by Lexi Ryan
I feel like I’m sixteen again, because all I want to do is listen to her message on repeat. Revel in the sound of her voice and dissect every word placement, every breath.
But I don’t let myself indulge in the comfort of Hanna’s voice.
I was lonely last night.
Then I wasn’t alone anymore, because—
“Good morning, sexy.” The woman in my bed sighs softly as she sweeps her eyes over me.
I close my eyes, unable to look at the evidence of what I’ve done after hearing Hanna’s voice. I was wrong. I didn’t go to bed with a strange woman.
“Good morning, Vivian.”
Present Day
IT’S ELEVEN o’clock when my phone buzzes with a text. I’m half asleep and consider ignoring it, but I grab it on the off chance that Hanna is texting or something happened to Claire.
Meredith: You need to come get Claire. I’m so sorry. I’m terrible at this. At everything.
I frown at my phone and reread the message three times, willing my brain to clear from the fog of sleep. Suddenly, the not-right feel of the text clicks in my sleep-riddled mind, and I hit the icon to dial her.
Listening to the ring, I tug on jeans and pull a T-shirt over my head.
“Come on,” I growl. I run out to the front of the house to snatch my keys out of the basket and slide into my tennis shoes. Her phone clicks over to voicemail, and I hang up and dial again as I run for the car.
The phone rings ominously in my ear. I start the car and head for Meredith’s apartment to the sound of her voice telling me to leave a message. Ugly chills of foreboding wriggle up my spine.
“Pick up the fucking phone, Meredith.”
Dialing again gets me the same results. The voicemail is clicking on again when I reach her door. Dropping my phone and keys on the table, I head straight to Claire’s room.
My daughter is sleeping in her crib, her little belly rising and falling with the soft breaths of a restful sleep.
I tear out of the room and search for Meredith. Her bedroom is empty, but I find her in the bathroom. She’s nude, passed out in a tub full of water, her chin and lips immersed and slowly sinking deeper.
“No!” I lunge for her. Grabbing her under the arms, I yank her from the tub and against my body.
Her eyes flutter open before I can check her pulse. “You’ll take good care of her.”
“What have you done, Meredith?” The words break, each a crystal dish shattering as it falls from my lips. “What are you doing?”
I carry her to the bed, and then I see it. A note placed under an empty bottle of pills.
Dear Claire:
I wish you the best life…
I grab the bedside phone and dial 911.
You are the best thing I’ve ever made, and I’m sorry I couldn’t be—
I throw it across the room, as if reading it makes what she’s done real.
“911. What’s your emergency, please?”
“I think she’s trying to kill herself. I think she overdosed.” I grab the bottle and read the name of the prescription painkiller to the operator, and then I give Meredith’s address.
“Max,” she whispers, her hand settling against my jaw.
Her eyes float closed again, and I hold her against my chest, my fingers on her pulse.
THE SHRILL ring of my phone jars me from a sound sleep. I grope for it in the dark and answer without looking at the display.
“Hello?”
“Hey. It’s Max.”
I reach across the bed and click on the bedside light. His voice sounds funny. “What happened?”
“I need you to come watch Claire. I wouldn’t ask, but it’s an emergency and you can get here faster than my mom.”
I’m already out of bed, looking for my clothes. “Sure. Of course. Your house?”
“Meredith’s apartment. The complex on College, unit 302. They’re taking Meredith to the hospital, and I want to follow.”
“What happened?”
His breathing is choppy, like maybe he’s been running or maybe he’s trying not to cry. I can’t tell.
“I can’t talk about it right now, Hanna.”
“I’m on my way.”
I dress in the bathroom and am halfway to the door before I consider that Nate might worry if he checks on me in the middle of the night and I’m not here. When I return to the bedroom, a sliver of moonlight is slicing across his bare chest. My heart stops for a minute at the sight of him—strong and solid, yet almost vulnerable in his sleeping state.
I bite my lip, not wanting to wake him up but not wanting to worry him either. Finally, I decide to leave him a note, and I’m heading toward the kitchen for a notepad when I hear him shift in bed.
“I wanted to let you know I’m leaving. I didn’t want you to worry.”
He sits up and drags a hand over his face before grabbing his phone. “What’s going on?”
“Max needs me.”
“Want some company?” he asks, his voice that sexy, half-asleep rumble. “Or do you prefer to be alone when you sneak off in the middle of the night with your ex-fiancé?”
I ignore his insinuation and add, “For Claire. I’ll— Why are you getting dressed?”
“I’m coming with you.” He pulls jeans on over his boxer briefs and then tugs a T-shirt over his head. “I’ll drive.”
Ten minutes later, we’re at Meredith’s door. Poor Max is so distraught that he doesn’t even notice or care that Nate is with me.
“She’s sleeping,” Max says. “She’ll probably stay asleep until morning, but I need to go.” His whole body is a knotted ball of tension.
I swallow back all my questions and whisper, “Go. Claire will be fine.”
He pulls me into a hard hug then gives Nate a nod and is out the door.
“What happened?” Nate asks after the door closes behind Max.
“Meredith was rushed to the emergency room. I don’t know anything else.”
IT’S LATE evening, and she’s settled into a room in the psych ward before they let me see her. Hanna has stayed with Claire all day and required no explanations—because that’s the kind of friend she is. That’s the kind of woman she is.
“Hey,” I say softly as I walk into the room.
Meredith is in a hospital gown, an IV in her hand. Her face is washed free of makeup. I can’t remember the last time I saw her without at least something on her face, and I’d forgotten that her lashes are nearly as blond as her hair. She looks so fragile, I’m reminded of the girl I loved as a teenager.
“You must think I’m a real idiot,” she mutters, staring at her hands.
The truth is, I’ve felt nothing but guilt since they loaded her into the ambulance and I had to wait for Hanna to arrive. I read the note.
If I’d read it outside of the context of her suicide attempt, I would have seen its contents as self-involved melodrama. But in the context, I see what I’ve been choosing not to for months. Meredith isn’t well. She’s depressed and desperate and irrational. And I feel guilty as hell for not noticing the signs. Was I responsible for pushing her to this?
“The doctor said I have postpartum depression.” She’s still not looking at me. “Which pretty much proves that I totally suck at this mothering thing.” She squeezes her eyes shut and tears roll down her cheeks, each one knocking down another piece of my bitterness toward her.
“Why would you say that?”
She swipes at her cheeks with the backs of her hands. “Don’t pretend you like me just because you feel sorry for me.”
“I think you’ve done some rotten things, but the way you mother Claire is not one of them.”
She sniffs. “I just don’t think I was cut out for this mothering stuff. I love her, but some days I feel like…” She stops and takes a breath, and I can’t tell if she’s shocked by what she was about to say or if she’s simply trying to find the courage to say it out loud. “Like I sacrificed my own life the day she was born. And one hundred t
imes worse than missing my life is how shitty I feel about myself for missing it.”
“I can help more, you know. Give me custody, and I’ll—”
“I was never going to fight you on that. I wouldn’t keep her from you.” She leans against the back of the inclined bed and deflates. “It’s not about the time she takes. It’s about not knowing who I am and feeling like no one wants me.”
“Can I ask you a question without you getting upset?” I flinch at my own terrible timing. I shouldn’t ask an upsetting question to a woman in the psych ward, but she seems like she’s in a sharing mood, and I could never bring myself to ask before.
“You want to know if I got pregnant on purpose?”
I draw in a breath. “Yeah.” More specifically, did she get pregnant on purpose in the hopes that Will would think it was his? But there’s no need to complicate the question yet.
“I really didn’t. I wasn’t ready for that.”
“I wish you would have admitted she was mine sooner.”
She shrugs. “I didn’t want to admit it to myself.”
“Ouch.”
“Obviously I was an idiot, and I’ve realized that now. It never occurred to me that, someday, you wouldn’t be there waiting when I needed you again. Then, yesterday, when you told me that you and Hanna had been broken up all summer, I realized that you weren’t refusing me just for her.” She cuts her gaze to me and then drops it back to her hands. “You really don’t want me. Just like him.” She doesn’t have to clarify for me to know that the him she’s talking about is Will. This has never stopped being about Will. Not since we were teenagers.
“Meredith…” But I don’t know what to say. I can’t be with her, and I can’t pretend things are different just because she’s in here.
“Thank you for being here today, but I’d like it if you left now. I’m tired.”
I cross the room, smooth her hair back from her face, and press a kiss to her forehead. “Let me know if you need anything.”
THE ONLY thing that surprises me more than Meredith’s agreeing to see me is that I came in the first place.
“Hey,” she says when I walk into her room. Her face is scrubbed clean, and she looks almost sweet. “Max said you came over to watch Claire. Thanks for that.”
“No problem.” I settle into a chair opposite her bed and try to pretend this isn’t as awkward as it is. “How are you feeling?”
“Like an idiot. A big, fat idiot.” Something like embarrassment passes over her face and she says, “Not that there’s anything wrong with being fat or…”
I sigh. Because, really, I’m not fat. Not anymore. I’m pregnant and my belly is heavy with growing twins, but I’m not fat. Maybe I will be again some day, or maybe I’ll be able to maintain a smaller size because I’ll be spending all my time running after the twins. But Meredith will probably always think of me as the fat girl because that makes her feel better about herself. But the difference between the old Hanna and the woman who stands here today is the understanding that her impression of me has more to do with her than it will ever have to do with me.
“I don’t like you,” Meredith says. “That’s never going to change.”
The feeling is so damn mutual, but I don’t say anything because she’s the one in the hospital bed, and unlike her, I don’t think saying it out loud is actually going to make me feel any better.
She scowls at me, and when I don’t reply, she says, “You honestly have no idea, do you?”
“Why you hate me?” I throw up my hands. “I just know that you were the girl who tripped me in the bleachers at high school football games. You were the one who made sure I knew all my body’s imperfections. I never did anything to you, and it seemed to me that my existence alone made you hate me.”
“Never did anything to me?” She rolls her eyes. “My father adored you.”
I blink at her.
“The American history teacher in high school?”
“I know who he is,” I say, shaking my head. “I just don’t know what he has to do with anything.”
“He was an asshole, you know. Said the cruelest things to my mother, cheated on her”— she raises her gaze to meet mine—“with your mother.”
“What? My mother would never—”
“Oh, but she did. She was grieving for her husband and raising five girls on her own, and my father was the shoulder to cry on.” She releases a long, slow breath. “She didn’t care whose family she was destroying when she slept with him. She didn’t care how my mother would feel when he decided he couldn’t be with her anymore because he loved Gretchen too much. It was all so inconsequential to her, and after tearing apart my family, she cast him aside like he was nothing. Like mother, like daughter, I guess.”
“I didn’t tear apart your family.” I can’t speak to her accusations about my mother, but this I know for sure. “You weren’t even with Max when he started dating me.”
“You know what I got to hear that year he was fucking around with your mom? You were in his history class, and I was out of cosmetology school and trying to build my client list. ‘Why can’t you be more like Hanna? Why can’t you be smart like her? Why can’t you be sweet like her? Why do you have to be such a dumb slut?’ You were everything he wanted in a daughter, and I was everything he was ashamed of.”
“Meredith, I had no idea.” Suddenly, all of her cruelty makes a little sense. It’s not okay, and she’s still a bad person, but sometimes badness is easier to take when you understand the why behind it.
“Because you’re so self-involved you can’t see beyond your own nose.” She releases her breath in a huff. “Max and Claire and I could be happy, you know. If it weren’t for you.”
“You didn’t want him, Meredith. You had your chance.” But her words still burn because they’re probably true.
Just like Vivian was right when she said I would be standing in the way of her, Nate, and Collin being a family. I’m not sure if I get a family of my own or if I’m doomed to ruin everyone else’s.
“You’re no better than me. Look at you, playing house with that rocker while Max just waits for you. You think Nate Crane is going to move to New Hope?”
My stomach turns sour at the question. I already know the answer, and just because I understand why he can’t doesn’t make it hurt any less. I want the guy who will turn his world inside out for me.
No. I don’t. Max was that guy. What I want is Nate to be the guy who will turn his world inside out for me. And it’s not fair for me to want it.
“You really think he ever stopped fucking his actress?” she adds.
“Don’t,” I growl.
“Whatever. I didn’t push you down the stairs,” Meredith says quietly. “I don’t care for you, and I don’t think you deserve Max, but I would never intentionally injure someone that badly.”
I take a breath and nod, but I don’t apologize. Considering all she’s done and said to me, I don’t think my suspicion was unreasonable.
“But I wasn’t the last person there that night either.”
That gets my attention and I look up at her.
She’s frowning. “I only remember because I didn’t know about Nate then, but I was convinced you were sleeping around on Max, and this guy came up the stairs.”
“What guy?”
She shrugs. “He kind of looked like Fabio, I guess.”
My breath catches. “Was anyone with him?”
She shrugs. “We were in your apartment talking—fighting—and then you looked out your window and the Fabio guy was out there. You said you needed me to go because you had company.” She frowns for a minute. “I assumed you knew who it was. Actually”—she shakes her head—“I assumed it was your lover—whoever you were cheating on Max with.”
“I have to go,” I whisper, grabbing my purse. “Thank you for telling me.”
“Hanna,” she calls as I reach for the door. “You’re lucky. Anyone who receives Max’s love is lucky.”
&nb
sp; I face the door and close my eyes for a moment. “I know.”
“I NEED to talk to you,” I say.
Nate’s in his room, packing his suitcase. He’s heading back to California for Christmas. It only makes sense that he’d spend Christmas with Collin since this is the last Christmas that he won’t have to choose between his children.
He looks up from his luggage and grins at me. He’s seemed so damn happy lately, and I’m about to ruin everything by telling him what I suspect.
He throws some socks into the luggage and opens his arms for me. “Come here.”
I step forward and let him wrap me in his arms. For a moment, I close my eyes and revel in the comfort of his nearness, his warmth, and his scent.
“Nix has never thought I fell down the stairs.”
Nate straightens and pulls back to look at my face. “What does she think happened, then?”
“She’s always believed I was pushed.”
I feel his whole body tense and his arms tighten around me. “Who the fuck would do that?”
“That’s what I’ve been trying to figure out.”
“Shit, Hanna. Someone almost killed you and you haven’t said a word about it to me? What if they’re still out there? What if—”
“I’m telling you now.”
He relaxes a bit and pulls my head against his chest. “I’m sorry. I just can’t handle the idea of anyone hurting you.”
I swallow. “I knew you’d feel that way.”
“Do you remember anything? Has any of that day come back to you?”
“Not really.” I step back—out of his arms so I can look at his face while I talk. “But some memories from the days before have, and I think I know who pushed me.”
He raises a brow, and I can tell he has no idea why it’s taking me so long to spit it out.
