Page 106 of Freckles

“What are you talking about?” Jared shoves the captain’s jersey straight back at me. “You can’t leave. Not when you make the whole team look better. The selector’s in the front row.”

“Then you’ll be able to make a great impression.” I catch his shoulders, holding him square while I look him in the eye. “You’ve got this.”

“No.”

Coach Jenkins approaches me with more caution. “I don’t know what’s going down with you outside the game, but it’s time to pause and think. This is the opportunity you’ve been working towards, and you’re lucky to have another shot after last week’s performance. Chances like this don’t come along every day.”

“Listen to him,” Jared pleads, looking paler by the second. “Whatever you’re planning, a few hours won’t make any difference.”

It hurts to say the words. To put a voice to my fears. “Something’s happening with Francesca. I need to go and get my girl.”

When I draw back, he scrutinises my face, then nods, and I can breathe easier.

“Ezra is desperate to impress so he’ll be in top form, and he’ll love the fact I’m not here. Use it.”

“Fine,” he snaps, swapping jerseys. “But you’d better bring it next Wednesday.”

Coach is now redder than a beetroot. “You’re not bringing anything next Wednesday. If you leave now, you’re off the fucking team, and I don’t give a damn who your uncle is.”

I’ve never cared less in my life. “Language.”

His expression turns so thunderous I think he’s going to hit me, but it doesn’t matter. I don’t care if I never play for the school again.

The last ten minutes have given me complete clarity on what’s important and what I can let slide. Rugby is nothing but a game to me.

Francesca is my life.

* * *

It doesn’t take longto find the phone, in the bin along with the keys to the car she left parked nearby. The moment I do, I phone Tyson, still scared that something’s happened, someone’s taken her at gunpoint, forcing her to abandon her vehicle before jumping on a plane.

Without an idea of where she’s gone, I go home, watching over Tyson’s shoulder as he connects the various CCTV feeds, building a picture of her movements throughout the afternoon.

And with each frame, my heart sinks further. The hole widens, each healed stitch popping open until I’m engulfed by the old emptiness.

There is no third party.

Francesca is on her own.

The cameras at the end of her street show her car passing on the way home, then returning a short time later, just long enough for her to have packed a bag. She has one with her on the airport feeds, and I watch as she ditches the car keys, walks to the stop for the shuttle, then walks back to throw away her phone.

A man approaches. The only contact before she gets on the bus, and I have Tyson zoom in on their interaction from every angle possible.

I simultaneously need her to be safe but some dull animalistic part of me wants him to be threatening her.

It would make it all so much easier to bear.

But it’s nothing. He says a few words while she stands there, frozen, then she jerks away and moves back to the shuttle stop, boarding the bus a moment later.

The feeds inside the bus station aren’t in the right place to catch her route number. She could be travelling to one of seven different destinations or be getting off at any stop along the way.

Too many options for our surveillance staff to handle.

I’ve lost her.

I might never have had her at all.

When Tyson calls for a break, I visit the kitchen, holding the fridge door open while I glance from the bottles of water to the beer and back again, unable to decide.

---