by Ryan, Lexi
“You haven’t seemed much like yourself for a while now,” she says, but I don’t think the words are for me. She shakes her head and waves away the subject. “You had a wedding last weekend while you were in the hospital. You’d already gotten the cake finished, so Maggie and I handled it for you, but you probably want to call the bride when she gets back from her honeymoon next week.”
The bride. Because I make wedding cakes.
“I’ve been taking care of the bread orders for the restaurants and grocers who contract with you. Drew has been keeping up with the baking for the front, but school’s going to start soon. She won’t be able to put in the hours she has been.”
“Drew?”
“Cally’s sister.”
I shake my head. “I know who she is. I guess I’m just surprised she works for me.”
“She started the week you opened. She’s a good little worker as long as you can keep her off her phone and away from the customers. Customer service isn’t her forte.”
I grin at the image of Cally’s know-it-all teenage sister struggling to be kind to sorority girls ordering non-fat, sugar-free, extra-hot, double-shot mochas.
“You have a wedding this weekend, so we’ll need to find time to get the cake made and decorated. I can try to help if you don’t remember, but honestly, the decorating part has always been your baby and I pretty much suck at it.”
“Wait. So you work with me?”
She lifts a brow. “I’m pretty sure you think of it as me working for you, but yes. I haven’t gotten a teaching job, and I work for my sister like a loser.”
“You work with me, and I think that’s awesome.”
She rolls her eyes. “Anyway, you have three meetings with upcoming brides this week.”
“Wow.” I turn a slow circle. “I can’t believe how quickly it’s taken off.”
My stomach twists as I scan the gleaming stainless-steel countertops. I’ve been so hung up on my new body and my engagement to Max, I haven’t had the chance to think much about this part of my life. How am I supposed to run my business if I don’t even remember what recipes I use or what clients I’ve promised cakes to?
“I don’t even know where I buy supplies,” I mutter to myself.
Lizzy’s cool fingers gently squeeze my forearm. “It’s going to be okay.” Her eyes connect with mine, and for a split second, it’s back—that connection between us flickers like lights in a storm. “You should come to Maggie and Asher’s with me tonight. Asher and Nate are having a jam session and they’re making a get-together out of it.”
“Nate who?”
“Crap. I guess you probably don’t even remember him. Nate Crane? You know, sexy rocker?” She frowns. “I guess you wouldn’t know. He was kind of an unknown before, but he’s been touring with Asher, and his single is really shooting up the charts.”
“Cool.” I shift. Partying it up at Asher’s doesn’t appeal to me right now. After my middle-of-the-night visitor, I just want to spend my evening with Max and reassure myself that everything is okay. “I’ll probably take a rain check, though.”
“Oh.” She sounds disappointed. Really disappointed. Like she was counting on me. “Okay, well, that’s fine.”
And just like that, the flickering light of our connection is snuffed out again.
“What happened to us?”
“What?”
“You and me. Why are you mad at me?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Come on, Liz. This is us. Something’s not right.”
Lizzy shifts her gaze away. “Truth be told, you and I haven’t exactly been close lately.”
“Why?”
She shrugs. “I don’t know. You started dating Max, and it was okay at first, but then you were running all the time and you were losing weight and—”
“You stopped being close to me because I lost weight?”
“Jesus! No. Of course not. You’re the one who pulled away.” She cuts her eyes to the floor and bites her lip. “At least that’s how it felt to me, but I might have been uncomfortable with all the changes you were making. It just didn’t seem healthy, ya know?”
“Getting healthy didn’t seem healthy?”
She throws up her hands. “See? You’re so defensive about it! We could never talk, and when we did, all you cared about was Max and running, and I didn’t even recognize you anymore.”
My eyes fill with tears. “I thought you of all people would be happy for me when I finally got some goodness in my life.”
“Is it good, Hanna? Are you so sure?” She stares at me for a long time, that little wrinkle appearing between her blond brows.
The bell over the front door rings, ending our staring contest.
When we go out front, we find Mom and Granny behind the front counter, preparing themselves cups of coffee, Mom a flurry of anxious gestures in her pink business suit and Granny serene in her wrinkled cotton hippie skirt.
“Your first day out of the hospital and you’re already back at work,” Mom lectures.
“I’m fine,” I assure her.
“You’re not fine. You’ve had a bad fall and you need to recover.”
“The doctor said I could get back to my normal routine. She said it might even be good for me.”
Mom grins. “And you know what else will be good for you?”
“I can guess,” Lizzy grumbles.
“I have appointments scheduled with three different possible wedding venues,” Mom says. “I thought, what better way to recuperate than to focus on something that makes you happy? Something good.”
“I don’t know if I can—”
“I won’t hear any objections. You’re my daughter, and I’m going to make sure you take care of yourself these next few weeks.” She tilts my chin up and moves my face side to side, inspecting my bruises. If she thinks those are bad, she should see what’s going on under my shirt. “I bet you’ll be healed enough for a wedding in as soon as a month.”
Lizzy chokes on her coffee, and I gape at my mother. “A month?”
Granny tsks. “Don’t rush the girl, Gretchen.”
“Why you would drag your feet when a man like Max wants to marry you is beyond me.”
“I’m not dragging my feet,” I object, but I kind of am. Because don’t I need answers before I can say my vows to Max? Don’t I need my memories?
“So it’s settled. We’ll spend tomorrow looking at wedding venues.”
“I can’t just set a date without talking to Max,” I object.
Mom waves away my concern. “It’s the wedding. All men worry about is the bachelor party and the wedding night. Besides, we need to know what dates the venue you want is available. Then we’ll talk about setting a date.”
I try to take deep breaths, but I keep thinking about the man in my apartment, about all the things I don’t know about the last year. My headache is back and nausea rolls over me. I brace myself on the counter.
“See, Gretchen?” Granny scolds. “You’re stressing her out.”
“I’m okay,” I lie. “I’m just a little overwhelmed. I need Lizzy to bring me up to date on work stuff and I’ll feel better.”
Mom rolls her eyes then sighs. “Fine. I’ll pick you up tomorrow at noon. Elizabeth, don’t you dare let your sister do any work.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Lizzy says, irritation clear in her voice.
The women take their coffee and push through the door. A hot billow of August air fills the store as the door floats closed.
“Come on,” Lizzy says. “Let’s get some baking done before you have to spend all your waking hours planning your happily-ever-after.”
My phone buzzes from the pocket of my apron. I wipe my hands on a towel and pull it out.
Appointment with Doc Perkins.
I frown at the calendar reminder. Do I know a Dr. Perkins?
I move to the sink and turn the water on with the back of my hand. Once it’s hot, I wash my hands with soap
and water, dry them, and grab my phone again.
I have no idea how I managed to lose so much weight while doing this job. A single morning in my bakery and I’m jacked up on dozens of taste tests. A little bite of this treat, a sample of that frosting. I practically have a stomach ache. Thank God for my compulsive organization. It was relatively easy to find all my recipes. I was preparing gum-paste calla lilies for this weekend’s wedding cake when my phone buzzed, but I can finish up later.
The reminder doesn’t have a phone number or an address, so I pull up the browser on my phone and do a quick search. “Dr. Perkins New Hope” doesn’t get me any hits, so I try “Dr. Perkins Indianapolis.”
Dr. Perkins, MD, Psychiatry
A psychiatrist?
I scroll through my calendar, moving back through the past three months, but I only see one appointment with the doctor listed and it was a week ago. Was I going to start regular appointments? Why? For pointers on keeping brides calm? Or maybe the doctor is the silent partner Liz told me about?
Right. The relationship is a business one and you just happen to have a script for antidepressant in your apartment.
This doctor must have some answers to the endless questions that have taken up residence in my brain. I highlight the address in my browser and send it to my phone’s navigation system.
I’ve already grabbed my keys when I pause. I’m not supposed to drive. But I’m not sure I want anyone to know I’m seeing a psychiatrist, and how can I have someone drive me without spilling the beans?
“Liz,” I call to the front, pocketing my keys, “I need to leave for a few hours.”
I wait for her to ask where I’m going, but she just shrugs. Her disinterest is another reminder of the distance between us. I’m not used to this, but I don’t have time to think about it much. I’m too busy planning to break doctor’s orders and drive to Indianapolis.
By the time I get to Dr. Perkins’s office, I’m fifteen minutes late to my appointment. The receptionist’s eyes go big when he sees my face. “What happened to you?”
“I got in a fight with a flight of stairs. I lost.”
“Yikes.” He stands and ushers me through a heavy walnut door.
On the other side, a woman is sitting behind a desk, tapping at her computer. Her face lights up then shrinks in rapid succession when she sees me. “Hanna! What happened?”
“I’ll leave you,” the receptionist says.
As the heavy door closes, the doctor motions to an overstuffed chair and steeples her fingers as I sit. “Tell me what’s going on, Hanna.”
“You’re Dr. Perkins?”
Her tiny face draws into a tight frown. “Of course I am.”
“And I’m…one of your patients?”
Her frown turns to skepticism.
“I took a fall.” I motion to my face. I explain as briefly as I can about my amnesia, telling her I’m here because of the reminder on my phone.
“Oh, dear. I wish I would have known. I would have come to the hospital and consulted with your doctor.”
I’m glad she didn’t. I don’t think I want my friends and family to know I’ve sought out therapy. “I don’t understand.” I don’t want to offend this woman. She seems very nice. “It shows in my calendar that I’ve been here before, and I found a prescription for antidepressants in my apartment, but…” I’m not sure how to say it.
“Go on,” she prods.
“My life seems perfect. I have my own business that seems to be going great, and I’m engaged to marry an amazing man. I feel okay about my body for the first time in my life. Why would I need to see a psychiatrist? Why would I need antidepressants?” Why would I cheat on my loving fiancé?
She folds her arms and studies me, her face a series of hard and soft lines I can neither read nor recognize. “Do you think only people who have something ‘wrong’ with their lives need to seek help for their mental health?”
“Of course not. I just—” I cut myself off at her raised eyebrows. Apparently she’s a no-nonsense woman. “I wouldn’t put it that way. I thought that if I was seeing you and you’d prescribed antidepressants, there had to be a reason.”
She’s silent for a long moment that catapults me back in time to just after my father’s death. I was a teenager, and Daddy was my world. Back then, I never measured up with Mom. She was always trying to fix me—shrink me, tone me, dress me, make me an acceptable representation of her family. Something she wouldn’t find so shameful. But Daddy was happy to let me be. Then he died, and after the funeral, the school therapist called us down one at a time. “Why do you think you’re here?” he asked me, his voice sounding more bored than empathetic, and he let the silence grow bigger and stranger between us until I answered.
But I’m not that girl anymore. I’m not the fat teenager languishing in her gorgeous sisters’ shadows. I’m not the ignored child striving for perfection in all things to make up for her appearance.
Sure, I’m overweight, but look at my grades!
Sure, I can’t fit into the pants in your average store, but I’m always happy.
Sure, I can’t get a date to save my life, but I’m the best friend a girl could ever have.
I’m exhausted just thinking about it.
But she isn’t like the school counselor and she doesn’t let the silence go on forever. “You came to me because you were battling depression and an eating disorder.”
I feel myself wilt. I don’t want to hear these things. I don’t want her tainting my perfect world. I shouldn’t have come. I should have ignored the reminder and carried on.
“Tell me what you’re thinking,” Dr. Perkins says.
I remember Nix’s request for me to see her in her office about diet concerns brought on by my blood work. “An eating disorder? Depression?”
Something flicks across her features. Regret? Sadness? “There’s no shame in getting help. Are you eating? Since your accident?”
I pause and turn back to her. “I am.”
She smiles. “That’s good.”
“I wasn’t before, was I? That’s how I lost all this weight? I was starving myself?” Panic claws at me the moment the words leave my mouth because I know they’re true. “This means I’m going to gain the weight back, doesn’t it?”
“You came to me because you recognized something in your own habits that you knew wasn’t healthy. You recognized there were parts of your life more important than numbers on the scale and you wanted me to help.”
I swallow, but this information is a bitter pill that goes down rough and painfully. “Did I talk to you about…other things?”
“Like what?”
“This is confidential?” I whisper.
“Of course.”
“Was I cheating on my fiancé?” I shake my head. “He’s my fiancé now, but I guess he would have been my boyfriend last time I was here.”
She crosses her arms over her chest. “You didn’t share that with me if it was true, but you didn’t mention a boyfriend either.”
“Oh. Yeah. I guess this was just about the food.”
“Eating disorders are never just about the food, Hanna. They’re about more than your body and about more than losing weight. They’re about control. And you’ve spent the last three months starving yourself so you would feel like you had control over your life again.”
WHEN I return from Indianapolis, the bakery is bustling with a crowd picking up lattes for their afternoon pick-me-ups and fresh pastries to go along with them.
Squeezing past the line, I slip behind the counter and tap Lizzy’s shoulder. “I need to talk.”
“Yeah, well, I’m a little busy running your bakery, so—”
I take the cup from her hand and slam it on the counter. “It’s important.”
“PMS much?” the ponytailed pretty girl at the front of the line says.
I narrow my eyes at her before sticking my head back in the kitchen. “Drew? I need you to work the front for a few minutes.”
I ignore her and drag her up to my apartment. It’s tempting to meet her chilliness with my own, but right now I need my sister too much. I slam the door closed behind her.
“Listen.” I wag my finger in her face. I’ve had enough. “I don’t know who pissed in your Wheaties, but right now I need my sister, so whatever is broken between us, can we just put it aside for a while?”
Her eyes go wide. “I… You…” Her shoulders sag and she collapses onto my couch.
“You asked me if I was sure things are good. Well, I’m not sure.” I pace in front of her. “Everything looks so perfect on the surface, but how am I supposed to know how I feel about anything when I don’t remember?”
“I’m such a bitch, Hanna. I’m sorry. Don’t listen to me. I’m jealous. You’re engaged, Maggie’s living with Asher… Any minute now, I’m going to be the last single girl standing. Maybe that’s making me cranky, but it shouldn’t ruin a happy time for you.”
“I think maybe I’m cheating on Max,” I blurt.
“Shit, Han-Han. What happened?”
I sink onto the couch next to her and lean my head on her shoulder. She combs my hair with her fingers, and even though the contact feels awkward and unsure, it relaxes me.
“It’s going to be okay,” she murmurs in my ear.
She doesn’t rush me, and I let myself take my time because suddenly it’s all too much—the last few days, the injuries, the amnesia, the engagement, the whole new life. As much as I’d like Max to be able to comfort me, he’s still a stranger to me in a lot of ways. But Lizzy’s part of me. We sit, letting the minutes pass and the silence slowly stitch us back together.
I don’t know how much time has passed when I finally sit up and wipe my eyes.
“Coffee?” she asks.
I nod and follow her to the kitchen, where I sit on a stool as she prepares us a fresh pot. “While Max and I were dating, do you know if I was…seeing anyone else?”
She turns to cock a brow at me. “Seeing anyone else? Miss Goody Two-Shoes date two guys at once? As if.”
Right. It doesn’t sound like me. But how does that explain what happened last night? Better come out with it, girl. “Max didn’t stay over last night, but I didn’t sleep alone either.”
