"Below my soul, I feel an engine
collapsing as it sees the pain
If only I could shut it out"

"It's a shark!" Nate shouts.

"A cat?" I try to guess.

"I gotta be honest babe, you suck at drawing." Matt informs Emma.

Nate and I are at Emma's apartment to hang out with her and Matt. Right now we're playing pictionary. Or trying too. We aren't even in teams, one person is drawing on a white board and the rest of us are guessing. We've been playing for almost an hour.

"Ugh. It was a horse. How can you not see it?"

We all turn to look at it again. It's really bad.

"Sorry, your work is amazing. Can you please autograph it?" Matt jokes. This causes Em to throw the marker at him.

"Shut up. It's your turn. Let's see if you can do better."

"Fine."

Matt gets up and starts drawing. We are not using cards, but drawing whatever we feel like.

"An elephant!" Nate and I say at the same time.

"Yep." He smirks.

Emma pretends to be annoyed but we can tell she's not. "Whatever guys, You all are just against me." She then procceds to stick her tongue out at us.

Later in the night Nate and I decide to leave.

"Let's do this again sometime!" Emma tells us.

"That would be great." Nate responds.

"Should we get together this friday? We can go to the movies." Matt asks.

"Actually, I won't be here. Tomorrow I leave for California. I'm going for one week to tell them at work what I have planned for the boardwalk." Nate had barely told me this morning. He said it was a last minute thing and that his dad had told him to schedule a meeting to do a presentation about Kemah and what changes they would do. Nate had asked me to come with him, but I have work and Kay to help take care of.

"Oh, then when you get back."

"Great, just no pictionary." I joke and poke Emma.

"Your the ones who need glasses because obviously I'm amazing at drawing."

"Of course."

We then all hug goodbye then Nate and I walk towards his car.

"What time is your flight?"

"At 9 in the morning. But I have to get there early to check in. I hate having to wake up early. The only reason I can't use the company's private plane is because my cousin is using it and travelling to close some business deals."

It shouldn't surprise me that his family has a plane since they're rich, but still, it surprises me.

"Call or text me when you get to California to know you made it safe. Also don't forget to get me a souviner. It can be anything, just don't cheat and get it from the airport." I joke.
................................................................

When I wake up the next day I see a text from Nate and smile.

Getting on the plane. I'll call you later. Miss you

I wonder if I should text him back. He probably has his phone off, but he'll see it when he lands.

I text him

Its only been one day :) Miss you too. Have fun and talk to you later.

Today I work with Matt, who by the way is a much better employee than Aimee. Speaking of she who will not be named, I haven't seen or heard about her since the day she quit. Which is fine by me. I feel like the world should throw a party.

I make my way to work and as soon as I set foot in the store it's busy until the time I leave.

It isn't until I get ready to sleep that I remember Nate hasn't called or texted. I try to not overthink it and realize that maybe he's just busy with work. I tell myself that as I fall asleep.

...............................................................
2 Days later

"What if something happened to him?" I ask Em. I still haven't heard from Nate. It's not like him to not to text me.

"Don't think like that. He's probably busy or something happened to his phone or some other reason. He's fine."

A customer comes into the store and I distract myself with helping her.

When the customer leaves I hear Emma call me.

"Hey your phone just buzzed." I forgot I left it on the counter.

I go quickly to check it. Maybe it's Nate.

I unlock my phone and see that I have recieved a text message but from an unknown number.

Huh. I go ahead and open it.

The first thing I see is an image of Nate and some pretty girl with black hair hugging and kissing.

What is this?

I then see the text underneath saying:

I told you he would never stay with you. Looks like he found someone new to play with in California
-Aimee

"Audrey whats wrong?" Emma interrupts my thoughts.

I show her my phone. I don't even know what to think.

At first Emma looks shocked but notices me and changes her expression, "This might be fake. It's from Aimee. We both know she's just mad."

"What if she's right? I mean he hasn't called me back. And how did she even get my number?"

Aimee and I had never traded phone numbers. At the moment though, I don't really care.

I look at the picture and notice the girl he's kissing basically looks like a supermodel.

I can't stand to look at it anymore so I put down my phone.

"Nate would never cheat on you. He cares about you. There has to be a reason." Emma tries to help me feel better.

I trust Nate. I should just wait until he can explain this. But how do I do that when he won't answer his phone? What if he isn't even coming back to Kemah? I need to stop thinking about this because I will go insane. I feel my eyes starting to water but I try to ignore it.

"Look I can tell your overthinking by the look on your face. Just wait until he comes back and you'll have answers okay?"

She keeps talking but I have tuned her out. I really hope there's an explanation for this. If it's real I would fell like the stupidest person on earth for thinking Nate liked me. It kills me to think everything between us was a lie and that he was just playing with me.

Emma comes over to hug me and that's when I realize that I've started crying. I don't try to stop it anymore and let the tears fall as a million things pass through my mind.