Chapter 43
The sound of beeping and smell of antiseptic greet Naomi as she wakes. She swallows, but her mouth feels like sandpaper. She tries to push herself up, but the aching in her torso thwarts her attempt. It’s like she hasn’t moved in days.
Her mind pings with questions. What happened? Where is she? And then she remembers. The rain. The slick road. The car speeding up behind her. Hitting the turn too fast. Hydroplaning off the road and crashing into the trees.
She doesn’t remember anything after that, but she remembers everything before. Arriving at Harlow Hayes’ mansion in Maine. Calling out for Faye. Security hauling her away. Sam Brixton.
Her stomach sinks, remembering their exchange. He was lying, she’s sure of it now.
Panic sets in and her rapidly increasing heart rate sets off the monitors. She needs to get out of here. Find her sister. She forces her eyes open, seeing nothing but a blinding white light. And then she hears a familiar, soft voice.
“Naomi?”
Her heart feels like it’s stopped and she waits for the monitor to flatline. But it doesn’t. It continues to beep. She turns to see Harlow Hayes, the white light surrounding her like a halo.
Naomi studies her warm, worried smile, searching her eyes for the truth. Without the heavy makeup her persona usually flaunts on screen, she can finally see it. Then the sheer magnitude of it all hits her. Overwhelming conflicting emotions of betrayal and relief, happiness and anger.
“Faye…” she says shakily, hands trembling with rage, eyes brimming with tears. “What… the… fuck…”
*
Faye cradles her face in her hands as she starts crying.
Naomi doesn’t know how to respond. Her brain is in overdrive, trying to process that this is really happening.
That this isn’t a dream or a hallucination.
Faye’s alive. Here with her. She was right.
She tries to prop herself up, but the pain stops her.
“Ah,” she groans, realizing she must’ve broken a few ribs in the crash.
“Naomi?” A woman dressed in dark-blue scrubs and lime-green Crocs runs into the room. “Welcome back. Just hang tight for a second there and we’ll check you out.” The woman crouches by her bedside, fiddling with the IV cables, before examining the clipboard.
“My name is Janet. I’m your nurse. I’m just going to press this button to prop you up a bit, okay?”
Naomi tenses as the bed moves and her bones ache. She doesn’t want to look away from her sister, worried she’s a hologram that will dissipate if she does. She presses her eyelids shut and then opens them, looking at Faye, still there. She breathes a sigh of relief.
Janet leans over and places a stethoscope on Naomi’s chest. “Can you take a deep breath for me, please?”
Naomi abides, scanning her surroundings as she inhales and exhales, noting how the room looks like a cross between a hotel suite and a hospital. But the giant flatscreen and fancy gold and marble furnishings on the kitchenette throw her off.
“Where am I?” she asks, voice full of gravel.
Janet places the stethoscope down after making some notes and grabs a cup of water. “Here, drink this, you must be thirsty.” She holds the cup to Naomi’s cracked lips before answering. “You’re at St. John’s, a private hospital.”
“In Maine?” Naomi finishes the water.
“Yes. You were taken here just after your accident a few days ago.”
“A few days?” Naomi responds, shocked. Her heart hammers, wondering how she’s going to pay for this private treatment.
“Yes, but that’s nothing after an accident like yours. You were very lucky. Plus, your surgery went well and your leg should be fine in a few months.”
Surgery? Months!? She lifts her neck, finally seeing the huge cast encasing her entire right leg.
“Fuck,” she whispers, closing her eyes as she lets her head fall back into the pillow.
“Did I break anything else?”
Janet quickly consults the clipboard. “Two ribs and a fractured wrist.”
The beeping on Naomi’s heart monitor increases as her pulse quickens.
“It’s going to be a tough road to full recovery, but you’re in great hands and Harlow’s already let us know her plans for your outpatient care.”
Naomi glances at her sister, who Janet of course thinks is pop star Harlow Hayes. Because she is, apparently.
“Now, I’m just going to ask you a few questions, okay?” Janet grabs her clipboard again. “Some are just formalities, things I need to verify. First, can you tell me your name and date of birth?”
“Naomi Barnes. January 5, 1996.”
“Great. And on a scale of one to ten, what level of pain do you feel? Ten being like someone’s cut off your leg.”
“Um, a five, maybe,” Naomi says, impatient to be done with these questions and talk to her sister. Something she thought she’d never be able to do again.
“Good, the pain meds must be doing their job then. Now, can you move your fingers?”
Naomi does as she’s told and moves her fingers on both hands, even though they feel stiff.
“Now your toes.”
She wiggles them and Janet nods, taking notes.
When she looks up from her clipboard, she smiles.
“You’re going to be just fine. I’ll go let the doctor know you’re awake and she’ll come check in on you in a bit.
For now, I’ll leave you two to catch up.
Harlow, if your friend needs anything at all, just let us know, okay? ”
Friend. The word is like salt in Naomi’s wounds. Things would never be the same, would they?
Once Janet closes the door, Faye turns to Naomi.
She looks so different. So much more like Harlow.
But also so beautiful. Radiant. Like a goddess.
A true star. Everything about her looks new.
Her lips, her nose, the shape of her face and body.
Her hair is long and thick, brown with copper lowlights mixed into what she’s sure are expensive extensions.
So different from the blonde shoulder-length cut she used to sport.
Faye grabs her hand, and for a moment everything is right with the world.
It’s all that matters. But then Naomi realizes that if this really, truly is her sister, she let Naomi believe she was dead for years.
Let her think she suffered a violent, tragic end and it took Naomi almost dying to uncover the truth.
Her younger sister has a hell of a lot of explaining to do.
Naomi scrutinizes Faye. How could you? she thinks. As if the words are painted on her face, Faye casts her eyes away from her stare, cheeks flushing red as she swallows.
“Naomi, I…” Tears fall from her reddened eyes again as she stumbles over what to say. She picks at her nails as she looks from Naomi to the floor and back again.
Naomi inhales, trying to organize all of the questions swirling around her mind like a tornado. “How could you? Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I did, in a way,” Faye says defensively. “All my clues that led you here.”
Naomi scoffs. “So what, did you get arrested on purpose in the hopes I’d look into it?
It’s not like I’ve been obsessing over Harlow Hayes these past few years, dissecting her music.
If anything, I avoided anything and everything to do with her—with you.
” She pinches the bridge of her nose with her only unbroken fingers, head aching, before throwing her hand out as she addresses her sister.
“If anything, the clues nearly convinced me she—you, whoever—was a narcissistic serial killer. That was more plausible. One just doesn’t assume their dead sister is Harlow-fucking-Hayes all of a sudden! ”
Face flushing red, Faye crosses her arms and rolls her eyes, jutting her bottom lip out in a pout. A face Naomi is all too familiar with.
Naomi’s throat burns as she grows hot with anger. “You let me think you overdosed and burned to death in a freaking drug den! Do you not see how fucked-up that is?”
“Shhh!” Faye says, eyes wide as she looks at the door.
Naomi gives her a challenging look. As if Faye has the gall to shush her after what she’s done.
“I know it’s fucked-up, believe me, I know!” Faye says in a harsh whisper, eyes brimming with more tears. “I never meant… things just got so out of hand so fast and then… it spiraled out of control… then it was too late and I didn’t know how to… didn’t know where to start.”
“Hmm, I don’t know, maybe try the beginning?” Naomi snaps.
Faye’s face is as red as a beet. “This is why I never tried, I knew you’d get angry!”
“Of course I’m fucking angry, holy shit, what is wrong—”
“A lot is fucking wrong with me, okay, is that what you want to hear!?”
They bicker back and forth just like they used to. As if the past three years never happened. Naomi knows her sister, though—knows she needs to tread carefully, no matter how angry she is. If she doesn’t, Faye will retreat, close in on herself. So she softens her tone.
“Please,” Naomi sighs, reaching out for Faye’s tense hand. She relaxes. “Just try to explain.”