Fall to You

by Lexi Ryan

  “Call my office and make an appointment,” Nix says. “If you’re so convinced we ran the wrong person’s blood, we’ll need to do it all again anyway.”

  “Fine.”

  “Hanna.” The voice calling my name makes me close my eyes. It hurts too much to hear his voice.

  When I open my eyes, Nix must see the question on my face. How much did Max hear? She mouths, “It’s okay,” then says out loud, “We’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

  Slowly, I force myself to turn around and face Max. He’s carrying a vase of colorful roses, and even though he attempts a smile when I look at him, he can’t mask the hurt in his eyes or the questions there.

  “Is she okay?” he asks quietly.

  I nod. “I think so?”

  “Do you mind if I go in there with you?”

  “That would be good.”

  He opens the door, and I step in before him.

  “Max,” Mom says, delighted when she spots him behind me.

  “How are you feeling?” he asks Mom.

  “Better now that I see the bride and groom standing together again.”

  I feel Max stiffen next to me, but he doesn’t say anything. Instead of correcting her, he steps forward and sets the flowers on the nightstand next to her bed.

  “You didn’t have to do that,” Mom says.

  “I wanted to,” he assures her.

  Mom sighs and leans back against her pillows. “Thank you all so much for stopping by, but I’d like to rest, if you don’t mind.”

  “Of course, Mom,” I whisper.

  “I can’t help but worry about my girls,” Mom says as we’re heading to the door.

  “You don’t need to,” I promise, but I’m wondering what she means by that.

  After we exit, Liz closes the door behind us and exhales heavily.

  “I’m sorry she still thinks we’re getting married,” I whisper to Max. “I can’t bring myself to tell her the truth right now.”

  He winces. “Of course. I wouldn’t expect you to…” He drags a hand through his hair and exhales slowly. “I wouldn’t expect you to break it to her while she’s in the hospital.”

  “It’s just for now,” I promise. “I’ll tell her when the doctor says she’s in the clear.”

  Lizzy’s eyes grow big. “The wedding is in three weeks. You can’t put it off for long.”

  Liz is right, but I can’t wrap my brain around a solution. My mind is swimming with everything that’s happened in the last few days. “I know.”

  Liz smacks Max’s shoulder. “I’m pissed at you.”

  “Liz!” I hiss. I wave my hand, leading the two of them away from Mom’s door. This is probably the worst possible place to do this.

  “A baby?” Liz growls at him when we reach the elevators. “With Meredith?”

  Max doesn’t say anything, but his jaw hardens.

  “Liz, let it go,” I warn.

  She pokes Max in the chest. “Maybe Hanna’s not upset anymore, but I—”

  “Stop!” I say. She must hear the desperation in my voice, because she does. She steps back and drops her hands.

  The elevator dings, and I force myself to follow Liz and Max inside.

  “Can we talk?” Max asks. “Tomorrow?”

  I nod dumbly. As confident as I was just yesterday in my decision to end this, anxious even, now I want to drag my feet to the finish line. Not only because of my mom, but because I love Max.

  We climb out of the elevator and head toward the parking lot. When we arrive at Lizzy’s car, Max studies me for three beats. Four. Like he wants to say more but doesn’t know how. “I’ll see you later, then.”

  I watch him walk away and feel half of my heart leave with him.

  THE SIGHT of Hanna in a wedding gown steals my breath and makes my chest ache. She’s so fucking perfect—dark hair flowing down her back, lips parted as if the photographer caught her mid-sentence.

  Meredith hoists her purse on her shoulder and flips her blond hair. She’s carefully put together, as usual, and smugger than ever. She was heading in to see Hanna’s mom and caught me in the parking lot.

  “Gretchen was looking at that headline right there when she started having chest pain. The ambulance had to come to my salon and get her.”

  I’m trying to tear my eyes off the pictures on the cover of the gossip rag, but I can’t. Not when right next to the picture of Hanna in a wedding gown, there’s a picture of her straddling Nate Crane’s lap in a hot tub. The picture is only a couple of days old if this piece-of-shit publication is to be believed.

  “This is the woman you’re promising your tomorrows to?” Meredith asks.

  I exhale slowly and force my shoulders to release. I can’t believe I ever thought Meredith’s nastiness was an admirable quality. “I’m sure it’s not what it looks like.”

  She crosses her arms and shakes her head. “You said I treated you badly, but what about this?” She throws up her hands and turns to the hospital entrance, leaving me alone with this fucking magazine.

  When I look down at the publication again, my heart plummets. For the first time, I understand why I once preferred women like Meredith to women like Hanna. It wasn’t their hearts I was trying to protect. It was mine.

  “CAN WE go get coffee somewhere?” I ask as Liz puts the car in gear.

  “Coffee?” She blinks at me. “Screw that. I vote for drinking martinis until we can’t feel our faces. Considering the day we’ve had—hell, the month we’ve had—I’d say we deserve it.”

  I shake my head. “No martinis.”

  She arches a blond brow. “Tequila?”

  “Coffee?”

  “Buzzkill,” she mutters, turning the key in the ignition and bringing the car to life.

  When we finally get settled into a booth at the greasy spoon by campus, she’s practically vibrating with all the questions she’s not letting herself ask.

  I make her wait and order decaf coffee and a milkshake. She orders coffee and a mountain of fries with liquid cheese, and we stare at each other while we wait for our food to come.

  “Meredith’s baby isn’t the reason I called off the wedding,” I tell her. “Meredith was pregnant in October. Max and I didn’t start dating until November.”

  She frowns. “Then why?”

  I take a breath and wrap my hands around my coffee mug, needing its heat. “Because it hurt to find out that he only ever started dating me because he felt sorry for me. That he didn’t intend for anything to come of it.”

  She draws in a quick breath but doesn’t lift her eyes to mine.

  “But you already knew that, didn’t you?”

  “I didn’t realize you knew,” she finally says. She dumps three sugar packets in her coffee and follows them with as many tubs of creamer. “About me telling Max to date you.”

  I sigh. “It wasn’t that you told him to date me, Liz. It’s that you told him to fake interest in me.”

  Her eyes fill. “It worked out, didn’t it?”

  “I had to find out from Meredith of all people. And it hurt.”

  “I’m sorry,” she says. She exhales heavily. “How long have you known?”

  “I found out last May the first time. Then I remembered Sunday morning.” I show her the text messages between Meredith and Max.

  “That son of a bitch,” she breathes.

  Watching Lizzy read the texts is like seeing them for the first time all over again. “I didn’t tell anyone back then because I was afraid Max would lose the grant for his club.”

  “So you remembered this and went to see Nate?”

  I nod. “It seemed like the logical choice at the time.” A moth has taken up residence outside the window, and I watch its fluttering wings.

  I’ve felt strangely calm since Liz told me about Mom’s heart attack. The same calm I felt when I saw my father unconscious in our backyard. It was like my brain put all of my emotions to the side until I did what needed to be done—call 911, check his pulse, start CPR. T
riage. Nothing is real during triage. Nothing can hurt you because you’re operating like a machine, going on to the next necessary task and the next.

  With Dad, it wasn’t until later that it all hit me. After the ambulance pulled away, my father already pronounced dead. After my mother collapsed and we had to call the doctor to get her a sedative. After my sisters clung to each other and cried. Only after did the emotions hit—the fear, the anger, the terror. And finally, the soul-ripping grief. I’m still waiting for the news of Mom’s heart attack to hit me, but right now, I’m still numb.

  “So are you two an item now?” Liz asks. “You and Nate?”

  The sound of his name makes my heart ache. “We were never together. Not really. It wasn’t supposed to be more than a fling. The night we met, he was very upfront about what he could and couldn’t offer me.” I exhale slowly. “Whatever it was between us is over now anyway. We said goodbye.”

  She stirs her coffee. “So…you’re staying with Max?”

  I shake my head. “How can I?”

  Of course, now there’s the question of my pregnancy, but I’m not ready to tell Liz about that until I know for sure. Could Nix be right? I can’t help but hold out hope for the lab mix-up.

  When our food comes, we eat in silence. Lizzy takes mercy on me and doesn’t ask any questions.

  We’re both exhausted, worried about Mom, and emotionally spent. But when we leave the restaurant, Liz drives to the drugstore instead of my bakery.

  “Come in with me?” she asks.

  I nod and follow her into the store, where she heads straight to the back and stops in front of the pregnancy tests. “A one- or two-pack?”

  My breath catches. “I’m not pregnant,” I object, but the words sound weak even to my ears.

  “I’m your twin,” she says quietly. “I can sense these things. Have you taken a test yet?”

  “Nix said that the blood work…” I shake my head. “It can’t be true. She’s wrong.”

  She takes my hand and squeezes. “It’s going to be okay.”

  My eyes fill. How is it that four weeks ago I woke up to my dream life and every day it becomes more of a nightmare? “What am I going to do if I am, Liz?”

  “Don’t borrow trouble. We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.”

  We pay for the tests and head back to the restrooms. Lizzy tears open the box, hands me a stick, and slips the other one in my purse.

  “For emergencies,” she says with a half-smile.

  I almost laugh, but it doesn’t quite make it from my lips. “Are there directions?” I ask, frowning at the test.

  “It’s a pregnancy test, not rocket science. Pee on it and wait”—she looks at the box—“two minutes. One line is negative. Two lines is…”

  “A problem.”

  “We’re going to figure this out, Han. Okay?”

  I swallow, but I can’t agree. I don’t see how this is going to be all right.

  Lizzy squeezes my hand then nudges me toward the stall.

  My hands are shaking as I hold the stick between my legs. I don’t look at it as I set it on the back of the toilet, just sink to a ball on the floor and wait for it to process.

  I’ve been going to church all my life. I’ve never been good about saying my prayers, but in this moment, there’s nothing else I can do but pray. I draw my knees to my chest and lean my head against them. William and Cally would make great parents. They have an amazing relationship, and I know how much a baby would mean to them. Cally told me that William can’t have kids because of some football accident when he was in high school, but I know they want babies badly. Why doesn’t God give them an unexpected pregnancy? Why me?

  I lift my head and stare at the stick. I should stand and look. One line or two. That simple.

  But it’s not simple at all. Two lines means not knowing whose baby I’m carrying in my belly. Two lines means having to figure out whose baby this is, and one possibility is more complicated than the next.

  What if it’s Nate’s? Nate, the amazing man who doesn’t want to have a family of his own because he doesn’t want his son to feel second best. If it’s his, I can’t tell him. Because he’ll believe he has to break the promise he made to himself and his son. And he’d resent me forever.

  And what if it’s Max’s? Max, who wants me for all the wrong reasons but still holds my heart. Should I cancel a wedding to a man I love if I’m carrying his baby?

  Two lines means telling my mother that I’m going to have a baby out of wedlock. It means disappointing her. Two lines means the end of this charade and the beginning of something terrifying and unknown.

  My knees are wet with my tears when Liz knocks on the stall door. I reach up to unlock it for her, and she frowns when she sees me curled up on the floor.

  “What did it say?”

  “I’m supposed to be a virgin,” I whisper as if that answers her question.

  I don’t have to say anything else before she’s picking up the stick.

  Emotions flash over her face in quick succession. Disappointment, sadness, frustration, and finally happiness.

  “So?”

  A tear trickles down her cheek. “I can’t bring myself to be disappointed about having a niece or nephew.”

  A sob tears from my chest, and then my whole body is shaking as she sinks to the floor and wraps me in her arms.

  “Shh,” she whispers. “We’re going to figure this out. Shh.”

  When Liz drops me off at my apartment, I find Max sitting in the dark, elbows on his knees, head cradled in his hands. “How long have you been seeing him?” he whispers. “Did it start after you broke up with me or before?”

  “What?” I flip on a light and drop my keys and purse on the island. I wish he’d told me he was coming over. I wasn’t prepared for this tonight. It hurts to look at him, to have him so close when everything about the last twenty-four hours has turned my world upside down.

  He lifts his head and tosses a magazine onto the coffee table. “Nate Crane? The fucking rocker?” He releases a humorless chuckle. “And here I am, this fool who thought he had a chance to win you back. I thought all I had to do was prove my love, but there was someone else all this time.”

  My heart doubles its pace and every beat aches like someone pounding on a bruise. “I didn’t meet Nate until after you and I broke up.” I realize I sound defensive, and shake my head. “I don’t owe you an apology. For the last month, I’ve been walking around sick with guilt because I thought I’d betrayed you. But I didn’t cheat on you. We were broken up. And worse than that? We were broken up because you never wanted me to begin with.”

  “Never wanted you? You’re fucking kidding me, right? I want you, Hanna. I want you so badly I’m consumed with it. I want you and no one but you.”

  “I know you believe that.”

  His jaw hardens and he drags a hand through his hair, making a mess of it. “Let me fill you in on some of the pieces you might have forgotten. Three months, I waited for you. I wanted to marry you or, at the very least, have you give us another chance. Three months, Hanna. And I would have waited even longer if that’s what it took. But to know that while I was waiting—while my ring was in your jewelry box—you were playing house with some asshole rocker, a guy I could never compete with.”

  “Compete?” I laugh, but it sounds ugly. Sick. “You never would have had to compete with him if you’d just wanted me from the start. You were the only thing I ever wanted, Max, but you ruined it when you hurt me.”

  I stomp across the room and snatch the magazine from the coffee table, but the indignation drains out of me when I see the two pictures on the cover. In the first, I’m in a wedding dress on Asher’s balcony, right next to Nate. It’s not terribly incriminating as far as pictures go—and the headline about Nate’s secret marriage is just ridiculous. But combined with the picture next to it—me straddling Nate in his hot tub, my arms wrapped around his neck…

  “That’s what your mom was looki
ng at when she got her chest pains. She was getting her hair done at Meredith’s salon and picked up that magazine to see her daughter on the front.” He moves to the picture window and looks out into the black night. I wait for him to turn, wait for him to look at me. He doesn’t. “Apparently she was a little shocked to discover you’d been hooking up with Nate Crane.” His voice drops. “She’s not the only one.”

  I only speak when I can’t stand the silence anymore. “Didn’t you know?” I whisper.

  “I suspected there was someone. You said there wasn’t.”

  I wince. I lied to Max?

  “Are you in love with him?”

  “Yes.” I know how much that admission is going to hurt, and my voice breaks on the word. And maybe my heart.

  His head bobs as he nods. “Okay. And me?” The pain’s right there in his voice, but it’s not the hot and fresh wound I expected. It’s hard and calloused. Old hurt brought to the surface.

  “I love you too.” It’s the first time I’ve said it since I lost my memory, and he bows his head at the words. I whisper, “But love isn’t enough. The way you really feel about my body, about the real me. That will stand between us.” I swallow hard. “I know you believe that I’m what you want. And maybe I am. But you don’t want me the way a man should want his wife. Maybe it’s stupid that I care. But I want someone who’s going to be as crazy for my body—in all its flaws—as he is for my mind.”

  He turns and drags his eyes over me. Slowly. Deliberately. “You don’t believe I’m crazy for your body?”

  “She said, ‘What’s it like to fuck a fatty?’ and you said, ‘I’m not going to let it get that far.’” Hurt slices through me at the memory. “How the hell else was I supposed to take that, Max?”

  His jaw hardens. “Don’t pretend that her words were my thoughts.”

  “They might as well have been.” Anger bubbles into my voice, making my words pop and snap. “You have no idea what it’s like to always fall short. To be the reason your mom won’t serve full-fat anything at family functions. To be the one who never had a date to prom. You have no idea what it’s like to be so in love with the same guy since you were thirteen years old and have him look at your twin sister like she’s the sprinkles on a sundae. You have no clue what it’s like to have someone you want find you unattractive.”