. We have been stuck in this stupid place for the last one hour.

Wyatt ignored my tantrums and rolled down his window to ask a passerby, "Excuse me? What happened? Why is the traffic so bad?"

"There's an accident ahead. Some drunk teenagers were driving," the man said and walked away.

"Why are people so stupid?" I groaned and hit the steering wheel again, burying my face in it.

"Theo, calm down." Wyatt rubbed my shoulder in comfort, but nothing was working.

"I want to s-see Ara," I murmured in a choked voice.

"Hey, nothing will happen to her."

"N-no, no, I have been getting a bad feeling ever since she left. I think something happened to her," I said.

"Hey, hey, think positive," he urged. "Coral always says if you think positive, everything good happens in the end."

I nodded and took a few deep breaths.

"I'll try calling their number again."

"Okay."

"Ara's phone is on. It's ringing."

My heartbeat increased as soon as Wyatt said that. Her phone has been unreachable for the last few hours. "Put it on speaker."

Wyatt nodded and did so. After a few more rings, someone picked it up.

"Oh, thank God, Ara. Why was your phone off? I've been so worried—"

"Who is this?" asked an unfamiliar feminine voice.

"Huh? Who are you? Where's Ara?" I asked, my heartbeat going in disarray.

"I don't know who Ara is. This is one of the cell phones left behind on the counter."

"L-left behind?" My voice cracked as I uttered.

Wyatt motioned me to stay quiet and that he would handle this. "Can you please tell me where the owner of this phone went?"

"I think it belongs to a group of teen girls. They left the bar around two hours ago," the lady answered.

"Is the party still going on?"

"No, it just ended a few minutes ago. I'm here to clean up," she said.

"Okay, thank you. Please keep the phone safe. We will come pick it up," Wyatt said and hung up. "Theo?"

So many bad thoughts were running through my head. But only one thought seemed really close to reality and our situation and that thought was the worst of all.

"Maybe they are on their way back home right now."

I shook my head. "They are all drunk, Wyatt. Who is driving?"

"Maybe they called a cab."

"What if they didn't?"

"Then they would—" Wyatt's eyes widened as he started to realize what I was hinting at. "N-no, no, that's not true. That's not what happened. Shut up, shut up. Coral is fine. They are fine."

My head started to feel lightweight while my breaths became shallow. "Our girlfriends left the bar drunk... There's an accident up ahead... by drunk teenagers."

"No, stop it, Theo—"

I didn't wait to finish hearing Wyatt as I unfastened my seatbelt and dashed out of the car.

"Theo, wait for me!" I heard Wyatt holler from behind me, but I kept going.

The accident spot wasn't far away, so I reached it pretty quickly. I caught my breath, preparing my heart to see the worst, but no matter how much I would prepare myself, I wasn't ready to see what was ahead. The time I took standing near the yellow tape, Wyatt caught up to me.

"Damn, you run fast," he breathed out.

As the cops started to clear the way from the car's view, I stepped back. "I... I didn't lock the car. I-I should go lock it."

Wyatt caught my elbow. "We came this far. We are not leaving without seeing."

"N-no, no. I don't want to see!" I squeezed my eyes shut and pressed my palms on my ear.

"Theo! You have to see it. We need to see, no matter what. Even if it's them, and even if it's not," he said firmly and pulled my hand from my ear and dragged me inside the crime scene.

I heard Wyatt talking to the cops, but I only caught a few words. "... there were five girls in the car. All of them seemed drunk, and now, three of them are in critical condition..."

After that, Wyatt said to me, "There's no guarantee that it's them. Plus, the driving license found in the gloves box says the car belongs to someone named Carolina. Coral and Ara don't have a friend with that name."

I nodded and walked closer to the upside-down car that had fire and sparks coming out from its hood. It was badly damaged; seemed like a big vehicle hit and flipped it over.

"Hey, kid, you can't go close to that car!" I heard one of the cops shout at me, but I just kept walking closer until I crouched near its broken windows and saw a familiar denim jacket in the backseat splattered with blood and broken glass shards.

My heartbeat slowed down, and I felt like the earth below my feet just disappeared.

"Kid, get away! It's dangerous! The car can blast anytime!" someone yelled and yanked me by the elbow to start dragging me away.

Tears started to well up in my eyes while a sob escaped my throat.

"Kid, why are you crying?" The man's voice softened. "I didn't mean to be that harsh. I was just concerned about your safety—"

"My girlfriend... she was in that car."

★★★