I raise a brow.
“Do you feel safe?” She pauses a beat. “Is Max good to you?”
“Oh! Of course.” I wave my hand. “Seriously, I’m sure I just fell down the stairs. Max is a prince.”
She frowns. “Your sister says you’ve been spending time with her and Maggie again, not isolating yourself like you had been. That’s a good sign.”
“Of course. Other than Cally, my sisters are my best friends.”
“Keep that up. It’s important that you have a support system, not just Max.”
“I will. I promise.”
She nods, looking satisfied. “Did you fast this morning?”
I wince. “Crap. I totally forgot you wanted to do blood work.”
“That’s okay.” She smiles and lowers herself into her chair. “You can swing by the lab any morning to get that done, but I can guess already that it’s going to look better.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Well, in the two and a half weeks since you’ve been out of the hospital, you’ve gained about six pounds. I know without seeing your lab work that you’re eating again. That’s good news.”
“You’re the first doctor who’s ever called my weight gain good news.” I can’t handle the sympathy in her sad smile, so I study the blue specks on the industrial-grade flooring tiles. “Did you know? About the anorexia?”
Nix takes a breath, surprised at my confession, I guess. “I suspected, but you weren’t very receptive when I tried to talk to you about it over the summer.”
“Do you think I can start working out again? Running?”
“Let’s start with a week of light, low-impact workouts. If that goes okay, you can try a short run. Just ease back in and listen to your body. But I don’t want you working out more than once a day, got it?”
“I’m scared I’m going to gain it all back.” I hate admitting this. I hate letting someone see how much my stupid body affects how I feel about myself. “But I think I’m just as scared of letting food control my life, letting my desire to be thin ruin everything else.” When I lift my head to meet her gaze, there’s more understanding in her eyes than I expected.
“You’re probably going to put on some more weight, at least some of it. When you lose weight in such an unhealthy way, your body can’t maintain it when you go back to eating and exercising normally. There will be an adjustment period where you figure out what weight you can maintain while eating regularly and having a healthy relationship with exercise.”
I nod, but my eyes fill and I have to look away. I only have a few recovered memories of Nix, and I don’t know how close we are. But if I voice my fears to Liz, she’ll just be mad at me.
“What is it, Hanna?”
The floor’s blue specks swim before my eyes. A tear plops onto the tile next to my sandaled foot. “What if the weight comes back and Max isn’t attracted to me anymore?”
“Oh, sweetie.” Then she surprises me by hugging me, wrapping me up against her.
“Are doctors supposed to hug their patients?” I ask, hugging her back awkwardly.
“I’m not hugging you as your doctor. I’m hugging you as your friend.” She squeezes one more time before releasing me. “You need to talk to Max. You can’t live the rest of your life fearing that he might not want you.”
May—Three Months Before Accident
“I’m so pleased to meet you, Miss Thompson,” the lawyer says. She gestures to the chair and takes her seat on the other side of her desk. “I’m sure you’re wondering why I summoned you.”
“I am.” I lower myself into the wingback chair. Her office is slick and modern with just enough homey touches—throw pillows, framed snapshots—to make it comfortable. Well, to make most people comfortable. There’s nothing comfortable about how I feel being called to Indianapolis to meet with a lawyer I’ve never heard of before. “I can only assume I have a distant rich relative who passed away and left me his fortune.”
She laughs good-naturedly. “I keep waiting for that call myself, but unfortunately, that’s not why you’re here today.”
“Bummer.” I force a smile and shift in my chair. Waiting.
“I understand you just graduated from Sinclair and have a successful side business decorating cakes for friends.”
“I did just graduate, though I’m not sure how successful I’d call my business. I do it more for fun than anything.”
“You enjoy it, then?”
“Of course!” My cheeks warm. “It’s fun to make something out of raw ingredients. And cakes just make people happy.”
“And you have a dream of opening up your own bakery in New Hope. Is that correct?”
This will definitely be filed under Strangest Experiences Ever. “Yes, but it’s really more of a pipe dream. Nothing serious.”
“What if it didn’t have to be a pipe dream?” She pushes a thin stack of papers across the desk. “My client who, let’s be clear from the start, wishes to remain anonymous, thinks your ‘pipe dream’ bakery plans, as you call them, could really turn into a profitable venture.”
I pick up the stack of papers and leaf through them, but I’m not really sure what I’m looking at.
“The one on the top is the New Hope revitalization project, explaining tax breaks and grant funds the town of New Hope will give to young entrepreneurs who want to help revitalize the historic square.”
I scan the page, my eyes landing on the maximum dollar amounts the city will contribute. “I know about these grants,” I say, nodding. “William Bailey got some grant money to open his art gallery. I’m familiar with the opportunities, but they aren’t anything near what someone like me would need to open my own business.” I’d be able to do it with the money in my trust fund, but I don’t get that until I’m thirty or married.
Max’s proposal flashes through my mind—the look on his face when I stared at the ring and didn’t speak, the moment he rose off his knee and placed the ring in my hand, closing my fingers around it. “Keep it. That’s how much I want this, Hanna. Keep it. I’ll wait.”
What was the “this” that he wanted? Me or my trust fund? I squeeze my eyes shut.
“That’s why I’m here. My client would like to go into business with you, Hanna. He would provide the rest of the funds you need to open the bakery in the old Woolworth’s building on Main. We’ve had a team of contractors give us estimates on turning around the space, and he’d even put an apartment for you upstairs to compensate for the minimal income you’d expect your first months in business.”
“How can I go into business with someone who wants to remain anonymous?”
“He’d be a silent partner. He’d get a portion of your profits until you choose to buy him out or sell the business.”
“But what if I don’t make a profit? What’s in it for him then?”
She shrugs. “Investments always come with risk, but my client believes you’ll be successful.”
“So if I want to make a decision, how am I supposed to talk to him?”
“Most things you’d be free to decide on your own, but there are major decisions he’d want to be consulted on, and those would go through me.”
Who would want to go into business with me? Who do I know with the money to take on something like this? “Is Nate Crane behind this?”
Her face remains impassive. “Anonymous means anonymous.”
It has to be Nate. And I should say no. I shouldn’t accept his money. Only he’s offering me something I want so badly. I can already picture my bakery on Main, Sinclair students hopping in between classes for a gourmet coffee, a glass case with freshly baked cookies and scones.
“Do you think you’d like to talk more, or is an anonymous partnership out of the question for you?”
“Tell me more.”
15
AT FIRST, I’m not sure if what I’m hearing is someone knocking on my door because the booming thunder of the storm masks it. Then it comes again. Boom, boom, boom.
I slide my laptop onto the couch beside me and rush to the door.
“Hanna?” Liz calls.
“What are you doing out in this storm?” I hurry to the door and yank it open.
Liz steps in, soaking wet but grinning. Maggie, Cally, and Nix pile in right behind her. “Impromptu girls’ night!” Liz announces.
“Sorry, I couldn’t hear the knocking over the thunder.”
The girls shed their shoes and jackets by the door, and I grab towels for them.
“It’s a mess out there,” my sister says. She wipes the rain from her face and shakes her curls, not unlike a dog coming in from the rain.
Cally goes into the kitchen and plugs her iPod into the radio, and Maggie hoists a couple of canvas shopping bags on the counter and starts pulling out cream, Godiva liqueur, and vodka—ingredients for chocolate martinis, if I’m not mistaken. Nix removes a box of truffles, cheese, and crackers from another bag.
“You guys,” I say. “I have a wedding dress to fit into in three and a half weeks.”
Liz opens cabinet doors until she finds my martini glasses and sets them on the island. “You’ve never had us over here.”
“We had to remedy that,” Cally says, grinning.
“And Asher and Nate are working like fiends, so I was bored,” Maggie explains.
“Where’s Will?” I ask Cally.
“He’s hanging with Max and Sam at Brady’s.”
I head to the island and pop a truffle in my mouth. “That is amazing!” I close my eyes and chew slowly.
“God, it’s good to see you eat!” Cally says as she chooses a chocolate. “You were losing weight so fast. I was worried about you.”
“She’s doing really well,” Nix says. She winks at me as she grabs a truffle for herself. “Oh, wow!”
“They’re orgasmic, aren’t they?” Maggie says. “Asher got them for me when he was in New York last month. There’s this shop in the city that I swear does voodoo to make their chocolate.”
“Let me try.” Lizzy abandons her half-made chocolate martinis to try the orgasmic treat for herself. “Holy shit! I didn’t know chocolate could be better.”
The speakers click as Cally’s iPod shuffles to a new song, and Nate Crane’s “Lost In Me” begins.
I gasp.
Lizzy reaches over and squeezes my hand, and I close my eyes.
“That’s it.” Maggie slaps her palm on the counter. “What is going on with Nate Crane?”
Lizzy puts on her innocent face. “What do you mean?”
“Something’s up with you two. You get all weird any time I mention Nate, and he gets all weird every time I say anything about my sisters.”
“Weird?” Lizzy says. “We’re just fans. That’s all.”
Maggie raises a disbelieving brow. “You are a shitty liar.”
My twin sighs dramatically. “Fine. You know how I feel about his hotness. You caught me. I’m sleeping with Nate Crane.”
“You wish,” Maggie mutters before she zeroes in on me. “Hanna, spill.”
“She doesn’t—”
I hold up a hand. It was only a matter of time, right? “It’s okay. I made this mess and now I have to live with the consequences. Maggie should know.”
“It started in St. Louis, didn’t it?” She looks heartbroken.
“She doesn’t have her memory, remember?” Lizzy defends.
“I don’t know much. But the night I got home from the hospital, I woke up with Nate in my bed, and he was really angry when he saw my ring.”
“Jesus.” Cally drags her hand over her face.
“You can’t say anything to Will,” I plead with her. “Not until I tell Max the truth.”
“You haven’t told Max?” Nix says.
“Amnesia, remember?” Liz says. “She can’t even remember being with him.”
“But he climbed into your bed,” Maggie points out. “Did you ask him what’s been going on between you?”
“He’s not real keen on talking to her,” Liz says. “You know, given that she chose the other guy.”
“But you know for sure there was something going on between the two of you?” Maggie asks. “You and Nate Crane?”
“You’re one to talk,” Liz retorts. “You’re f**king Asher Logan. Seriously, what’s happened to this town? And when do I get a sultry affair with a sexy rocker?”
Nix shakes her head as if to clear it and grabs the martini shaker from Lizzy’s hand. She pulls off the top and takes a drink straight from the shaker. “No wonder you’re so anxious for those memories to come back,” she mutters. “I’m anxious for you to get those memories back.”
“I know, right?” Liz says. “I want details, and whether she remembers or not, I’m pretty sure I’m never going to get them.”
“What about Max?” Worry is written all over Cally’s face. “You are going to tell him, right?”
“I have to,” I whisper.
“Hanna!” Lizzy says.
“I’ve made up my mind, Liz. I’m giving my brain one more week to share any details it has hidden in there and then I’m telling Max what I know. For better or worse.”
“Do you feel safe?” She pauses a beat. “Is Max good to you?”
“Oh! Of course.” I wave my hand. “Seriously, I’m sure I just fell down the stairs. Max is a prince.”
She frowns. “Your sister says you’ve been spending time with her and Maggie again, not isolating yourself like you had been. That’s a good sign.”
“Of course. Other than Cally, my sisters are my best friends.”
“Keep that up. It’s important that you have a support system, not just Max.”
“I will. I promise.”
She nods, looking satisfied. “Did you fast this morning?”
I wince. “Crap. I totally forgot you wanted to do blood work.”
“That’s okay.” She smiles and lowers herself into her chair. “You can swing by the lab any morning to get that done, but I can guess already that it’s going to look better.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Well, in the two and a half weeks since you’ve been out of the hospital, you’ve gained about six pounds. I know without seeing your lab work that you’re eating again. That’s good news.”
“You’re the first doctor who’s ever called my weight gain good news.” I can’t handle the sympathy in her sad smile, so I study the blue specks on the industrial-grade flooring tiles. “Did you know? About the anorexia?”
Nix takes a breath, surprised at my confession, I guess. “I suspected, but you weren’t very receptive when I tried to talk to you about it over the summer.”
“Do you think I can start working out again? Running?”
“Let’s start with a week of light, low-impact workouts. If that goes okay, you can try a short run. Just ease back in and listen to your body. But I don’t want you working out more than once a day, got it?”
“I’m scared I’m going to gain it all back.” I hate admitting this. I hate letting someone see how much my stupid body affects how I feel about myself. “But I think I’m just as scared of letting food control my life, letting my desire to be thin ruin everything else.” When I lift my head to meet her gaze, there’s more understanding in her eyes than I expected.
“You’re probably going to put on some more weight, at least some of it. When you lose weight in such an unhealthy way, your body can’t maintain it when you go back to eating and exercising normally. There will be an adjustment period where you figure out what weight you can maintain while eating regularly and having a healthy relationship with exercise.”
I nod, but my eyes fill and I have to look away. I only have a few recovered memories of Nix, and I don’t know how close we are. But if I voice my fears to Liz, she’ll just be mad at me.
“What is it, Hanna?”
The floor’s blue specks swim before my eyes. A tear plops onto the tile next to my sandaled foot. “What if the weight comes back and Max isn’t attracted to me anymore?”
“Oh, sweetie.” Then she surprises me by hugging me, wrapping me up against her.
“Are doctors supposed to hug their patients?” I ask, hugging her back awkwardly.
“I’m not hugging you as your doctor. I’m hugging you as your friend.” She squeezes one more time before releasing me. “You need to talk to Max. You can’t live the rest of your life fearing that he might not want you.”
May—Three Months Before Accident
“I’m so pleased to meet you, Miss Thompson,” the lawyer says. She gestures to the chair and takes her seat on the other side of her desk. “I’m sure you’re wondering why I summoned you.”
“I am.” I lower myself into the wingback chair. Her office is slick and modern with just enough homey touches—throw pillows, framed snapshots—to make it comfortable. Well, to make most people comfortable. There’s nothing comfortable about how I feel being called to Indianapolis to meet with a lawyer I’ve never heard of before. “I can only assume I have a distant rich relative who passed away and left me his fortune.”
She laughs good-naturedly. “I keep waiting for that call myself, but unfortunately, that’s not why you’re here today.”
“Bummer.” I force a smile and shift in my chair. Waiting.
“I understand you just graduated from Sinclair and have a successful side business decorating cakes for friends.”
“I did just graduate, though I’m not sure how successful I’d call my business. I do it more for fun than anything.”
“You enjoy it, then?”
“Of course!” My cheeks warm. “It’s fun to make something out of raw ingredients. And cakes just make people happy.”
“And you have a dream of opening up your own bakery in New Hope. Is that correct?”
This will definitely be filed under Strangest Experiences Ever. “Yes, but it’s really more of a pipe dream. Nothing serious.”
“What if it didn’t have to be a pipe dream?” She pushes a thin stack of papers across the desk. “My client who, let’s be clear from the start, wishes to remain anonymous, thinks your ‘pipe dream’ bakery plans, as you call them, could really turn into a profitable venture.”
I pick up the stack of papers and leaf through them, but I’m not really sure what I’m looking at.
“The one on the top is the New Hope revitalization project, explaining tax breaks and grant funds the town of New Hope will give to young entrepreneurs who want to help revitalize the historic square.”
I scan the page, my eyes landing on the maximum dollar amounts the city will contribute. “I know about these grants,” I say, nodding. “William Bailey got some grant money to open his art gallery. I’m familiar with the opportunities, but they aren’t anything near what someone like me would need to open my own business.” I’d be able to do it with the money in my trust fund, but I don’t get that until I’m thirty or married.
Max’s proposal flashes through my mind—the look on his face when I stared at the ring and didn’t speak, the moment he rose off his knee and placed the ring in my hand, closing my fingers around it. “Keep it. That’s how much I want this, Hanna. Keep it. I’ll wait.”
What was the “this” that he wanted? Me or my trust fund? I squeeze my eyes shut.
“That’s why I’m here. My client would like to go into business with you, Hanna. He would provide the rest of the funds you need to open the bakery in the old Woolworth’s building on Main. We’ve had a team of contractors give us estimates on turning around the space, and he’d even put an apartment for you upstairs to compensate for the minimal income you’d expect your first months in business.”
“How can I go into business with someone who wants to remain anonymous?”
“He’d be a silent partner. He’d get a portion of your profits until you choose to buy him out or sell the business.”
“But what if I don’t make a profit? What’s in it for him then?”
She shrugs. “Investments always come with risk, but my client believes you’ll be successful.”
“So if I want to make a decision, how am I supposed to talk to him?”
“Most things you’d be free to decide on your own, but there are major decisions he’d want to be consulted on, and those would go through me.”
Who would want to go into business with me? Who do I know with the money to take on something like this? “Is Nate Crane behind this?”
Her face remains impassive. “Anonymous means anonymous.”
It has to be Nate. And I should say no. I shouldn’t accept his money. Only he’s offering me something I want so badly. I can already picture my bakery on Main, Sinclair students hopping in between classes for a gourmet coffee, a glass case with freshly baked cookies and scones.
“Do you think you’d like to talk more, or is an anonymous partnership out of the question for you?”
“Tell me more.”
15
AT FIRST, I’m not sure if what I’m hearing is someone knocking on my door because the booming thunder of the storm masks it. Then it comes again. Boom, boom, boom.
I slide my laptop onto the couch beside me and rush to the door.
“Hanna?” Liz calls.
“What are you doing out in this storm?” I hurry to the door and yank it open.
Liz steps in, soaking wet but grinning. Maggie, Cally, and Nix pile in right behind her. “Impromptu girls’ night!” Liz announces.
“Sorry, I couldn’t hear the knocking over the thunder.”
The girls shed their shoes and jackets by the door, and I grab towels for them.
“It’s a mess out there,” my sister says. She wipes the rain from her face and shakes her curls, not unlike a dog coming in from the rain.
Cally goes into the kitchen and plugs her iPod into the radio, and Maggie hoists a couple of canvas shopping bags on the counter and starts pulling out cream, Godiva liqueur, and vodka—ingredients for chocolate martinis, if I’m not mistaken. Nix removes a box of truffles, cheese, and crackers from another bag.
“You guys,” I say. “I have a wedding dress to fit into in three and a half weeks.”
Liz opens cabinet doors until she finds my martini glasses and sets them on the island. “You’ve never had us over here.”
“We had to remedy that,” Cally says, grinning.
“And Asher and Nate are working like fiends, so I was bored,” Maggie explains.
“Where’s Will?” I ask Cally.
“He’s hanging with Max and Sam at Brady’s.”
I head to the island and pop a truffle in my mouth. “That is amazing!” I close my eyes and chew slowly.
“God, it’s good to see you eat!” Cally says as she chooses a chocolate. “You were losing weight so fast. I was worried about you.”
“She’s doing really well,” Nix says. She winks at me as she grabs a truffle for herself. “Oh, wow!”
“They’re orgasmic, aren’t they?” Maggie says. “Asher got them for me when he was in New York last month. There’s this shop in the city that I swear does voodoo to make their chocolate.”
“Let me try.” Lizzy abandons her half-made chocolate martinis to try the orgasmic treat for herself. “Holy shit! I didn’t know chocolate could be better.”
The speakers click as Cally’s iPod shuffles to a new song, and Nate Crane’s “Lost In Me” begins.
I gasp.
Lizzy reaches over and squeezes my hand, and I close my eyes.
“That’s it.” Maggie slaps her palm on the counter. “What is going on with Nate Crane?”
Lizzy puts on her innocent face. “What do you mean?”
“Something’s up with you two. You get all weird any time I mention Nate, and he gets all weird every time I say anything about my sisters.”
“Weird?” Lizzy says. “We’re just fans. That’s all.”
Maggie raises a disbelieving brow. “You are a shitty liar.”
My twin sighs dramatically. “Fine. You know how I feel about his hotness. You caught me. I’m sleeping with Nate Crane.”
“You wish,” Maggie mutters before she zeroes in on me. “Hanna, spill.”
“She doesn’t—”
I hold up a hand. It was only a matter of time, right? “It’s okay. I made this mess and now I have to live with the consequences. Maggie should know.”
“It started in St. Louis, didn’t it?” She looks heartbroken.
“She doesn’t have her memory, remember?” Lizzy defends.
“I don’t know much. But the night I got home from the hospital, I woke up with Nate in my bed, and he was really angry when he saw my ring.”
“Jesus.” Cally drags her hand over her face.
“You can’t say anything to Will,” I plead with her. “Not until I tell Max the truth.”
“You haven’t told Max?” Nix says.
“Amnesia, remember?” Liz says. “She can’t even remember being with him.”
“But he climbed into your bed,” Maggie points out. “Did you ask him what’s been going on between you?”
“He’s not real keen on talking to her,” Liz says. “You know, given that she chose the other guy.”
“But you know for sure there was something going on between the two of you?” Maggie asks. “You and Nate Crane?”
“You’re one to talk,” Liz retorts. “You’re f**king Asher Logan. Seriously, what’s happened to this town? And when do I get a sultry affair with a sexy rocker?”
Nix shakes her head as if to clear it and grabs the martini shaker from Lizzy’s hand. She pulls off the top and takes a drink straight from the shaker. “No wonder you’re so anxious for those memories to come back,” she mutters. “I’m anxious for you to get those memories back.”
“I know, right?” Liz says. “I want details, and whether she remembers or not, I’m pretty sure I’m never going to get them.”
“What about Max?” Worry is written all over Cally’s face. “You are going to tell him, right?”
“I have to,” I whisper.
“Hanna!” Lizzy says.
“I’ve made up my mind, Liz. I’m giving my brain one more week to share any details it has hidden in there and then I’m telling Max what I know. For better or worse.”
