by Lexi Ryan
Her shoulders relax. “Good to know. Now lie back so we can measure this little bean in your belly and see when he or she started growing.”
I lower myself onto the table, taking the ever-awkward, time-honored position of my feet in the stirrups as she prepares the wand for a transvaginal ultrasound. I turn off my mind to anything other than Nix’s commands. Don’t think.
“Relax,” she orders, pressing my thighs apart.
I squeeze my eyes shut. Lying on a table and getting my first ultrasound has to be the loneliest place in the world. I know Liz could have been here, would love to be here, but having her by my side would have been even more painful, the Band-Aid that chafes the open wound.
“Are you ready?” Nix asks.
I open my eyes and mouth, “No,” but she’s not looking at me. She hits a few keys on the keyboard, and a fuzzy black-and-white image pops onto the screen to my left.
At first, all I see is a black void with occasional white patches. But then she coos, and I see something that looks very much like a little lima bean.
“See that?” She points to a flashing green light on the screen. “That’s your baby’s heartbeat. Let’s see if we can get a listen.” She taps the keyboard again, and then suddenly the thumping of a fast-beating heart comes over the room’s speakers.
The sound spins my emotions on their head and the moment transforms from surreal to wonderfully and painfully real. It’s not just a sound. It’s a part of me.
Nix gives me a sad smile before turning her attention back to her computer screen. “Let’s take some measurements to see how far along you are.” The image on the screen swishes from right to left as she maneuvers the wand and uses the mouse at the computer to measure this little bean inside me. “Oh…oooh.”
I tense at the surprise in her voice. “What? Is the baby okay?” My mind immediately shoots to the diet pills and starvation. Could the damage I did to my body then be hurting my baby now?
“See that?” She taps the flashing light on the screen again. “That’s your baby’s heartbeat.” She taps another blinking light on the screen. “And that’s your baby’s heartbeat.”
“What’s wrong with it? Why does my baby have two hearts?”
“Your babies,” she says. “You’re pregnant with twins.”
“YOU DON’T have to do this.” She pokes at her crawfish étouffée and scans the crowd of Cajun Jack’s, where she asked me to meet her for dinner. She’s been quiet since we took our seats in the little booth, but it’s not a distant kind of silence, just an unreadable one.
“I don’t have to do what?” I ask.
“You don’t have to pretend we’re together.” She abandons her fork and sips at her Sprite. “Especially now that you know about…” She drops her eyes toward her stomach. “I understand why you’d want to be done with the charade. As soon as they announce that you got the grant, I’ll figure out a way to break it to my mom gently.”
“I didn’t get it,” I say softly.
She sits back. “What?”
“They announced the grant recipients yesterday. The Healthy Tomorrow Grant went to someone else.”
“But my mom… I thought…”
I knew there was a good chance I wasn’t going to get it, but Hanna seemed convinced from the beginning that her mom could make it happen. “Your mom is only one vote. Everyone else on the committee got a vote too.” And who wanted to vote for a sweaty gym when there were community gardens and nature trails applying for the same money?
“I’m so sorry,” she whispers. “What are you going to do?”
I shrug. “What I’ve always done. Work my ass off until things pick up again. I never expected this to be easy, and I don’t mind the work.”
She stares at me, her lips parted. “I wish I could give you some money.”
“I don’t want your money. I’m okay. Things aren’t as bad as they seem.”
“If they already announced the grant recipient, why are you willing to keep pretending to be with me?”
I wince. I wish she’d just punch me in the balls. It would feel better than this. “It was never about the grant money. I wanted a chance to win you back.”
“I’m hurting you, aren’t I?” She shakes her head. “I was too insecure to believe you could really want me for me, and I screwed up everything. I broke your heart too.”
“You were worth it.”
“Was I?” she whispers, looking down at her plate again. Fat tears rolls down her cheeks, and I feel like someone is taking a cheese grater to my heart. “I don’t feel like I’m worth much right now, and for the first time in my life, those feelings have nothing to do with my body.” She laughs, but it’s not the normal bright laughter I’m used to. “I was such an idiot. You and I could be happy, but I let my fear destroy something good.”
“Nothing’s destroyed, Hanna.” I take a breath and study her. “I’m not saying everything is going to be easy, but nothing is destroyed.”
“It’s twins, Max. Nix did an ultrasound today, and I’m having twins.”
Twins. Jesus. My head is spinning, and I can’t think of a single response to that news. I can’t imagine how she must feel.
“I’m sorry you had to find out like you did—about Nate and the pregnancy. You didn’t deserve that.” She draws in a shaky breath. “God, how did everything get to be so screwed up?” She smiles for a second before she remembers herself and it falls away. “He defended you. Told me I was too good inside to be able to love an asshole. He and I never planned to have a relationship. Just a fling, I guess. He was supposed to be my rebound guy. Someone to make me feel better about myself after you and I split.”
“I’m sorry.” I say the words without meaning to, and flinch. This conversation isn’t about me. It’s not about us.
“For…what?”
“For screwing up our beginning. For making you feel unworthy in any way.” My throat is thick, and I have to stop talking, force myself to breathe. “Take as long as you need before you announce anything. Not just as long as your mom needs, but you too. I’ll be here for you. However I can help you.”
“Thank you.”
We give up the pretense of eating and I take her home. Just the sight of those narrow steps up to her apartment makes my stomach flip. It’s bad enough that she fell down them before, but now that we know she’s pregnant, the idea of her falling is enough to keep me up at night. Maybe we could rent out that apartment to someone else and use the money to get her a place without stairs.
“Let me walk you up,” I say, taking her arm.
She gives me a half-smile. “Thanks.”
When we reach her door, our gazes lock and I have to swallow something thick in my throat that feels a whole lot like regret.
HIS EYES search mine, and they’re full of so many emotions I don’t dare analyze.
I can’t ask him to stay. I wouldn’t. But I’m terrified to go into that apartment and spend the night alone. The future stretches out before me—an endless landscape of terrifying unknowns that I have to brave alone.
“I’m scared.”
The moment his fingers touch mine, my heart slams in my chest and some frozen part of me begins to thaw. He brings my hand to his mouth. It’s just a kiss, a brush of lips against my knuckles, but there’s so much in that one gesture.
“I’m here, okay?” He grazes his thumb over my cheek, and I feel the moisture of tears I didn’t realize I was shedding. “However you want me to be.”
I wake in the middle of the night and bolt upright in bed to horrible, ugly sobs. It sounds like someone is having her heart ripped out and it’s terrifying. Only when Lizzy wraps me in her arms and murmurs in my ear do I realize they’re coming from me.
“Shh.” Liz holds me, rocks me back and forth. “Shh. You’re not alone. I’ve got you.”
When the sobbing subsides, I lie back down, and she lies next to me and laces her fingers through mine. “My heart hurts,” I whisper into the darkness.
“He lied to me.” I close my eyes and squeeze my sister’s hand. “He said he wasn’t offering me commitment, but that’s not true. A few days before my accident, he told me he was in love with me and wanted to find a way to make it work.”
“Oh, Hanna,” Liz says. “I’m so sorry.”
I shake my head in the darkness. “I was supposed to be making my decision. I was supposed to choose, and the next time he saw me, I was wearing Max’s ring. I can’t imagine how much that must have hurt him, but I don’t understand why he lied about it when I told him I needed to remember why I chose Max. Why would he lie?”
“Maybe he thought you’d be better off with Max.”
“I think I was wrong about Max’s reasons for wanting me.” I draw in a ragged breath. “I never realized how much my own self-hatred could damage everyone around me.”
“You don’t need to worry about that,” she murmurs, smoothing my hair.
“I love them both. Nate is dead, and I still feel like my heart is torn between two men.”
“Shh.” She squeezes my hand. “It going to be okay.”
I shake my head. Nothing’s okay. I love two men and can’t be with either. If accusing Max of only wanting me for my money didn’t destroy everything between us, the fact that I would be choosing him after Nate’s death does. And now I’m grieving another man, pregnant with his babies. Twins. I shouldn’t be surprised. Nate and I are both twins. But that doesn’t make it any less of a shock. I’m not sure I’m ready to be a mom at all, and suddenly I’m going to be a mom of two?
“I’m so fucked up.”
“You’re tired. Close your eyes.”
“It’s twins,” I whisper into the darkness.
I know she heard me because I hear her soft gasp, but I can’t see her face. Then she throws her arms around me and we’re lying in bed, hugging so tight that right in that moment it feels like maybe—despite the grief tearing me apart inside, despite the heartache that makes me want to cling to Max, despite the fear of what will happen when I tell my mom the truth—for just a minute, I believe everything is going to be okay.
WILLIAM AND Cally’s rehearsal dinner is full of food and wine and laughter¸ and I’m sitting here fighting the urge to lean my head against Max and close my eyes. I didn’t know it was possible to be this tired. Last night, after I woke from nightmares three different times, Liz stayed in bed with me like we used to when we were kids and scared of the dark.
I’ve been next to Max all night and it’s starting to get to me—the smell of his cologne, his drop-dead-gorgeous grin, his thick forearms exposed by the rolled cuffs of his dress shirt. I see his arms and want to crawl into them and hide from the world.
This afternoon, Liz made me go upstairs and take a nap, but instead of sleeping, I lay in bed wondering about those five days before my accident. Since I was living a life veiled in secrecy, I don’t have much to go on, but I know two things to be true: Nate told me that it was time to make a decision, and sometime shortly before I fell down the stairs, I put on Max’s ring. I gave my virginity to Nate and, less than five days later, chose Max. And the day I put on Max’s ring is a day Nix tells me I’ll probably never remember.
The servers are clearing our plates when Will stands from his seat next to Cally at the head table. People clink their forks against their glasses, and he smiles as the room grows silent.
“I just wanted to say a few words before we send you all on your way tonight,” he begins. “As you all know, I’ve been in love with Cally since high school.”
“Poor girl moved across the country and still couldn’t escape you,” Sam calls out.
Will chuckles, but his face goes serious again as he turns to his bride. “Love isn’t easy. Not the good kind. At least it hasn’t been for us. There have been a lot of obstacles, but we made it here. Cally and I?” He grins at her. “We’re meant to be together. I knew that from the beginning. When I was a teenager, I thought that was all it took, but I learned that destiny—or whatever you want to call it—that’s not enough. We had to fight for each other.” Cally looks up at him, adoration clear in her eyes, and when he meets her gaze, it’s so clear the feeling is mutual that my chest aches with envy. “I’m not perfect, Cally, but you do make me better. If I have to, I’ll fight for you over and over again, and I’ll point to every battle scar and tell our kids, ‘Totally worth it.’”
I feel Max’s eyes on me, and when I turn to him, the intensity in his gaze takes my breath away. I can’t imagine what this weekend must be like for him when our own wedding is supposed to follow in only two weeks.
Will turns to the rest of the room. “We owe so much thanks to you all too. The Thompson girls—Hanna, Liz, and Maggie—you gave Cally the friends she needed when she returned to New Hope, and I thank you for that. To the jerks I call my friends—Sam, Max, Asher—I know this wedding stuff isn’t your favorite, but you’re here anyway. In the time we’ve been friends, you’ve proven you’d drop just about anything for me if I asked you to. I appreciate you. Everyone, thank you for being here. It was tempting to skip the whole to-do, especially after my…ahem…prior difficulties with weddings.” His cheeks actually turn a little pink as the crowd laughs. “But we decided not to get married on the beach in Maui. We wanted you with us. You’ve helped make our lives so awesome. Now let’s drink some wine and hurry toward the part of this weekend where this woman becomes mine forever.”
Applause fills the room as Cally hops out of her seat, wraps her arms around Will’s neck, and kisses him silly.
Again, there’s that ache in my chest. I don’t begrudge them their connection or their happiness. I wouldn’t want any less for my friends. But I do envy them. Just last week, I thought my life was headed in the same direction as theirs—not just the wedding and honeymoon, but the shared life. The laughter and connection. The inside jokes and…togetherness. Having a partner when life throws shit at you. I thought I’d have that with Max.
He’s watching me, but his face is unreadable. Is he thinking the same thing? Or does he resent me for betraying him with Nate?
“Why don’t you two go dance?” Mom asks.
Max stands and offers me his hand. “May I?”
I nod, place my hand in his, and follow him to the dance floor, where I wrap my arms around his neck and pretend we’re the engaged couple Mom thinks we are.
“Relax,” he murmurs in my ear. “It’s just a dance.”
I didn’t realize how stiff I was holding myself. I rest my head on his shoulder. My whole body is exhausted after a day that started before five a.m. and has been go-go-go ever since, and my body turns to mush as I melt against his heat and the comfort of his breath against my ear.
HANNA SMELLS so damn good. I don’t want to let her go. Which is a really fucking bad idea. I need to let her go. I need to put some space between us, go home, and try to sleep—something I haven’t done much of this week. But instead, I’ll stay here as long as I can, holding her in my arms and pretending this is real.
Pretend. After months of pretend, I thought we were past that, but here we are again, and maybe it serves me right. It’s my punishment for not seeing what was in front of my nose for so many years.
“They’re perfect for each other, aren’t they?” Hanna rests her cheek on my chest and watches Cally and William on the other side of the dance floor. “He loves her so much. She didn’t believe he’d ever be able to forgive her for her mistakes, but look at them now.”
I don’t know the whole story of what happened between Will and Cally, but I know enough to understand that their love is truly unconditional. “When you love someone, you can forgive them anything.”
She lifts her head, her dark brown eyes locking on mine. “We both screwed up, didn’t we?”
I nod, my throat thick as she reaches up to brush my hair from my face. Earlier today, I was thinking h
ow much I needed a damn haircut, but now I’m glad it’s falling in my eyes.
“Do you ever wonder if things could have gone differently between us?”
“Every day.”
She nods. “Me too.”
“Things have a way of working out,” I promise, brushing her stomach with my thumb. “No matter what happens, you’ll never regret them.”
“What’s it like?” she asks, fingertips still resting on my jaw. “Being a parent?”
“It’s…awesome.” I clear my throat and swallow back emotion. “But in the literal sense of the word, not the clichéd sense. You’re going to make an amazing mother.”
My eyes burn at the thought and my chest feels too full. How many times have I pictured Hanna’s stomach rounding out with a child? How many times have I rocked Claire to sleep and wanted to share the feeling with the woman I love?
“Can I ask you a question?”
I nod. She can ask me anything she wants if it means I get to keep her in my arms.
“When everything settles down and we don’t have to pretend anymore…will you be with Meredith?”
“No.” I hate that she even has to ask. I’ve tried to make it clear that I’m not interested in Meredith anymore, but I obviously haven’t done a very good job.
“But she wants you. And you said yourself you’ve been in love with her most of your life.”
Three soft little tendrils have slipped from her twist at the nape of her neck, and I take one between my fingers as I respond. “I thought it was love once. But that was before I knew what it was like to be in love with you.”
Her lips part and her gaze dips to my lips. “You say these things—”
“Go ahead and kiss her, Max!” Sam calls from the other side of the dance floor. “You guys are next!”
Several people around him call out in agreement, and all eyes land on us.
Hanna nods almost imperceptibly, giving me the permission I need before I lower my mouth to hers. I mean for it to just be a touch of lips, enough to appease the curious people staring at us, but the second my lips touch hers, she melts into me, and I can’t resist tasting her for another second, memorizing the sweetness of her mouth under mine. I’ll be there for her. I’ll be the friend she needs when she raises her babies, but she’s made it clear that’s all we can be. I can’t rush this last kiss before I have to let go of this part of our relationship forever.