“So you don’t reach out to her anymore?”
“No, I mean, I do. Sometimes.” Though now that I think about it, I don’t know whether I’ve tried since that dinner I attempted to put together. “But she doesn’t text me either.”
He hums in acknowledgment. “James was like that, sometimes. We would go for these long stretches without talking. He traveled a lot, but whenever he came back home, I’d get a string of messages. Pictures from his trip, multiple questions about how I’d been, what I’d been up to.” A small, wistful smile blossoms across his mouth. “I don’t know. It was like we could always fall back into things. No matter how much time had passed.” He glances at me. “Maybe it’ll be like that for both of you. With your friend.”
“Yeah,” I say, my throat tight for some reason. “Maybe.” I swallow. “And I’m sorry about—my father told me a little bit about James.”
“Thanks,” Jacob says. “James is—hewasa really great person.” He shakes his head. “Sorry. A lot of the time, it just feels like he’s traveling again. Like he’s temporarily out of the country, but he’ll be back eventually. It only feels real when he’s not there and it’s something he’d never miss, something like the wedding, that I—”
He breaks off, a shadow falling over his face. He reaches for his phone, and I can hear him tapping out a message. Out of the corner of my eye, I catch Maggie’s name at the top of his screen, and a wall of text on one side, all the unanswered messages he’s sent her.
My stomach clenches.
With his parents gone, with James gone, Maggie is the only family Jacob has left. And now she’s also missing, gone from his life, because of me.
Jacob doesn’t look up from his phone, and we don’t say anything to each other for the remainder of the drive, until we finally arrive in Inverness.
9
This is going to be a problem.
“But sir, hehasa reservation.”
“And I’m telling you, he can’t stay in that room. There has to be something else.” Jacob’s face is stern, his brows furrowed, and it’s nice to see someone else be on the receiving end of his wrath for a change.
My father’s sitting a few feet away in one of the chairs in the lobby. He has his phone to his ear again, no doubt leaving Maggie yet another voicemail.
Per the front desk, Maggie hasn’t been here. Or at least, she never checked in. My father and Jacob tried asking if she maybe checked in under her maiden name, or if anyone with her physical description had been in the lobby, but the answer was always “no.”
Without any leads on where Maggie might have gone, we decided to check in and stay the night. Besides, I can’t keep driving, and my father still appears to be in no condition to take a turn.
“I’m telling you we don’t have any other rooms available,” the man behind the front desk says. “But the suite that he’s reserved cancertainly accommodate three people. There’s a separate living room area with a couch that converts to a bed, so—”
“We don’t need the suite,” Jacob says. “We’ll take an ordinary room. Any other—”
“I’m sorry,” the man replies. “The honeymoon suite is all we have available.”
“Can we at least not call it that?”
The man checks the computer screen, then looks back at us, shrugging. “It’s a normal suite, but with the package that was requested. There’s champagne up there, and flowers…”
Jacob lets out a long sigh, then holds his hand out palm-up to receive the key. “I’ll get rid of that.” He turns to me. “Can you keep your dad down here for a little while? Maybe come up in fifteen?”
“Uh, sure.” Jacob heads for the elevator, and I go sit in the large velvet armchair that’s facing my father.
“Everything okay?” my dad asks, not looking up from his phone.
No. “Yes,” I say. “Just some logistics to work out, but it will be fine.”
He nods distractedly, slumped over in his chair. Tired and defeated and heartbroken.
A lump rises in my throat.
I wish I could turn back time and stop myself from drinking those last few glasses of wine. I wish I could have caught myself before my lips got too loose. I said things I’d meant, but that doesn’t mean I should have said them.
I don’t know. On some level I know I’m not completely responsible for Maggie running, or the wedding being ruined. I would just feel a lot better if I knew she was okay.
My eyes drift shut, only opening when a hand shakes my shoulder.
