Snippet #2238838

Donald woke up startled by some noise in the street. He looked around, confused, and was not able to recall anything that had happened the day before. He felt tired, as if he had not slept enough that night. Or had it been a day? There was too much light shining through the drapes, it had to be at least midday.

He rolled in bed to face the other side of his room, where the wall clock was. He was shocked to see that it was already 1:47 PM. Damn! I won't make it to the gym in time today, he thought. But what exactly would he miss? He was not sure whether today's training was muay thai, or kickboxing, or karate...

After stretching lazily and yawning, he reached for his mobile phone on the cabinet to find out what day of the week it was, only to see that it was not there. When he was about to get up and look for it, he saw something else that was not where it should be. He must have shoved it aside with the door when he opened it, and now it lied on the corner, inconspicuous except for when the wind blew on the drapes and the light shone upon it, making its thin metallic needle glister. Suddenly, he remembered everything: the call from his girlfriend, his asking her to leave school and come over, her finding out about the syringe, their argument, her escape behind his mother's back - the last few hours before his falling asleep that had completely vanished from his mind after his awakening were now back, and with them the worries. Where is Victoria now?, he wondered, hoping that, wherever she was, she had at least kept quiet about the whole story. If anyone else came to know of it, he could be in for some jail time.

He opened the curtains and looked through the window, half expecting to see police cars in front of his house. His street was as quiet as it always was, though. Somehow, that made things worse: he found it extremely annoying for the outside world to be so calm when his own mind was rushing through several worst-case scenarios.

Walking back to bed, he decided that would be a good moment to take a look at Tori's phone; her text messages and missed calls would show whether people were looking for her. He took it from under the pillow he had used to conceal it and pressed the biggest button to light up the screen, but nothing happened. He tried again, without success. Funny; I could swear it was on. He pressed the power button, and was relieved when a picture appeared on the screen, as that meant he had not broken it in his sleep to make things worse, but seeing that it was an "out of battery" symbol put a damper on his mood. Isn't anything going to work today for a change? He could not charge it because it was a different model from his and he did not have the right charger, so there was really nothing he could do about it; Victoria would get away with anything she was hiding there that time. He put the girl's phone in his pocket, next to his own, so his mother would not chance upon it if she, too, decided to poke around his room, and threw the syringe away after wrapping a napkin around it. That reminded him he had some... business that day, and not far from Victoria's school. If she had lied to him and gone back there, maybe there was still time to find out; he believed school was not over yet.