Can't Look Away(85)
“Oh, Jesus. Who was I talking to about Hunter?”
“Just Ev and me. You were showing us pictures of his girlfriend on Instagram.”
Molly groaned. “Great.”
“And then you kept saying you were gonna call him and were talking about how wise and incredible he is—”
“Ugh.” Molly felt like she was going to be sick.
“And then you disappeared. Did you actually call Hunter?”
“No.” Molly hated to lie to Nina, but she couldn’t deal with explaining everything, not in her current state. Besides, she needed to talk to Jake first.
“Did you go right home?”
“Yes.” Another lie. “I passed out.”
“Ah. Well, if it’s any consolation, I feel like I got run over by a bus, too. Cash hasn’t gotten out of bed all day, except for Gatorade and pizza.”
“Mmm, pizza.” Molly’s stomach was grumbling. She should eat something.
“What a night, Moll. I can’t party like that anymore. Please tell me how we did that in college, like, five nights a week?”
“I dunno, Neens.” Molly sank back into the couch, pressed her palm to her throbbing forehead. “We’re old now.”
“Less than four years away from thirty. Weird.” Nina sighed. “You must be excited to see Jake so soon.”
“Yeah, well, he’s not picking up my calls. I’m flying to Munich on Wednesday morning, and he hasn’t sent me my flight information or anything.”
“Well, it’s Sunday. You should probably figure that out.…”
“I know.” Molly picked at the cuticle of her thumbnail, her irritation building. “He does this whenever he goes away. It’s, like, a privilege if I hear from him—from my own boyfriend—when he’s on tour. It’s like he doesn’t know how to use his fucking phone, and he always says it’s going to be different, and it never is.” She felt tears gathering in her throat. Her whole body hurt from emotional and physical exhaustion, from drinking seven different types of liquor in the span of four hours. Her stomach growled again; she really was starving. “Neens, I need to go find some food. I’ll call you later.”
After they hung up, Molly foraged the fridge for leftovers. She dumped a pile of cold sesame noodles into a bowl and tried Jake again. Voicemail picked up instantly.
“Jake, where are you? Please call me back. We really need to talk—I’m serious, it’s important. And you still need to forward me the travel itinerary for Wednesday. Just call me, okay? I love you.”
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.