Jas shooed me out without many more words. “Go home and check in on him, yeah? Like why hasn’t he answered your last few messages?” She chewed her lip.
“No, I messaged earlier and he replied. He just thinks I had a bad dream.”
Thinking about Dan reminded me about the letter again.
Jas’s face was not convinced. I knew what she was thinking and then I was gripped with a terrible fear too. I pulled out my phone, my shoulders relaxing a fraction as I looked at my last message. “See, look, the blue tick means he’s read it.”
“What if his phone is with like the police or something? Oh my God, call him, Emma, this is stressing me out.”
Her panic made my own flare. I hastily rang his mobile, Jas staring wide-eyed at me. Her shoulders slumped when she heard him answer.
“See,” I said, relief coursing through me too as I held out my phone to her in triumph. “Not dead!”
“Emma? Emma? I’m working,” came the voice. “What is it?”
“Just checking . . . checking you are . . .” Don’t say not dead, Emma. “Checking you are . . . on track to be home at the usual time.”
His voice lifted a fraction. “I am.” Was that hope?
“Great. I’ll pick up food.”
“Cool.”
Jas was miming something in front of me. Both hands in front of her like she was holding the imaginary handles of a bike, her body wobbling urgently from side to side, and then she sank to the floor, her tongue out of her mouth to the side.
“Er . . .” I stared down at her as she craned her neck upward, an urgency in her brown eyes. “But don’t hurry,” I added quickly down the phone.
Jas nodded.
“Don’t rush. There is no rush. Be careful. Like appropriately careful. Not speedy. Or, you know, reckless.”
“Er . . . OK. I mean I don’t aim to be reckless. I’ll be chill.”
“Great,” I said as Jas did a thumbs-up from the floor. “See you soon then . . . And Dan?” I added.
“Yeah?”
“I love you.”
“I love you too, Emma,” his voice was infused with warmth for a moment and it filled me up.