Molly crawled into bed. She cradled her phone like a security blanket, willing Jake to call. But he didn’t, and eventually, her worrying succumbed to exhaustion, and she fell asleep.
When she woke the next morning, she felt a little better—her headache was gone—but a fresh batch of dread pooled in her gut when she looked at her phone and didn’t see Jake’s name. Where was he?
Her anxiety was growing worse by the minute, but she willed herself into autopilot, pushing down thoughts of Saturday night. She made coffee and her usual cinnamon raisin toast with peanut butter and sat down at her desk, forcing herself to tackle some edits. She and Alexis were in a good place—Needs was slated to publish in January 2017, and they had roughly six months to finish revisions before the novel went into production. But the chapter she was currently adjusting—the part where Sebastian brings Grace to his coastal hometown in Georgia—felt so reminiscent of being at the Narrows with Jake the weekend they drove to North Carolina that Molly couldn’t stand for it to be in the manuscript. She needed to turn her thoughts away from Jake, but in the book, he was everywhere.
By three, she’d barely made any progress at all and slapped her laptop shut in a fit of frustration. She had to be at Bhakti to sub the four o’clock class. How was she supposed to cue mindfulness and calm when her own brain was a tornado of panic?
Molly taught in a daze, as though she’d pressed Play on a tape recorder of her voice and was watching herself from above. Afterward, she wandered back to the apartment in the frosty cold and tried Jake three more times. But his phone was still off, and now, his voicemail was full. In the kitchen, she heated up some tomato soup—the kind that came in a box from Trader Joe’s. She forced a few bites, but her appetite was extinguished.
She took a piping-hot shower, washed the day off. She lathered her hair with Jake’s shampoo, and the smell pushed her over the edge. Molly began to sob, the tears sliding down her soapy body and into the drain. Afterward, she put on sweats and climbed into bed, staring at her phone like it might sprout wings and fly. Still nothing. Her flight to Munich was departing the day after tomorrow.
She knew she should try to get in touch with Sam or Hale or Jerry, but she didn’t know their international cell numbers. In a fit of desperation, Molly opened her laptop and crafted an email to the three of them. She copied Jake, even though he was even worse on email than his phone.
Hi, all—I can’t reach Jake. Is everything ok? I’m supposed to fly to Munich Weds and don’t have any flight details. I need the airport, flight time and number, tickets, etc. Can one of you please send ASAP? Thanks, M
Molly fell into a fitful, restless sleep, waking every few hours to check her phone and email. But there continued to be no word from anyone, and when she woke up on Tuesday and there was still nothing from Jake on her phone, she fought the urge to hurl the thing across the room.
She felt too sick to eat. She managed a few sips of coffee and water before heading to Bhakti, where she taught two back-to-back power flows in a trance. Molly was technically supposed to wait half an hour after class before leaving the studio, but Veronica found her slumped behind the front desk, her back against the watercooler.
“You look like shit.” Veronica was never one to beat around the bush.
“Ugh.” Molly rubbed her temples. “I don’t feel so hot, V.”
“Go home.” The studio manager patted her shoulder. “You leave for your big trip tomorrow, anyway, right? You should go pack.”
Back at the apartment, Molly didn’t bother changing out of her sweaty yoga clothes before crawling into bed. She curled into a ball under the covers, seized by her own helplessness, her own visceral agony. Where the fuck was Jake? At first, she had felt guilty for getting so drunk on Saturday night, then angry when he didn’t return any of her calls, but now, she was starting to grow genuinely concerned. Had something happened? She knew how hard the band partied on tour. Jake didn’t do drugs often, but he experimented every now and then. Coke, mushrooms, even acid once or twice when Hale was involved. Maybe someone had overdosed. The thought turned her blood cold.
When he finally called just after six, Molly thought the sight of his name on her phone was an apparition.
“Jake?” Her voice was barely a whisper. She was a shred of herself.
“Moll.” Jake sounded winded, like he’d been running. “I’m so sorry. Holy shit. Please listen to me. We just checked into our hotel in Munich and my charger finally works here. The fucking Swiss outlets! Did you know the outlets in Switzerland are different from every other country in Europe?”