I checked my phone again, for the fifth time in as many minutes. Not just a quick glance at the indicator light, which I prayed would be flashing its friendly light-green blinking—no, I went through the whole process of unlocking the phone, opening the messaging app, and looking over our conversation. Still nothing. I was tempted to fire him yet another message, but what would it do to add one more to the twelve I’d already sent and the three calls that had gone straight to voicemail? It wasn’t like this would make him respond any faster.

I sighed and chucked the phone onto my bed. Our bed. The bed I’d managed to get him in for the fastest hour in history a week earlier. God, that had been nice—

No. I tried to push those thoughts out of my mind, to stop thinking about him. It was useless. I didn’t even want to. Not when all of this was going on. Not when he had…

I couldn’t even form the words in my head.

“Anything?” I asked, turning back to worn leather office chair and the tri-colored head that sat bent over in it.

A quick shake sent the pink, blue and yellow hair flying back and forth. “Nothing new. Nothing’s been updated. Facebook, Insta, Snap, all of them just showing the same stuff from a few days ago.”

A few days ago. The last time I’d seen him. “What about LinkedIn?” I tried to smile.

“Yeah, I’ll check that right after I check Myspace and Google Plus.” Caitlyn looked up from her phone and laid her eyes right on me. “You know, this would be easier if you had the apps on your own phone.”

“Nope. You know my rule about social media. It just distracts me.”

“Yeah, because you’re clearly not distracted right now.”

I sat down on the bed, the mattress creaking beneath me, and sunk my face into my hands. “This doesn’t make sense.”

“I know. I heard you the first dozen times.” Using her feet, she scooted the chair across the wood floor until she was sitting right in front of me. “But maybe there‘s an explanation. Maybe he went on vacation or his phone’s broken, or he’s grounded—”

“He’d find a way to let me know.” I was back up on my feet, walking past her and to the window. “He never said anything about vacation. His last words to me were ‘Let’s try to do something on Wednesday.’” I could still hear them echoing through my head. “And that was last week.”

The window looked out on the tiny backyard, barely big enough to contain the house’s barbeque and a set of third-hand patio furniture. I’d joked that it should have been classified as a balcony when I’d first moved in. Back before I even knew Josh. Back before, well, whatever the hell this situation was.

Two firm hands came down on my shoulders and began to massage them. “Please try to relax.” I found myself doing so as her fingers worked against my sore muscles. “Just wait a few days. He’s bound to show up soon.”

I gave her another few seconds to relieve my aching shoulders before shrugging her away and walking back to my phone. Still nothing. Not that I was expecting there to be something.

Not that I wasn’t praying there would be.

I stretched my arms out and slowly sighed, finally able to take a deeper, longer breath. “Okay. We’ll wait. You’re right. There has to be a sensible explanation for all of this. Plus, I have a ton of assignments that I haven’t even started on. And probably a few tests to study for.” Now she was smirking at me. I sighed again. “Thanks C. I really appreciate this.”

She grabbed my arms and held them firmly. “Everything’s going to be fine. For all you know, there was an emergency in his family, and he’s a thousand miles away with a dead phone, desperately trying to find a way to get in contact with you.”

I nodded as my heart’s pounding lessened to a steady rate and my shoulders relaxed further. My whole body was calming down. “Yeah. The last thing he’d want me to do is freak out. Then he’d feel even worse about this.”

She sat back in the chair and scooted it back to the desk. “Exactly. I’ll keep an eye on his socials. But this really isn’t anything to worry about. Can you promise you’ll try to stop?”

I chuckled. “I’ll try to try. Besides, I have to plan something for tonight’s meeting, right? Maybe I can do something that relates to this whole mess. ‘What to do when your boyfriend stops answering your texts.’ Or something like—”

She gasped loudly. “Oh God.”

“…or not,” I said. “Fine, I’ll do something that doesn’t—”

“No, it’s…” she held up her phone. “Oh no. Oh no, no, no.”

In a second, my heart was racing once again, and my entire body felt like it’d heated up fifty degrees. “What?” I lunged over to her. “What is it?”

“I-I just tried to view his Facebook. It’s… it’s not there anymore.”

I looked over the page. Where seconds before had been the cheerful, beaming smile of my boyfriend and a slew of enthusiastic, bright background statuses, now there was just a bandaged thumb and a message that the page was not available.

I struggled to get the words out, my mouth dry and my throat feeling constricted by my pounding heart. “Check the other pages.” Caitlyn fumbled with her phone. “Dammit, check them!”

She opened his Twitter account. Pre-refresh: 1,276 posts. Post-refresh: inactive account. Caitlyn glanced up at me with wide eyes and moved on to Josh’s Instagram. Every photo of his piercing blue eyes and shiny black hair was gone.

“How could…” she started. “We were just looking at them. How could they all just be deactivated like this?”

I couldn’t find the words to say it aloud, but I feared—no, I knew—what had happened. The unanswered texts, the absence on campus and at the club meetings, and now this. I had no idea what was causing it, but it had happened.

Josh had disappeared.

My boyfriend was gone.