Chapter 72: The half eaten pie
( this Chapter is told from Ethan’s pov)
"Felix?"
The name left my mouth before I could stop it, escaping in a rough whisper that sounded foreign even to my own ears as I sat upright in bed with the phone pressed tightly against my ear, every trace of warmth draining from my body while the voice on the other end crackled through the speaker beneath layers of static and poor reception.
For a moment I genuinely wondered if I was dreaming.
The room was dark except for the soft glow of the bedside lamp, and beside me Raina shifted beneath the blankets, disturbed by the sudden movement, while I stared into the darkness ahead of me and tried to convince myself I hadn’t imagined what I’d just heard.
"Yeah," the voice replied.
My grip tightened around the phone.
Years.
It had been years.
Years of unanswered questions, dead ends, police reports, rumours, theories, and eventually silence.
Years since anyone had heard from Felix.
"Where are you?" I asked.
There was a pause long enough to make me think the call had dropped before an address finally came through the speaker.
A diner.
Anderson & Park.
I rubbed a hand across my face, exhaustion and disbelief colliding inside my head.
"You serious?"
Another pause.
"Tomorrow morning."
I swallowed.
Nothing about this made sense.
Not the call.
Not the timing.
Not the fact that a man everyone believed was dead had apparently decided to pick Christmas night to reach out.
Yet despite every alarm bell screaming in the back of my mind, I already knew what I was going to do.
"Okay," I said quietly. "I’ll be there."
The line went dead.
For several seconds I remained exactly where I was, the phone still pressed against my ear while the silence settled over the room once again.
Beside me, Raina had pushed herself upright against the headboard.
Even in the dim light I could feel her watching me.
"What’s happened?"
I lowered the phone slowly.
"It’s Felix."
The name seemed to alter something in the room.
The change was subtle, almost imperceptible, but I caught it all the same; a brief flicker in her eyes that vanished so quickly I couldn’t tell whether it had actually happened or whether exhaustion was playing tricks on me.
"Felix?" she repeated.
I nodded.
"An old friend from college."
The explanation sounded inadequate the moment it left my mouth.
A friend.
As though Felix had merely been someone I used to grab coffee with between classes.
As though his disappearance hadn’t consumed months of my life.
As though I hadn’t spent years wondering what had happened to him.
Raina waited for me to continue.
When I didn’t, she asked, "You never mentioned him."
"No."
I turned away from her and walked toward the window.
Outside, Christmas lights glowed softly across the neighbouring houses, casting warm colours onto fresh snow while the world carried on as though everything was perfectly normal.
It was almost enough to make the phone call feel unreal.
Almost.
"The police believed he was dead," I said after a moment. "There was an investigation. Missing persons reports. People looked for him for months."
I rested a hand against the cold glass.
"Eventually everyone stopped."
Behind me, the mattress shifted.
"And now he calls you out of nowhere?"
"Apparently."
The answer sounded as ridiculous spoken aloud as it had inside my head.
For a while neither of us spoke.
I could feel her trying to make sense of it.
Truthfully, I was trying to do the same.
"Do you think it’s really him?" she asked quietly.
That was the question, wasn’t it?
I stared out into the darkness.
"I don’t know."
It was the most honest answer I could give her.
Because the voice had sounded familiar.
Because some instinct buried deep inside me had recognised it.
Because another part of me thought the entire thing could be a mistake, a prank, or something far worse.
Eventually I forced myself away from the window and looked back at her.
"Try to get some sleep."
"Ethan—"
"I’m serious."
I managed a tired smile that didn’t quite reach my eyes.
"We’ll know more tomorrow."
Raina studied me for several seconds.
She wasn’t convinced.
I wasn’t either.
But eventually she settled back beneath the blankets, while I remained standing by the window long after she closed her eyes, staring out at the Christmas lights and wondering why a ghost had suddenly decided to call me in the middle of the night.
Sleep never came.
I lay in bed listening to the quiet hum of the house and the distant sound of traffic beyond the neighborhood, staring at the ceiling while memories I hadn’t touched in years drifted through my mind with frustrating clarity.
Felix leaning back in a lecture hall chair, arguing with a professor who was twice his age.
Felix talking his way out of trouble.
Felix laughing at something that wasn’t remotely funny.
Then nothing.
A wall.
A gap where answers should have been.
By the time morning arrived, I felt as though I had spent the entire night running in circles inside my own head.
Raina was already awake when I came downstairs.
She stood near the kitchen counter with a mug of coffee cradled between her hands while pale winter sunlight filtered through the windows and painted soft reflections across the hardwood floor. Under normal circumstances it would have been a peaceful scene, but there was an uneasiness in the room that neither of us seemed willing to acknowledge.
She looked up as I entered.
"You’re leaving already?"
I reached for my keys on the counter.
"The sooner I get there, the sooner I find out whether this is real."
Her gaze lingered on me for a moment.
"Do you want me to come with you?"
The question sounded casual.
It wasn’t.
I knew her too well for that.
I smiled faintly.
"I think I can manage breakfast by myself."
The attempt at humor failed to move her.
"Ethan."
Something in her voice made me stop.
When I looked back, she was studying me carefully, her fingers wrapped tightly around the coffee mug.
"You don’t have to do everything alone."
For a moment I considered telling her that she sounded worried.
Then I realized there was no point.
We both knew she was.
I crossed the room and pressed a kiss against her forehead.
"I’ll call you if anything happens."
She nodded.
The gesture looked reluctant.
"That’s not the same thing."
"No," I admitted quietly. "It isn’t."
For a few seconds neither of us spoke.
Then I squeezed her shoulder and headed for the door before either of us could say something that would make leaving harder.
The drive to Anderson Park took a little over an hour.
The further I traveled from Harrington, the more ridiculous the entire situation began to feel.
A dead man calls me in the middle of the night.
Tells me to meet him.
Refuses to explain anything.
And somehow I actually show up.
If somebody else had told me the story, I would have questioned their sanity.
The diner sat on a quiet corner surrounded by old brick buildings and snow-covered sidewalks, the sort of place that looked unchanged by time. A faded sign hung above the entrance, and through the windows I could see a handful of customers scattered throughout the dining room.
I arrived fifteen minutes early.
Felix wasn’t there.
That didn’t concern me.
Not yet.
I found a booth near the window and ordered coffee.
Then I waited.
At first the waiting felt reasonable.
People ran late.
Traffic happened.
Life happened.
But as the minutes stretched into an hour, anticipation slowly gave way to frustration.
I checked my phone.
Nothing.
I called the number.
Unavailable.
I tried again.
Disconnected.
The waitress eventually returned to refill my coffee and gave me a sympathetic smile that suggested she had already decided I’d been stood up.
I almost laughed.
Imagine trying to explain this.
No, you don’t understand.
The man who failed to show up is technically supposed to be dead.
By the second hour, my coffee had gone cold twice.
By the third, I had ordered a slice of pie simply to justify continuing to occupy the booth.
The diner had begun to empty.
Outside, afternoon sunlight reflected off the snow-covered streets.
Inside, my patience was running dangerously low.
I stared at my phone again.
Nothing.
No messages.
No calls.
No explanations.
Just silence.
A part of me wanted to leave.
Another part refused to move.
Because if Felix really was alive, then walking away now might mean losing the only chance I’d ever get to learn the truth.
Movement outside the window caught my attention.
A black SUV sat parked across the street.
(To be continued.....)
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