Hate You Not

Before I haul myself to my feet, I press my hand against my belly. It’s so little right now, nobody can see. But I think my mama can.Chapter 28JuneMy mom’s birthday comes on August 19. I have my twelve week OB-GYN appointment that same day in Albany and sob my eyes out in the parking lot right after.

I don’t know why. Maybe hormones. Maybe it’s because I still feel very foolish. I just can’t believe that I’m this girl. The one that lets stuff happen to her. After Lamb, I told myself I’d never be that girl again—the one he doesn’t mind just up and leaving. The one who still wonders what she did wrong when she did nothing but right.

I was so damn happy settling in with Sutton’s kids, and now they’ll be confused…for lots of reasons. When the devil finds out—and he will, because I’m going to have to tell him in a few weeks—I’ll be forced to take his devil money, because I can’t even keep paying for obstetrician visits without it.

So far, I’ve kept myself from this black hole, but sitting there in my truck, I have a good cry. What was going on in his head that made me so disposable? I try my best to tell myself it wasn’t personal—I mean, clearly, the multi-millionaire insomniac who runs hot as fire and cold as ice has got some issues—but it’s hard not to feel like I messed up.

I go to the Steak ‘n Shake, draping my hand into my purse over the glossy ultrasound paper as I order a chocolate shake. Then I sit by the window. I check my phone to be sure no one from the school has called—that’s a reflex now, during the daytime—and I drain my cup until only a little bit of whipped cream and the cherry remain at the bottom.

I’m slurping at the whipped cream when my phone rings. I fumble for it. It’s a California number, but I tell myself that’s a coincidence.

I answer, and a woman says, “Are you June Lawler?”

“Yes.” I draw it out, so it’s at least two syllables. My heart starts pounding in the silence after.

“Burke Masterson had you listed as his emergency contact?”

Something sharp and cold pours through my body. For a second, I can’t get my breath. “Is something wrong?”

And there’s another awful silence.

“Mr. Masterson was in an accident,” she says. “He’s going into surgery this afternoon to repair one of his eyes.”

“His eyes?” I spread my hand over my belly. “What happened to his eyes?”

“He was involved in a worksite accident. Sustained some damage to his vision. A surgeon here at UCSF will be working to repair his retina.”

“Oh my God.”

“He’ll be admitted for about a day and a half after, for post surgical monitoring.”

“I’m in Georgia,” I say, standing up and grabbing my keys off the table. “But I can fly out today.”BURKEFor the first day and a half after surgery to fix my fucked-up eye, I have to lie in my hospital bed with my face parallel to the floor.

My back and shoulders ache from tensing every time the door to my room opens. I don’t even remember giving them her name and number, but apparently I did—right after the fall.

For the first day after surgery, my hospital room door opens twenty-nine times, and none of the entrants turn out to be June. She’s probably not coming, despite what she told the nurse who called her. Who could blame her?

I try to endure my miserable sentence without letting my mind spend too much time on her, but it’s a losing proposition. I’m lying face down in a special bed that makes my bruised shoulder and chest hurt. And my vision’s fucked, so that means I can’t look at screens to pass the time.

My stomach’s churning, and my mind’s foggy from the damn concussion. I can’t see well out of my “good eye,” and no one seems to really understand that. Most of them are blaming it on the concussion plus the damage to the injured eye. I don’t get it, but I’m assured it will get better.

“When your next of kin arrives, we’ll send you home,” one of the nurses tells me, patting my hand.

And if she doesn’t come? I’m not calling my father—that much I know. I don’t want to call any of my old team from Aes, either. They’re busy. And since I sold to Sabal Gurung, that’s not my gig anymore. I have a few friends in the area, but if I call, I’ll have to explain how I got hurt.

The sale of Aes has hit the news, along with the devastating and graphic write-up about my past by a local gossip rag, but no one knows I’ve been working construction sites to keep myself busy. If my friends found out, I don’t know what they’d say. Scratch that. I do. They’d either believe I’ve lost my shirt or my mind.