Ben's face gazed impassively back at her while the ringing continued on her tablet.  I never did like that photo of him, she thought.  The black and white makes him look so distant and severe.  He looks tense, he always hates to have his photo taken and this selfie doesn't do him justice.  I wonder why he chose this for his icon? The rings continued, sounding indistinct and out of phase then stopped.  No answer.

Hardly surprizing, she thought.  The connection between the small cottage in Normandy and the campus in the deep South of the US wasn't great.  So she carried on trying, hoping not to sound like a smothering, overanxious mum.  She sent a brief email, a sticker and a message on his favourite soical media site.  No bites.

Finally she contacted Lucas, Ben's roommate by text:

Hi Lucas!  Haven't heard from Ben in a while.  Can you remind him his mum wants his news?

Hi.  I was going to contact you.  Ben went out yesterday morning and hasn't come back.

What?

He didn't show up for classes this morning either but we were hoping he'd be back by now.

She re-read the text once, twice and breathed in and out before she typed:

Where did he go?

He said he was going for a swim.

Alone?

He was supposed to go with Guillaume but Guillaume had an essay to finish for today and couldn't.

She paused before replying.  Her thoughts began to race.  Ben had been out of contact with her and his roommates for more than 36 hours now. Scenrios spun through her head each one with Ben in danger: robbery at gun point, mugging with the threat of a blade, a body on the tarmac as a car raced away...  This doesn't make sense.  Ben goes out in plain daylight for a swim and doesn't come back.

Can you remember anything unusual about Ben that morning?  

Well, he did seem to take a bag, a big bag, much larger than what you need to pack swim gear.

Anything else?

We found his phone by his bed.  He left it.

Do you think he forgot it?

No.  It's been put beside his computer.  It looks to me he left them both.

So Ben wasn't laying in a gutter unconscious somewhere.  He had made a decision.  To leave. And to cut himself off from the world.  To disappear.