Chapter 34 #2
I am so sorry. So sorry. So fucking sorry.
I love you.
I swallowed the lump in my throat. I couldn’t imagine how she was feeling right now. The empty pit in my stomach was enough to make me want to climb into my grave. I had failed her.
Heather’s voice rang through my head.
She’s moved on, you know. Some guy was with her. She was wearing his clothes.
The image sharpened again, uninvited. The guy’s face still wouldn’t come into focus. Like the game in my head was buffering.
I wanted to know who the fuck this guy was. I called her again.
“Trouble, please answer. I love you. Nothing happened, Mackenzie. Please let me explain. Heather gave me drugs. Please just answer.”
I hung up feeling like my world had just exploded. I sent her off a few more texts. I couldn’t remember exactly what I typed minutes after sending them. My brain felt like it was skipping frames.
As soon as I reached the checkout line outside the dining hall, I was a nervous wreck and felt as if I would collapse at any moment. I was hungover with confusion, guilt, and heartbreak. My skin buzzed. My hand instinctively went up to my shoulder—to our tattoo.
I held it while listening to the birds chirp in the trees. Everything felt normal now. I closed my eyes, listening to the wind, feeling the sun on my back, and hearing Mackenzie’s laugh in my ears. She couldn’t be gone.
Laughter from a group of kids nearby jolted me out of my thoughts. No one around me knew my entire life had just fallen apart. All the smiles from parents picking up their kids and the laughs from the counselors made me want to stab myself in the eye.
“Max! I can’t believe this is it,” said Graham.
I stopped, watching him.
For the first time, I was seeing him for what he was. An intruder. A snake. I had seen the look in his eyes last night when he split us up. He had wanted us to hurt.
But was that what actually happened? Or was that just how my brain remembered it now?
“Yeah, man, can’t believe it,” I said half-heartedly. I gave him my badge and quickly scanned the crowds for Mackenzie.
Graham noticed and started typing something on the computer.
“Mackenzie left already.”
“What?” My voice sounded small, warped in my own ears. He gave me a cold look of sympathy.
“Yeah, I’m sorry, man. Some guy came and checked her out early this morning, like 5 a.m.”
Graham handed me my sign-out papers.
“What guy?” My voice was possessive, and he noticed.
“Tall dude. Older, maybe like twenty-five? Dark hair, dark skin. Serious as hell. I don’t know the details. You know him?”
I blinked.
The description matched what Heather had said. Too perfectly.
A chill ran down my spine.
“Did he say something to you?”
“He… uh… he said he was her brother, came into town for the weekend, was here to check her out. Kind of weird, right?”
The word brother was not something I had expected to hear.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” I barked. “Did you see her?”
“No. Just him.”
I practically ran to my truck. As soon as I got in, I let out the most resounding scream I could muster, punching the steering wheel until my knuckles cracked.
“FUCK!” I screamed.
Something had fucking happened. I had let something happen on my watch. I was so confused. Fuck, was I confused.
I had fucked up so badly that I would never be able to live with myself if she had been hurt. Not just by me, but by anyone else.
Who the fuck was this guy everyone was talking about?
A small part of my brain went to the intrusive worst thoughts: that maybe she hadn’t been faithful, that maybe there was a part of her life she still hid from me. But even those thoughts felt planted, like someone had set them in front of me and waited to see which one I’d pick up.
I pushed them down.
I had to make this right. I had to make sense of what was going on. I loved her so fucking much. I needed to fix this.
Driving home to Atlanta, I dialed her every five minutes, but I kept getting the same voicemail.
“Hi, it’s Mackenzie! Leave a message!”
Her voice seared itself into my brain as I listened to it repeatedly. Sometimes I was sure the message was a little different. I’d hear an extra breath, a different lilt in her voice, only as soon as I replayed it, I’d realize it was exactly the same.
After about the 30th call, I was done.
“Fuck this.”
I pulled over to the side of the road. My heart was about to cave in, and my chest felt like it had been ripped out. I pulled out my phone, found her contact card, and then typed her address into Google Maps.
I turned around.
Three hours and fifty-one minutes later, I was pulling up in front of her house.
This was the first time I had ever been here.
I should’ve made more of an effort with our friendship.
As soon as I got my license, I should’ve visited.
I had fucked up more than I thought. I was a shitty friend and an even shittier husband.
I fingered my wedding ring, as if maybe the touch would make her appear.
Her house was nice. It had a large wraparound porch and two rocking chairs in front. The welcome mat in front of the door had a dog on it that looked like her dog, Abby, and read, “WELCOME FRIENDS.”
The porch boards creaked under my feet in a slow, even rhythm. Too even. Like I was walking on a loop.
I was so nervous. I felt like I was going to be sick again, and whatever side effects that shit Heather gave me caused, I was still feeling them.
I rang the doorbell and waited.
And waited.
And waited.
No one ever came.
I rang the doorbell again.
Still, no one.
I looked through the front window and saw a large dining table in the front room, with what appeared to be a piano nearby. The house was dark, with no signs of activity. No dust either. Nothing out of place. Like a model home waiting for someone to move in.
I moved to the side and checked the windows there; still nothing. They weren’t inside.
I came back to the porch and sank into a rocking chair, thumb hovering over the screen of my phone. I would sit here all day until she came home.
My phone rang.
I snatched it up. “Hello?”
“It’s Dad.” His voice was low; there was a steadiness to it that made my chest tighten. I let out a disappointed sigh, and then anger rolled through me at hearing his voice.
“Where is she?” I cut straight to it. My voice was calm by force, but I wanted to rip his fucking head off.
There was a long inhale. I could hear movements on his end, fabric rubbing. He was walking away from someone.
“She’s safe,” he said finally. “I can’t tell you anything else.”
“You’re not my operator, you’re my father,” I said. “Tell me where my wife is.”
“I told you, she’s safe.” He sounded tired, like he’d been up all night. “I can’t—”
“Don’t lie to me.” The words came out sharper than I meant. Panic was a hard thing to hide. “If you know…”
“You don’t get to ask about this,” he snapped, then softened. “You failed.”
The word went straight through me, clean and cold.
“I know,” I interjected. “I know I failed to protect her. But you know how much I love her. I’ve loved her forever.”
He let out an exasperated sigh.
“I know you wouldn’t hurt her. But you took the pill, and now you’ve fucked everything up.”
“Fucked what up?” I snapped.
“You went in,” he said, like it was obvious. He let out an exasperated sigh. “You’re in the game now, son.”
An electric jolt ran through me.
“That secret society bullshit?”
“Max. You are aware of what is happening, right?”
I shivered. He was in on it.
“I know that camp is bugged. You can’t fucking tell me you missed everything,” I seethed, grabbing onto the only thing that felt solid. “You saw what happened. I know we’ve been watched.”
“Max…” he warned.
“You work with them, Dad. You’re CIA. You can help her, right?”
“That’s not how this works,” he hissed. “You agreed to it. You knew there were risks. You were briefed—”
“I wasn’t briefed on anything,” I cut in. “I took a pill 24 hours ago in the woods and woke up to whatever fucking nightmare this is. Dad—what the fuck is happening?”
“Max…” he warned.
“You keep saying I ‘went in.’ In where? Into what?”
He paused and then said, “That’s classified.”
A bitter laugh punched out of me. “So now my brain is classified?”
“Max, you signed—”
“I didn’t sign anything.” My heart pounded so loud it hurt. I dropped my voice just one octave before saying, “And I don’t appreciate you taking my wife away and becoming a CIA lab rat.”
“That’s not what this is,” he said quickly.
“Then what is it? “I asked. “Because from where I’m standing, this is all a bunch of bullshit. You took my FUCKING WIFE away from me.”
On the line, the air thinned. I heard my mom’s voice in the background, and his tone changed.
He laughed easily, calmly into the receiver.
“Listen—don’t take too long. We’ve got your gear ready. Mom needs you to check your boxes to make sure she got all your stuff packed.”
It was scary how fast he had switched personalities. Like flipping a channel.
“Dad,” I said quietly. “Don’t do that. Don’t pretend this is normal. You knew, didn’t you? When you sent me to camp. You knew there was more going on.”
“Max, not now…”
“Is it your people running this?” I pressed. “CIA? You knew this was happening to kids, and you still let me go.”
Static picked up on his end, like he’d covered the phone for a second. When he came back, his voice was low.
“Max, you can’t follow her. You cannot hack in and try to find her. They are watching you closely now, and you need to do whatever you can to not draw attention to yourself.”
“Who is watching me?” I asked, already knowing the answer.
“Your game started last night. Don’t ask me about it again.”
He hung up.
I stared at the dead screen as if it might split open and give me answers.
Your game started last night.
My hands went numb.
I had been an idiot to think that my father would protect us. Something was seriously fucking wrong.
I waited two more hours, calling her over and over, until finally I decided enough was enough. The knots in my stomach morphed into one giant ball of panic.
Shit.
Heather had blown up my socials all night. I blocked her from everything. Fuck her. But I knew it didn’t matter. What had been done was done, and now I was going to have to do whatever I could to persuade Mackenzie to take me back.
I checked Mackenzie’s Instagram. The last picture was three days ago, our hands together in front of the lake.
I missed her so much I could barely breathe.
The next morning, I came up with some bullshit excuse about needing to go back early for baseball. My mom was disappointed but let me go, reminding me to bring Mackenzie by when I could.
I had told them last night that we were married.
My mom noticed my ring right away. She was thrilled because she had always loved Mackenzie, but furious that we had done it without them knowing, and reminded me how young we were.
My dad pretended to be shocked, and it took everything in me not to pin him to the wall and demand answers about Mackenzie.
He knew something. He was hiding. It drove me insane to know that I couldn’t interrogate him.
This was my wife. This was Mackenzie. She had disappeared. I needed to know where she was. I needed to know what my game was. I was going insane.
As soon as I was on the road, I found myself obsessing over her in my thoughts. I hadn’t called her since last night, and all my texts were still unread. She wasn’t checking her phone, but I had to try.
I expected to hear her voicemail message, but instead got an automatic one:
“We’re sorry. Your call can’t be completed as dialed. Try again later.”
When the three beeping sounds of the call being dropped rang through my ear, I nearly drove off the road.
SHE CHANGED HER FUCKING NUMBER?!
I dry heaved. I swerved into a gas station, not giving a fuck that I was driving like a maniac. I called her again.
“We’re sorry. Your call can’t be completed as dialed. Try again later.”
FUCK.
She had. She had disconnected her phone. She had cut me off.
I immediately went to Instagram to message her. I typed in her handle @soccershotsmacmckinnon and went cross-eyed when it said NO USER FOUND.
No. Fuck, no. Had she deleted her Instagram?
Had she blocked me?
Had someone erased her?
I fucking burst into tears. I was… heartbroken. I was pathetic. I deserved this, but the pain was unbearable.
I felt my chest crack open, my ribs splinter apart, my breath stagnant and rabid. I was dying. Had to be. That was the only explanation for this feeling.
This overwhelming feeling of pure, terrifying sadness.
I didn’t know how to get in touch with her.
I was losing my mind, even becoming psychotic.
I hadn’t gone a single day without talking to this girl since I was twelve years old.
She was the goddamn center of my entire life. She was my whole fucking soul.
And in the blink of an eye, she was gone.
Like someone had cut her out of the world and left me in the empty space where she used to be.