Lost In Me (Here and Now)

by Ryan, Lexi

  “Like he was lying,” Liz supplies.

  Tears fill my eyes as I nod. “I know it’s not fair. He’s a good guy, and I’m sure I’m just projecting my own guilt onto him or whatever.”

  She opens her mouth then closes it again before reaching over and taking my hand. “We’ll figure this out,” she whispers.

  “It might not matter anyway. Tomorrow I’m telling him the truth about Nate. If Nate’s wrong and Max and I weren’t broken up, that might be the end of us anyway.”

  “He loves you,” she assures me.

  “Would you want me to marry him if things were the other way around?”

  She doesn’t answer. She doesn’t have to.

  I look down at my phone and see the notification light blinking at me. I have a voicemail. “I missed a call. I’m going to go outside and listen to this message.”

  I wedge my way through the crowd to make it out the front door of the club. My ears breathe a sigh of relief when the door floats closed behind me and takes the noise with it.

  “Hanna Cakes!” the woman on my voicemail chirps. “It’s Elle! I was hoping I’d catch you in person, but apparently I didn’t. Tonight is Cally’s bachelorette party, isn’t it?”

  I frown at the phone because I have no idea who Elle is or why she’d know about the bachelorette party.

  She sighs heavily. “Well, I hope you’re having a freaking fabulous time because you deserve it. Listen, I’m sorry to throw this at you tonight of all nights. I know you have your own shit you’re dealing with right now, but Nate’s a freaking mess since he got home last night. He’s spiraling out bad. I tried to get him to snap out of it before I left, but he doesn’t listen to me. You’re the only person who can get through to him. Please go to the house and see what you can do. I don’t like to imagine him leaving for his trip in this condition. I’m about to board my plane and then I’m en route to India, and I’ll check in when I get there, but then I’ll be MIA for a few weeks. Remember that spiritual cleansing I told you about? The one Madonna raves about? Well, they gave me a spot, though the timing is shitty because electronics are a total no-no through the program. Go take care of him, okay?”

  I’m still frowning at my phone when Lizzy, Cally, Maggie, and Nix push out of the club, all smiles and excitement.

  “Who was it?” Liz asks.

  I shake my head. “Nothing important. What’s up next?”

  “We’re going to crash the boys’ party at the strip club,” Maggie says with a grin.

  Nix sidles up beside me. Her request for tonight was that we make her “look like a girl,” and when we put her in fitted jeans and a fitted shirt, she said, “No, a slutty girl.” So she’s wearing a tight black skirt that shows her long, toned legs—apparently I’m not the only runner in this group—and a strapless pink top that shows off her shoulders. She wanted to wear sky-high heels, but we nixed that plan when we saw she wasn’t able to walk in them without falling over.

  “My nurse called me yesterday afternoon,” she says as we move down the sidewalk toward the strip club where the guys are supposed to be. “Your blood work results are back. I’m sorry I haven’t been in the office to look at them yet, but I’ll be there tomorrow. I’ll give you a call.”

  “I think they took enough blood to give a someone a life-saving infusion,” I inform her.

  “Sorry about that. I wanted to do the whole workup again.”

  “Don’t go into the office just for that. It’s fine. I’m eating.”

  I take a deep breath of the cool night air and think about that voicemail. I scan my memory again and again, but I can’t remember an Elle. Obviously it’s someone I know from Nate’s life.

  “Have you told Max yet?” Nix asks quietly.

  “Tomorrow. That’s the plan.” I wanted him to be able to enjoy Will’s bachelor party without my nasty secret hanging over him.

  “Huh. Maybe we should work out some sort of Bat Signal so I can interrupt with the blood work call if it’s not going well.”

  “There it is!” Liz calls, pointing to the building in front of us.

  There’s a long line out front, but the bouncer waves us over.

  “Does he know we’re coming?” I ask Liz.

  She snorts. “No, but we’re a group of five hot-ass girls going into a gentleman’s club. We probably won’t have to pay for a drink all night.”

  I laugh, but my moment of good humor is cut off when a familiar voice calls, “Oh, look who’s there.”

  When my eyes land on Meredith coming out of the club, I want to puke. She might have just had a baby a few months ago, but she’s as gorgeous as ever in a tiny black dress and heels, her long, silky blond hair hanging past her bare shoulders.

  “What are you doing here?” I sneer.

  She leans against the building and crosses her feet at her ankles. “Oh, nothing special. Just hanging with some…friends. I hear you lost your memory.”

  “What’s it to you?” It’s not just a smartass retort. I want to know.

  She shrugs. “I was out of town when it happened so I just heard. Me and baby girl got back last weekend. But I guess you know that since Max came to help me out for a while. He’s such a natural with kids.”

  She winks at me like we share a secret, and I want to slap her.

  Meredith’s eyes rake over Cally in her bride-to-be shirt. “What’s up, Cally? Are you here to pick up your check?”

  Cally’s hands clench and her jaw ticks but she doesn’t respond.

  Meredith’s glossed lips curl into an ugly smile. “Quite a step up from your…previous employment.”

  Cally seethes beside me, and Liz steps forward. “Don’t you have a baby you should be home caring for?”

  Meredith rolls her eyes. “That’s what babysitters are for.”

  “You ladies coming in?” the bouncer asks.

  “Have fun,” Meredith calls. “I know I did.”

  I follow the girls into the club, but the energy of our whole group has changed. None of us are in the mood to party anymore. Instead, we all want to know what Meredith was doing here and if it had anything to do with our guys.

  And that’s just what she intended.

  “I hate her,” Lizzy spits.

  Cally squeezes her shoulder. “Let it go. She’s petty and shallow and not worth our energy.”

  Maggie forces a smile. “Come on. The guys reserved the room in the back.”

  We follow her through the tables and past the stage to a private party room with its own bar. Will and Max are together at the back of the room filled with a dozen or so other guys I don’t know.

  “Damn, looking good, Hanna,” Sam says when he spots me. He’s almost vertical, though remaining upright appears to be a struggle, and he smells like a bottle of scotch.

  “Thank you, Sam.”

  He winks at Liz. “You too, I guess.”

  “Gee, thanks,” Liz drones. “I’m just wondering what Meredith was doing here.”

  Sam shrugs. “She just wanted to hang for a while. But watch out, Hanna,” he says, raising his drink. “She’s apparently given up on Will and set her sights on your man. She could hardly keep her hands off him tonight.”

  “Hanna,” Liz whispers, but I’m already rushing away from them, hurrying toward Max before my fear of the truth trumps my need to know.

  Max does a double take when he sees me. “What are you doing here?”

  I hold out my hand. “Give me your phone.” I’m not sure what’s shaking more, my hand or my voice.

  His smile falters. “What’s wrong? Did something happen to Cally?”

  A wave of nausea hits me hard, and I slide my hand into his pocket and retrieve the phone myself.

  “Hanna, stop.” His voice is hard, but before he can take it from me, Lizzy’s there, pushing him back.

  “What’s going on?” Will asks. Then he sees Cally and grins. “My night just got a hell of a lot better.”

  I swipe my finger over the screen to unlock it,
and Max whispers, “Can we talk about this?”

  But it’s too late. I’ve already pulled up the texts on his phone and found the messages that came after our engagement party.

  Meredith: I need a favor. Can you be here in ten?

  Meredith: Fuck you, Max. I’m losing my mind. She’s your baby too. Come over here and give me a fucking break.

  I lift my head, and Max looks so damn forlorn I’d feel sorry for him if it weren’t for this terrible ache in my chest. “Is this a joke?” My whole world is this elaborately woven tapestry, and he’s holding the single loose strand. If he tugs, it will unravel. If he pulls just right, it will all fall apart.

  Liz takes the phone from my hands and reads. “Holy baby mama drama.”

  “But…she bought sperm, right?” I gulp in air and remind myself to breathe. “She was artificially inseminated.”

  Max looks to Will, who’s holding Cally in his arms. Will looks confused. He can join the fucking club.

  “I’m sorry, brother,” Max says. “You weren’t serious about her and you know I’ve always been hung up on Meredith. Like an idiot. But I swear I didn’t sleep with her until after Cally came back.”

  Will’s chest rises and falls and his jaw hardens. “Man, you’re apologizing to the wrong person.”

  Max’s gaze shifts back to me and he shakes his head. “I didn’t know the baby was mine. I…suspected, maybe? But she said she’d been artificially inseminated. She didn’t tell me the baby was mine until weeks after she was born.”

  “When was that?” I whisper.

  “About three months ago.”

  My heart hurts.

  Lizzy smacks Max in the chest. “And when were you going to tell Hanna, huh?”

  “She already knew.” He swallows but doesn’t take his eyes off me. “I just hadn’t told her again yet.” He drops his voice. “I didn’t know how. Say something, Hanna.”

  “I’m sorry,” I whisper. “But I think I need to leave.”

  “I NEED a flight to LA, please.”

  The woman behind the counter at the Southwest Airlines desk takes my ID and credit card and clicks at her keyboard.

  My phone buzzes in my hand.

  Liz: What do you mean you’re GOING TO LA?

  Some mornings, I wake up with new memories. Usually, they’re nothing important.

  “I can get you on a one o’clock flight out,” the woman says, quoting me a dollar figure that would send my rational self running in the other direction. But I’m not feeling terribly rational today.

  “Sounds perfect. Put it on the card.”

  I went to sleep last night knowing I could forgive Max for his omission. I understood why it would have been hard to tell me about the baby. I could see that. And it hurt. But I closed my eyes, planning to talk to him today, to forgive him for his omission and make things right by telling him what I know about my relationship with Nate.

  “Any bags to check?” she asks.

  “Nope.”

  I went to bed feeling spent and hurt but hopeful. We were going to get through this.

  She returns my cards and hands me a boarding pass. “Have a nice flight.”

  “Thank you.”

  I head for security and my phone buzzes again.

  Liz: Max just called me wanting to know if I know where you are. He was really upset. What the hell is going on?

  Some mornings, I wake up with new memories. Once, I woke up with the memory of Max flirting with me at Brady’s, my cheeks burning as I realized maybe he was sincere in his attraction to me.

  The Indianapolis airport is quiet this morning, and the blue-shirted guy at security checks my boarding pass and ID. “Los Angeles, huh? Business or pleasure?”

  “A little of both, I guess.” I force a smile. Because that’s what I do. I smile to make people comfortable. I smile when my heart hurts, and I act like everything’s okay when I’ve been betrayed.

  “Think you’ll see any stars while you’re there?” the next guy asks while I take off my shoes.

  “I’m almost sure of it.” I plop my carry-on, purse, and cell onto the conveyor belt next to my shoes and inch through the metal detector.

  Some mornings, I wake up with new memories. A couple of days ago, I went to bed without a single memory of my opening day at the bakery, and when my alarm went off the next morning, I could recall the terror of my first day with a new business like it was yesterday.

  “Thanks, ma’am,” calls the lady behind the metal detector screen. “Have a nice flight.”

  Nodding, I grab my shoes and bag. I’m reaching for my phone when it starts to ring. Lizzy’s face flashes on the screen, though I didn’t need to see her picture to know it was her.

  I put it to my ear. “Hello.”

  “Talk to me.”

  “I’m going to LA.”

  “And you told your fiancé you couldn’t marry him. What the hell did I miss?”

  I scan the signs and turn right to head toward my terminal. “I need to see him.”

  “Did you have a new memory? Hanna, come on.”

  “I can’t talk about it right now. I understand if you need to close the bakery while I’m gone. You’ve already done more than I should ever have asked.”

  “I’ll run the bakery. That’s not a problem.” The line goes quiet, and I know she’s picking up on how serious I am about being unable to talk. We’re twins, after all. We have that connection. And now, more than ever, I’m glad it’s back. Because I really can’t do this. I can’t talk right now. I’ll lose it. “If you want me to come out there with you, you just say the word.”

  “Thank you.” My voice glitches over the words like a scratch on a record. “I’ll text you when I land.”

  “I love you.”

  “Love you too,” I whisper. And I end the call, loneliness tearing at my chest.

  Some mornings, I wake up with new memories. Usually, they’re nothing. This morning when I woke up, I remembered the night three months ago when I ended my relationship with Max because he had broken my heart.

  May—Three Months Before Accident

  “God, I’m so jealous of you I could spit.” Lizzy grabs Cally’s hand and holds it in front of her to inspect her ring. It’s girls’ night at Brady’s and the table is full of empty glasses and half-full margarita pitchers.

  “I’m the luckiest,” Cally says, grinning.

  Lizzy snorts. “Pretty, lucky, and gracious. Almost makes you hate her. So did you have to train the muscles in that arm to keep that rock on there all the time?”

  “Shut up! It’s not that big!”

  My phone buzzes in my purse, alerting me to a new text message. I grin, immediately thinking it’s from Max. He wanted to see me tonight but didn’t push when he found out the girls were getting together for margaritas.

  I pull my phone out and open my text messages. I frown at the screen. I don’t recognize the number.

  Unknown Number: When are you going to give it up? Max is way out of your league.

  My stomach pitches into my chest and drags my heart with it as it falls back down. The words are not only cruel, they’re exactly what I fear. I’ve wanted Max since we were teenagers, and now that I have him, sometimes it feels too good to be true.

  I’m still trying to decide whether to text back when another beeps through.

  Unknown Number: You can keep fooling yourself if you want, but while he’s dating your fat ass, he’s wishing he were with someone he’s actually attracted to.

  “Hanna?” Lizzy says. “Is everything okay?”

  I paste on a smile to cover the sick churning of my stomach. I could tell the girls about these messages, bask in the reassuring warmth of their righteous indignation. We could talk about lying, jealous bitches who will go to any length to drag happy people into their misery. The conversation would no doubt end in all of us laughing and me deciding to ignore this nastiness.

  But what if the person on the other end of this text conversation is telling th
e truth?

  “Yeah. I’m fine.” I text back. I shouldn’t engage. I should find out who these are coming from and show them to my friends, to Max.

  Hanna: Who is this?

  Unknown Number: This is the sexy bitch your boyfriend wishes he were fucking.

  “I’ll be right back,” I say in a rush. It’s not so much the text as the series of screenshots attached to it that has me shaking. I have to get away from this table before the tears come. I can’t let the girls see.

  I barely make it to the bathroom before I start crying, and Meredith is waiting on the other side of the door, a smirk on her face.

  “Why so sad, Hanna?”

  I stumble back. “You?”

  She smiles prettily and touches up her perfect lipstick in the mirror. “I didn’t think I wanted him,” she says. “I mean, I’m more interested in a man who can really support me, you know. But then things didn’t work out with William because apparently he has a thing for whores—”

  “Don’t!” I growl, my nails biting into my palms.

  “You’re all so cute. Sticking up for each other. Why don’t you go get your friends? I can show them my old texts too. We’ll see what they think about your perfect boyfriend then.”

  “Why do you even care about this? Didn’t you just have a baby?”

  “I did. Which is why I’ve decided it’s time to be proactive.”

  “What do you want from me?”

  “Max,” she says simply. “I want what you have, and as you might have noticed from those messages, he wants me.”

  “Then why is he with me?” I force myself to ask. Because that’s the only defense I have. Meredith is beautiful. She’s thin and blond and perfect. Everything I’ll never be. And the texts between her and Max are so damning that I want to wilt like an unwatered flower in the hot sun.