Bethany
“Why don’t we take it from the top?” Laura asks me in her living room as I pace in front of the floor-to-ceiling windows that look out over the park. Although, from up here on the twentieth floor, it’s merely a square of green.
“Which top?” I ask her. “The one that involves Jase or the one that’s easier to swallow?”
“I get the easy one, you’re on leave and need to go on vacation before Aiden will quit being an ass. That one I’ve got. How about the one where you went to jail?”
“I don’t think I was technically in jail since I never saw a cell.” I don’t stop my pacing.
“So the money is gone, but Jase doesn’t care. All the evidence is gone and he wants you to marry him just in case this happens again?”
I only nod.
“See, it’s the marriage thing that I may be hung up on…” she trails off as she lowers herself to a dusty rose velvet chair and takes a sip from her tall wine glass. She settled on prosecco when I said I didn’t want any coffee and word-vomited up everything – including seeing my sister on my front porch steps. I’m surprised she didn’t go straight for the vodka.
“The ‘marry me’ part? Not seeing my dead sister and feeling her there?”
She shrugs. “Sometimes we see what we want to see. You feel alone and need someone to talk to. You didn’t want to tell me about the money. She was your rock for a long time…”
Was. Past tense. My steps slow to a stop as I pull my still-damp-from-the-shower hair away from my face and look back down at the park.
“I’m sorry about the money,” I say and have to clear my throat after speaking. I’d say anything for her not to bring up Jenny again. She’s gone. Truly gone.
Fuck. It shouldn’t hurt like this still, should it?
“Don’t worry about the money–”
Cutting her off, I ask, “Will you hide me?” Shock flashes in her eyes. Swallowing thickly, I continue, “I don’t know how you got the money, but there’s obviously a lot I don’t know. If there’s any way to hide me – please do it. I just need to get away for a while.”
“Away from Jase, you mean?” She barely says the words and I nod.
“I need to cope and think on my own and he’s just…”
“All consuming,” she finishes my statement for me, but somehow the words seem to be meant for someone else as she looks past me, staring at the white and blush striped curtains instead.
“Yes.”
She nods once, downing her glass and then standing up, all the while not looking at me. As she rounds the corner to her kitchen, no doubt to fill her glass, she tells me, “I have someone I can call. I can ask him for a favor.”
Hope is nowhere in her cadence; her tone is resigned.
I can feel some hope though. A tiny bit at the idea of being away for just a little while. Enough to get out of the chaos. Enough to breathe. Taking out my phone, I contemplate telling Jase just that. To give me space and time. That I’ll be back.
I slip my phone back into my jeans. Not yet. He’s not going to like it. He needs to get over it, though. There are plenty of things I don’t like about this arrangement either, and I’ve rolled with the punches as best as I can. I return to gazing at the park and brush my fingers against the cool glass. I’ve never felt like this before. I’ve never been so… so helpless.
I hear Laura before I see her and I’m quick to turn my back on my reflection as she lets out a long breath.
“Did you call?” I ask her and she doesn’t answer immediately. Instead she stares through me, looking to the park outside.
She snaps out of it as I bite out her name.
“What?”
“Did you call?” I ask her again and an eerie feeling crawls over my skin at the way she swallows before answering me, although she only nods.
“What’s wrong?” I question her and she shakes her head, then returns to her seat.
“It’s just work. Not you.”
Relief isn’t so forthcoming, but I don’t think Laura’s lying to me. Especially not when she offers me a tight smile.
“Is it Michelle? Is she okay? I heard dealing with the pica condition has been difficult.”
Her hair swishes as she shakes her head. “She’s doing fine. All your patients are fine,” she says as she leans back, moving her hair to one side and braiding it. “Don’t worry about them, you workaholic, you.”
“What is it then?” I ask her. “Anything I can do to help?”
“Did I tell you about the patient with no name?” she says and her features turn serious. A haunting memory reveals itself in her eyes.