There was a folded note on the kitchen counter, and as Jake picked it up, he was flooded with a series of memories of the two of them there in that very spot: Jake extending a wooden spoon of warm pasta sauce for Molly to taste; Molly topping off their glasses with more wine, an intrigued smile on her face as she sat watching him cook; her spine arched against the laminate as he pressed his mouth to her neck while the sauce simmered; the sound of her laugh, wild and deep.
The note, in Molly’s signature looped handwriting, said what he already knew. She was not here. She was not coming back.
He called again and again, but she wouldn’t answer. He got desperate enough to try Nina, who picked up only to say that if Molly didn’t want to talk to him, he should respect that.
Night after night, Jake sat on the couch and drank whiskey until he wept, then more until he’d numbed himself, immobile, his heart barely beating.
In the spring, Jake called Octagon—he remembered the name of the sports marketing firm—and tracked down Hunter’s email address.
Hey—Sorry if this is weird, but I’m really worried about Molly. She probably told you we broke up, but I haven’t been able to reach her in months and I have no idea where she is. Do you know if she’s okay? Hope to hear from you.
Days went by, and Hunter didn’t respond. Then weeks. Then months.
The band fell apart at the end of the summer. The European tour had been a moderate success, but not enough of one to secure Danner Lane spots in several of the continent’s biggest summer festivals like Jerry had hoped. By June, Jake was barely showing up to the studio. Sam and Hale were eager to get going on a third album—they were ready to create something bold, something that would resurrect them from the Precipice flop—but Jake was a wreck, and he needed a break. He told them as much. Sam said they couldn’t afford a break. Hale said to quit wallowing, to channel his pain into the music.
So Jake started dragging himself to the studio. But no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t find a way to be productive with his pain; the despair inside of him wasn’t making him feel motivated, just stuck. It wasn’t just hard to write music without Molly; it felt legitimately impossible to access the creative part of himself that required remembering the person he was trying to forget. Molly had been the one who read his lyrics and knew what worked and what didn’t, what needed to be shifted or omitted, which lines felt cheesy or contrived. She just got it. Their minds had been in sync that way.
Jake showed the few songs he did wrangle out of himself to Sam and Hale—knowing they were terrible—and in retrospect, it was probably the expressions on their faces in that moment when Jake knew the end had come. The Lanes didn’t look angry the way they had when Jake had showed them the first batch of Precipice tracks nearly two years earlier. Instead, their eyes were full of pity. The next day, they told him they’d decided to make a go of it as a duo on their own and that Jerry was sticking with them.
“We love you, Danner, but we can’t just put our careers on hold while you figure out how to get your shit together,” Sam had said, his eyes sorry but certain. “The momentum is too important right now. This just isn’t working. There’s strength in knowing when it’s time to say goodbye.”
The agony of losing Sam and Hale—his brothers; the closest thing he’d had to family—hit slowly. Jake was so consumed by the pain of being without Molly that the loss of the band came in gradual waves, until one day he realized he had nothing and no one left that mattered to him. No Sam and Hale, no Danner Lane, no Molly.
One Saturday early in the fall, Jake rode the subway over to the East Village. The Lanes had decided to give up their studio lease after Jerry had found them some super-high-tech space uptown, and Jake was required to drop off his keys.
No one was there when he entered the room, the three hundred square feet where he’d spent so much of the past five years. Jake drank in the sight of the studio for the last time: the black walls, the worn red carpet, the drum kit and amp in the corner, the cracked leather couch where the three of them used to sit and unwind with beers after endless hours of practice. He inhaled its slightly musty scent—like dried paint mixed with Heineken—before walking out the door, his heart a shriveled muscle inside his chest.
Out on the street, the October sun was strong overhead. Jake rubbed his eyes—he was in desperate need of coffee, and there was a good spot a few blocks north. He walked up Avenue A, turning left on East Twelfth Street and crossing First Avenue, where he popped into the little corner café. At the counter, Jake ordered a large black coffee and a ham-and-cheese croissant. He wasn’t hungry—he almost never was lately—but his jeans were loose. He had to eat.