Page 90 of A Storybook Wedding

“Are you happy?” Mom asks.

“He’s good to you, this Nate guy?” Dad piles on.

“Yes,” I say. “Everything is fine.” This is obviously a lie, but it appears I’ve successfully smoothed things over with my parents, so I don’t think it’s necessary to mention the fact that I’ve just been booted out of school.

I’m able to wrap it up, and then I make another FaceTime call and have a very similar conversation with my sister, who apologizes profusely.

“I never would have dated him if I knew you were still in love with him!” she gushes.

“I wasn’t still in love with him,” I explain. “I just felt like it was against girl code, but I love you, and you were so excited, so how could I tell you not to be with him?”

She then cries for about forty-five minutes straight on account of extreme pregnancy hormones. I spend the bulk of our chat calming her down, so that’s fun. It’s only before I end our call, as I’m pacing the room, that I realize that Nate’s dirty laundry bag is gone.

His toiletries are still there, I remember.

But then I check the drawers, and all his clothes are gone too. I check the closet, and so is his suitcase. I hang up the phone with my sister and I call Nate. Straight to voicemail.

Okay. Hm. I’m tempted to panic, but my rational brain comes to the rescue.

I check the time. It’s after nine. He probably just found another room to crash in for the night. Isn’t that what married couples do? A husband and wife get in a fight, and the husband sleeps on the couch.

This is the equivalent of Nate sleeping on the couch.

Maybe he’s in one of those awful rooms in the North Wind. God, I hope not, for his sake. But this is on me. I told him to leave me alone, and he respectfully did exactly that. So okay. Don’t double down on the crazy, Cecily. Just take a break from each other for the night. It doesn’t need to be a huge deal.

A thought hits my chest: What if he left the island?

Nope. He couldn’t have left. There’s no public transportation off the island after 6:00 p.m. in the winter, unless you’re airlifted by an emergency medical helicopter, I remind myself.

We’ll reconvene in the morning. If we have to be on the first ferry out of here, that would be the one to Point Judith that leaves at 8:00 a.m. So I’ll see him on the 7:30 shuttle van.

It’s fine, I decide. Remain calm.

Everything’s going to be fine.

I pop two melatonin gummies, because there’s no way I’ll be able to get through the night with all of the thoughts dancing around in my head. And then, because my body is useless when it comes to tolerance, I pass out like a dead person.

The alarm clock on my phone wakes me up at 6:30. I get up, get dressed, make the bed (as if I’m coming back or as if someone else might want to sleep in it), and pack all of my stuff. I pack Nate’s bathroom shelf lineup too, trying to push out of my mind the fact that he didn’t come back to our room last night.

Once I’ve lugged all my crap downstairs, I pop into the kitchen to see where Maggie is. At this point, the only people I’m not afraid to run into are the retreat house staff. Of course, as luck would have it, Lucy is there, her resting bitch face in all its glory. She’s smirking at me, the look silently shouting, I told you so. My response look is one of curiosity, like, You told me what exactly?

“Maggie is outside waiting to take you to the eight o’clock boat, Cecily,” she says, but the sinister smile on her face tells a different story.

“Thank you,” I reply.

“Best of luck to you with your writing endeavors.”

“Um, yeah. Thank you.”

I turn to leave and notice her smirking toward the kitchen door, where none other than Alice Devereaux is peeking out.

Makes sense that she would be just as shady in my final encounter with her as she was in my initial one, I think as I trudge through the early-morning ice remnants to the running van.

I open the door, expecting to see Nate inside, but it’s only Maggie.

“Morning,” she says, light-years more cheerful than Lucifer back in the main house. She’s wearing a tight black long-sleeve shirt that leaves her whole midsection completely bare. Across the chest, it reads, This is my (book) clubbing shirt. Normally, her getup would make me contemplate the Matthias dress code, but right now, it doesn’t even register, distraught as I am by the events of the past twelve hours.

“Hi, Maggie. I’m not sure if you heard. Nate and I need a ride to the ferry, please.”

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