by Lily Menon
He nipped at it with his teeth and then they were kissing, slow and deep and languid.
When they pulled apart, he cradled her face in his hands, searching her face, as if weighing something in his mind.
Annika smiled. “What?”
Hudson pulled back and got out of bed, leaving her cold as he padded out into the living room. “I have something for you.”
“Okay, but you should come back quickly before I turn into an icicle.” She snuggled farther into the blankets. “Although I do like to watch you walk away…”
His laughter drifted to her, making her smile. He returned just a moment later, sliding under the covers, his back propped up against the leather headboard. In his hands he held a big wad of pale pink tissue paper, the kind used in gift bags.
“What’s that?” She sat up, too. The covers pooled around her waist, exposing her breasts, but she didn’t care. After last night, she didn’t feel even slightly self-conscious around Hudson. Some invisible barrier had broken between them, once and for all.
“It’s … something I made for you.” Hudson turned the package over in his hands, his eyes thoughtful. “Well, actually, it’s something that was inspired by you. I just finished it, and now … I want you to have it.” He handed it to her gently, his quietness a testament to the fact that he was giving her something important, that he was being vulnerable.
Annika took the package carefully and unwrapped the layers of tissue slowly. She gasped softly when her eyes fell on a sculpture, the curves and lines coalescing into one unified image. “I love it,” she whispered, tracing her finger over the figurine, which was about the size of her palm. “Is this … me?”
It was a woman yogi in vrksasana, or tree pose. Her left leg was lifted, with her left foot balanced on the inside of her right thigh. Her arms were tall above her head, and she had a small heart cupped between her palms. Hudson had glazed the entire ceramic sculpture an opalescent white, and it caught the light in iridescent twinkles as Annika turned it this way and that.
“It is,” he answered, touching the heart between the figurine’s palms. “I wanted to capture you as I see you: graceful, peaceful, planting love everywhere you go.”
Annika blinked back tears. No one had ever said—or done—anything like this for her. “It must’ve taken you forever to do,” she said, choked up. “Are you sure you want to give it to me?”
Hudson put a hand over hers. “I’m sure.” He smiled. “I began making it that day after our first yoga class—you know, with the partner poses?”
Annika stared at him. “But that was so long ago.”
He grinned and planted a soft, sweet kiss on her lips. “I told you. I’ve been smitten for a long, long time. I’m just glad you’ve come around. I’ve had to work my ass off.”
Annika laughed and set the sculpture carefully on the nightstand beside her. Turning back to Hudson, she said, “Do you want to know what was holding me back? And what changed?”
He nodded, smiling still.
She took his big hands in hers and looked into his eyes. “Every time we talked, I got the sense that there was so much more to you than the papers said—so much more than a millionaire playboy who didn’t care that he’d made his money off the pain and tears of so many people.” Annika smiled. “As soon as you let slip that you were going to resign from Break Up, I knew—”
Hudson frowned. “Resign from Break Up? I never said that.”
Annika chuckled uncertainly. “Um … yeah, you did. Several times.”
Hudson’s frown deepened; a muscle ticked in his jaw. “Like when?”
Annika slowly took her hands away from his and sat up straighter, pulling the covers back up over her breasts. Why was he acting like this was all news to him? “Like on the night we had dinner at my dad’s? You said you were sick of it all, that you didn’t want to be the face of Break Up forever. And you said the same thing on the train last night.”
“Right…” Hudson said slowly. “I meant that I might step aside and take up a secondary role in the company. Maybe let Ziggy take over as CEO.”
Annika waited for his smirk, for him to tell her he was joking, that he was teasing again. But it didn’t come. “Are you serious?” she said, unable to stop her volume from rising. “What about guys like Hedge Fund Harry? What about the fact that this isn’t how you pictured your life or that you’re not even happy when you wake up every day, Hudson?”
“I don’t know!” he said, pushing his hands through his hair and leaving it messy. “I didn’t say all those things so you could pressure me into doing what you think is right!”
“I’m not pressuring you!” Annika shouted. “I’m just repeating back all the things you’ve said to me. And now you’re telling me you want to stay on at Break Up? That’s just not going to work for me!”
Hudson stared at her. “What are you saying?”
“I’m saying I can’t be with someone who’s willing to run a company like that—who’s willing to do that to other people, to do that to themselves!”
Hudson snapped the covers back and got out of bed. As he slid into his pants, he said, “And I can’t be with someone who wants to change me and can’t understand why I have to do what I do.”
“You don’t have to do it! Why can’t you see that?” Annika flung the covers back and leapt out of bed, throwing on her camisole from the night before. As she thrust her arms into it, her hand hit the sculpture on the nightstand, knocking it to the floor.
She gasped, reaching to catch it before it hit the tiled floor, but her fingers were a millisecond too late.
The sculpture smashed into pieces, the heart broken in half. Annika stood staring at it, her hand over her mouth. “I’m—I’m sorry,” she said, her voice just a whisper in the sudden quiet. “Hudson, I didn’t mean to—”
But he was already turning away from her, his face a mask of pain and regret. He grabbed a shirt, walked out of the room, and a moment later, Annika heard the front door thunder shut behind him.
In the cold, empty room, she knelt before the pieces of the sculpture and picked them up gingerly. Then she dressed, not looking at herself in the mirror, and slipped away.
chapter twenty
Annika would always remember what she’d been doing when she got the phone call.
She was in one of the many hotel gardens, watching brightly colored birds peck at the ground, searching for seeds. Her mind was numb, her fight with Hudson an analgesic rubbed over everything. It had been four and a half hours since she’d last seen him, since she’d cried until she was almost sick, since she’d scrubbed herself clean in the shower and vowed not to cry another tear today. The EPIC pitch was tomorrow, and she knew she should feel a rush of adrenaline, of excitement. She’d try to muster that then. Today was just for feeling nothing.
Her phone beeped with a text. It was June.
Hey! We landed about an hour ago. Your dad and I split up to go get our rentals. I got mine and I’m headed to the hotel.
K thanks, Annika typed. She should be hearing from him soon, then. They’d probably do dinner tonight; Annika wondered if she’d have the energy for that.
How’s H???
Annika closed her eyes for a moment. Talk later. She put her phone away and didn’t respond to the???? June sent her in response. She just didn’t have the energy.
She wasn’t sure how much longer she sat there, watching the birds peck around her with their sun-dappled feathers. She sat so still, they crept closer, keeping a watchful eye on her. Her mind was curiously blank. She wasn’t thinking of much at all—wasn’t feeling much of anything.
And then her phone rang with an unknown number, as if the universe was saying, “I’m going to make you feel something.”
Annika answered, worried that it might have something to do with the EPIC pitch. “Hello? This is Annika Dev.”
“Ms. Dev, this is Dr. Gregory. I’m the attending physician at the ER at Queen of the Valley Medical Center in Napa.” Ann
ika’s heart began to race. Her mouth suddenly tasted metallic. “I have your father Raj Dev here. He’s been in a bad car accident.”
Annika clutched the phone to her ear, her hands frozen. “Is he—is he alive?” her voice broke on the word “alive.”
“Yes.” A relieved breath whooshed out of her. “But I’m afraid he hasn’t regained consciousness. He has significant swelling in his brain, multiple contusions, and a spleen bleed. It’s too soon to say how things are going to turn out from here.”
Annika’s entire body began to shake. A sob escaped her lips, loud and abrupt, and the birds who’d gathered enough courage to peck near her feet flew away in a coordinated wave. “I—I need to see him. I’m going to be there as soon as I can. I shouldn’t be more than an hour at the most.”
“I’d suggest you have someone drive you, Ms. Dev,” the doctor said kindly. “We’ll see you soon.”
She ended the call and ran toward the hotel entrance, dialing June as she went.
* * *
She shook the whole time she was waiting for Dr. Gregory to come out and talk to her. June was rocking her in her arms, but Annika couldn’t stop shaking. She was cold, colder than she’d ever been in her life. She was afraid her heart was turning to ice.
“It’s going to be okay,” June kept saying, her voice thick with tears. Her ponytail was rumpled, her eyes red and puffy. Had Annika been crying, too? She honestly couldn’t remember. “Your daddy’s going to be fine.”
But June didn’t know that. No one did.
Finally, Dr. Gregory came out to speak with Annika. He was a gray-haired man in his fifties, tall, with a big belly and kind blue eyes. A stethoscope hung around his neck, a clipboard in his hands. “Ms. Dev?”
She stood; her knees buckled, but she managed to stay upright. June stood beside her, a hand on Annika’s elbow. “Yes. How’s my father? Can I see him?”
Dr. Gregory looked at her sympathetically. “Yes. He’s stable now, but he’s unconscious, as I said on the phone. He won’t be able to respond to your presence.”
Annika couldn’t see the doctor through her tears. “I don’t care,” she whispered.
“And—” The doctor looked away before looking back at her. “He looks rough. He took quite a beating in the crash. From what I understand, he was T-boned by a drunk driver in a truck much bigger than what your father was driving.” He looked at June, as if to impress on her the impact of what he was saying. June nodded; Annika didn’t. She had only one thought: She wanted to see her dad.
Finally, the doctor led them down the hall to her dad’s room. “He’ll be moved to the ICU soon,” the doctor said. Then, nodding at the two of them, he slipped out of the room and shut the door.
Annika stood in the doorway, staring at her dad for a full twenty seconds, not moving, not saying a word. She heard June’s soft gasp from beside her, but she didn’t react. Couldn’t react.
Her father lay in the clean, white hospital bed, a number of tubes protruding from him, a nest of monitors beeping and glowing like angels guarding his unconscious form. His head had been shaved and a shunt placed through his skull, the skin around it a discolored purple and black. His entire face, Annika noticed, was discolored: Great patches of purple and blue bruises covered his cheekbones, his jawline, his nose. Elsewhere, he was covered in stitches and bandages where the doctors had attempted to piece him back together again, to make him whole, to delay his leaving.
His leaving.
A sob crawled up her throat. Annika walked to his side on shaking legs, her body once again trembling, as if it couldn’t hold this excess of emotion. June followed silently, a pale ghost behind her friend.
Annika took her father’s hand, one of the only visible parts of him that wasn’t damaged—and even then, it had an IV sticking out of it, denying her the veil of normalcy. There was nothing normal about any of this. “Daddy,” she whispered, even though she knew he wouldn’t wake up. She’d been warned that he couldn’t even hear her. “Daddy, I’m here. Pluto.” The tears were steady streams now, spilling from her eyes and running down her cheeks, drip-dropping on her lavender top, staining it dark purple.
She heard June sniffling behind her, and then her fingers were threading through Annika’s free hand. They stood like that, standing vigil, until the light outside the window turned blue, then deep purple, then inky black. The color of her father’s bruises.
* * *
Later, they sat in the hospital cafeteria, Annika staring into her now-cold cup of black coffee. It was close to one in the morning, several hours since they’d arrived at the hospital. The fluorescent lights seared into her retinae, making her eyes burn. Her head was buzzing. She could feel the electric current running through her skull. “He’s a doctor,” she said quietly. June took her hand from across the table, where she was nursing her own bad hospital coffee. “He’s supposed to take care of other people. It shouldn’t be happening this way.”
“No, it shouldn’t.” June squeezed her hand firmly. “This is nine kinds of fucked-up.”
Annika nodded, staring at the Formica table, seeing patterns in it that were likely not there. God, she was tired. And she would never sleep again. “What if his brain’s not okay? What if he doesn’t wake up? Or what if he does, but he’s not himself anymore? What if he doesn’t recognize me?” She raised the coffee to her lips, her hand trembling so much, the coffee sloshed over the side and onto her shirt. So she’d smell like coffee and tears for the rest of the night. It seemed fitting.
“You can’t think like that, sugar,” June said, leaning forward to catch her eye. “You’ve got to keep positive. That’s what the nurse said, remember? They’re taking really good care of him.”
“Right. Yeah. Sure.” She was just saying what she thought June wanted to hear. She had no idea if he would be okay, or if anything would be okay ever again.
Her phone beeped. When she flipped it over to check the screen, it was a calendar reminder: EPIC pitch!! Woo hoo!! starts in 8 hours on Sunday, June 13th. Annika stared at the reminder blankly. She’d set it to alert her in the middle of the night so she could see it first thing upon waking. She’d meant to wake up at five, with several hours to practice and refine her pitch.
For just a moment, her heart had surged with a desperate hope that the notification was a text from Hudson, that he was reaching out to say he was sorry and that he was coming. For just a moment, she felt a fierce burning to be held in his strong arms, to be comforted the way only he could comfort her, to be spoken to in the way his heart could speak to hers. But of course it wasn’t him, because Hudson, too, was gone. He wasn’t who she’d thought he was. It had all just been one big illusion, a magic trick her heart had been desperate to believe.
June cleared her throat and tapped Annika’s phone screen. “Don’t you worry about that. I’ll withdraw us. I already told Ziggy we were probably going to do that, and he said it’s an easy process. You just have to tell the—”
“I don’t want to withdraw.” Annika frowned at June. It was hard to get the words out; they stuck in her throat like tar. “I have to do the pitch. There’s no other way to save Make Up.”
June’s face crumpled, pale and sallow under the harsh hospital lights. There were red half-moons under her eyes, as if she’d rubbed the skin there raw. Annika wondered what she looked like. She hadn’t even looked in a mirror when she’d used the bathroom, she’d been so desperate to be with her father every minute she could. Even sitting here drinking a coffee for ten minutes felt wrong. “Sweetie, no one expects you to do it. Not now. Not with your Daddy … the way he is.”
“June.” She looked at her best friend for a long moment, her brain addled. “June … he’s half the reason I created Make Up. Him and my mom.” Her voice wobbled on the word “mom,” but she kept going, refusing to think that she might potentially lose both her parents. “If I don’t do this pitch, I’ll lose it. I can’t lose so much all at the same time. I just can’t.” Tears slipped down her c
heeks. She hadn’t realized she was crying. When had she started? Had she ever stopped?
June’s eyes filled with tears in response, her nose getting red. “Okay. Okay, babe. Then I’ll do the pitch. Okay? Let me do it. I’ve heard you practice it; I can probably pull it off.”
Annika shook her head. “No. That won’t work. I’m the one who knows it best. You haven’t practiced it once, and I’m the CEO. I’m the one who’s practiced it until I could recite it in my sleep, who has the passion for the business. That’s what they’re going to look for. They want to see that deep, personal connection. I have that, not you.” She took a sip of her coffee, exhausted by all the words she’d just spoken. Taking a deep breath, she added, “I’ll do it. I can do it. You can help me by staying here and looking after my dad.”
There was a long pause, during which June came around the table and pressed Annika to her. “Okay,” she whispered, kissing the side of Annika’s head. “You can do it. And I’ll support the hell out of you, however you want.”
Annika nodded and they sat there, hugging, crying, and holding vigil, through the night.
* * *
Dressed in a crisp black pantsuit and pearls back in her hotel room, Annika put everything out of her mind. She’d reluctantly left the hospital two hours ago, once her dad had been transferred to the ICU. June, the doctors, and nurses repeatedly reassured her that they would let her know the instant her father’s condition changed. Still, she’d placed a tender kiss on his broken cheek, promised him she’d be back as soon as possible, and made June vow not to leave his side except for biologically necessary functions.
Now it was time for the pitch. She took one look around the cool, silent hotel room, bathed in blue morning light, made sure she had everything she needed—laptop, briefcase, check—and let the door lock behind her as she strode down the hallway to the elevators, her pumps whispering along the carpet. Her mind kept returning to thoughts she didn’t want: her father, Hudson. Hudson, her father. Her father, her father. She kept redirecting herself to the pitch. Everything else out. Pitch in. That was all she could handle right now.