Jay can’t have gone far, but I have no clue which direction he took off in. Calling out, with my hands anxiously locked together on my head, I look over at the Tavern, then the towpath, then the road. The rain has all but petered out into a thin gray mist, the whole world insubstantial and lost. I tell myself he’ll come back in a minute, that he just needs to calm down a bit and sort his head out, but I’m scared, perhaps more scared than I’ve ever been—scared he’s not thinking straight, scared he’ll do something stupid. This is my nightmare, however irrational it is to feel this way in the pale light of day. Losing Jay is what I fear the most. And this is my fault. Hoarsely I call for him again and again. When I look towards the Tavern, I catch Lorne at an upstairs window, a worried look on her face. With a keen desperation, I plead for him to come back.
