“At least you’ll be busy.”
“Right.”
But I didn’t want to be busy.
I wanted to be with Hannah. I wanted her to be there when I chose my new bed. I wanted her naked in it. I wanted it to be our bed, not mine, where I’d lose myself in her body and know she was mine.
I wanted to love her, and dammit, she’d said she would let me.
How had it all gone so wrong?
Twenty-Four
HANNAH
Ten days went by. Ten joyless, colorless days during which I only dragged myself out of bed for Abby’s sake. She was all I had, and even though every morning was worse than the one before, I forced myself to get up, get dressed, and put on a smile.
But she was no fool. The first Sunday night after we broke up, she asked why we hadn’t seen him all weekend. I said it was because he was busy.
“Are you still good friends?” She looked at me expectantly across the dinner table.
“We are, in a way. We’re just not able to spend as much time together as before.” I pushed some food around on my plate, but had no desire to eat it. In fact, I was vaguely nauseated by the sight of it.
“Can he still be my special person at school?”
“I don’t know, Abby.”
“But my day is coming up.”
“I’m aware of that.” I’d seen the note from Mrs. Lowry in her backpack on Friday when she got home, and instead of dealing with it then, I’d stuck it on the fridge with a magnet right next to the picture Hannah had colored of her family. Then I’d ignored it for two days. “I’m just not sure he can be there.”
“But he said.”
“I know. But he’s—he’s busy.”
“He promised!”
“Sometimes promises get broken!” I got up from the table and angrily scraped my dinner into the garbage as she wept, feeling sick and tired and guilty and overwhelmed with everything. Closing my eyes, I exhaled. “I’m sorry, Abby. I’ll ask him about it, okay?”
She didn’t answer, just continued to blubber into her spaghetti, making me feel more than ever like I wasn’t enough. I cried myself to sleep that night, making sure to do it silently so Abby wouldn’t hear me.
I cried for the girl he’d fallen in love with back then, when I’d worn a shirt with a pineapple on it and smiled with my whole heart and wanted to fall in love. For Abby, who deserved a better mom than me, who deserved two parents and a happy home, who deserved a life of promises kept. And for myself, for the pain of missing Wes, for the life the two of us could have shared, and for the crushing doubt that continued to smother me. I was choking on it.
But why? Why couldn’t I be sure I’d done the right thing? Where was the relief I thought I’d find in certainty, in knowing I’d protected myself and my child from heartbreak? How was I going to get through the pain of losing him if I didn’t have that conviction?
Wednesday night I went to Wine with Widows and couldn’t even talk when it was my turn. Tess asked how I was, and all I could do was shake my head, squeezing my eyes shut. They didn’t push me, but each of them let me know she was there for me if I needed someone to talk to.
The next night, Margot called. She and Georgia had taken to checking in with me every couple days. “How are you doing?”
“Okay. Or trying to be.”
“I’m sorry.” She paused. “Has he reached out to you or anything?”
“No. I’m sure he’s trying to get over me, just like I’m trying to get over him. It’s the only thing we can do.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”