The four of them watch me pace in front of the bathroom door. I’m helpless. She’s in there, in pain, alone. And I can’t do a fucking thing about it. Scratch that. I could have done something. I could have remembered why she doesn’t drink in first place instead of enjoying her drunk and flirty and fuck. She was ready to trust me, to give me something more, and I blew it because I thought she was sexy when she let herself go.
“Hey, mate,” Duncan says. “You want me to go downstairs and grab you a pint? Help ya calm down and deal with…” He points to the bathroom door.
“I don’t know what’s going on,” I say. “I don’t know how to handle this.”
“Griffin.” A hand grabs my shoulder, and I stop moving, her voice soft in my ear. Jordan.
My eyes lock on hers, desperate for some sort of reassurance.
“Griffin, you can handle this. Whatever it is, you can do this.”
I shake my head. “This isn’t the first time something strange has happened with her. Last week, at my parents’ house…” Jordan’s brows pull together, and I realize there’s too much to explain, especially since I don’t know what’s going on myself. But the text Nat sent after brunch, the one I ignored for my own selfish needs, replays in my head. I don’t deserve this girl, not when I seem to keep putting myself first. “I already fucked up. She told me about the migraines, and I didn’t think. I was having too much fun. I didn’t think about the consequences of what she was doing, that she was putting herself at risk to make everything go well for me. That’s not handling shit. In case you haven’t noticed, I’m not big on responsibility. She needs someone better.”
“We’re going to go play Uno in the lobby,” Noah says, leading Duncan and Elaina to the door.
“No good-byes yet, aye?” Duncan asks, and I nod.
“Maggie doesn’t need us all here when she comes out.” Noah sneaks a kiss from Jordan. “You stay. We can have a drink in the bar here when you get back down,” he tells her. “You, too, man,” he says to me. “She’s going to want to sleep. We’re happy to hang at the hotel for the rest of the night so we don’t have to cut the visit short.”
“Thank you,” I say. “Are you sure it’s okay if Jordan…” I don’t know how to finish the question, and luckily I don’t have to.
“No worries. You guys need to talk.”
Jordan squeezes him in an embrace. “Yawp,” she whispers to him.
“Yawp,” he whispers in return, his head buried in her hair. Though I have no idea what the word means, I know what it means to them.
When the door closes, I call quietly to Maggie again, but she doesn’t answer. Jordan heads back to the window bench, tapping the spot next to her. Because pacing does nothing to calm me, I sit.
“Do you remember,” she starts, looking out at the star-speckled sky, “when you told me I could have reformed you?”
I sigh, leaning my head against the glass. “Thanksgiving two years ago.”
“Mmmm-hmmm.” She spins so her back is flush with the window like mine, her legs dangling over the end of the bench. “But you never looked at me like you look at her.”
She says this not with jealousy or anger but with a smile and something that sounds like hope.
“I know,” I say. “Could you have, though? If things had been different, could you have seen me as someone who was worth it?”
Maybe the question isn’t a fair one, but it’s one that’s always lingered at the back of my mind, if Jordan saw me as anything different than what I let rise to the surface—if Maggie could really see past the guy I was when she met me.
“Is that what you think? That I never saw you as worth it? Griffin, I should have fought harder to show you how I felt. I’m the one who messed up. Not you. You’re worth everything, and there’s a girl in there who’s been looking at you all night like you’re the freaking air she breathes. She needs you.”
Needing her is what scares the shit out of me.
She spins to face me, one leg still dangling. “You know, in some ways Aberdeen was both the most painful year of my life and the best one. I think that’s where you are now, sweetie. The good is so good. It really is. But you’ll miss out on it if you don’t also accept there will be some pain.”
My eyes meet hers, and she smiles. Again I’m taken aback by how much she’s changed, how much I can tell she’s grown since I saw her last.
“When did you get so wise?” I ask her.
She laughs. “I surprise even myself sometimes with my endless fountain of wisdom.”
“Can I hug you?”
“Most definitely.” She slides closer and wraps her arms around me, this stranger I thought I knew. “Tell her how you feel,” she whispers to me. “Let her in, and she’ll do the same for you.”
“You make it sound so easy,” I say.
“It’s scary as fucking hell to tell someone you love them, Griffin. But you want to know what’s worse?”
“What?”