Chapter 48
my heart already knows
Hannah
Every year when the gala rolls around, thoughts of Maddy take over. She’s never not on my mind, but the fundraiser always sharpens the memories of her.
How different would my life be if we’d gone off to college together like we’d always planned? Would either or both of us be married by now? Would we have babies together the way our moms did?
I called her my best friend, but she was more like a sister.
“What’s happening in that head of yours?” Mom’s question shakes me out of my thoughts.
My feet slosh in the water and I turn to look at her in the next pedicure chair over. “Sorry, just distracted I guess.”
“Nervous about tonight?”
I bob my head, but it hardly suffices for the anxious energy pulsing through me. Nerves on gala day are nothing new, but this year hits different—a sledgehammer of memories straight to the sternum.
“Is your speech ready?”
Another nod.
A version of my speech is ready, though I’m trying not to obsess over the fact I might need to rewrite it once I hear back from Mr. Whitley. He promised to have an answer for me by this morning, and the suspense is doing a number on my blood pressure.
The nail tech disappears to grab more supplies. I shuffle my feet through the bubbles.
“Thinking about Gwyn and Maddy?” Mom presses.
My head rolls against the back of the chair until we’re eye to eye. “Yeah.”
She reaches over, squeezes my arm. “Me too.”
Snapshots of a waiting room, television stuck on a Nick at Nite loop, the squeak of tennis shoes on shiny linoleum. A nurse in blue scrubs.
“Do you ever think about the night Maddy died?”
Mom blows out a breath. “All the time.”
“Yeah…” I drop her gaze. “I’ve been thinking about it a lot lately and it’s like I remember everything—it’s all so painfully vivid, but then there are these blurry pieces my memory can’t make out. I get hung up on those sometimes.”
“Like what?”
I pinch my eyes. “I can’t remember what I was wearing.” Her smile is warm when I turn to look at her. “And it shouldn’t matter. It’s trivial and dumb and I know that. But why can’t I remember when I could tell you every episode of Friends that played on the television?”
The silence pulls, she scans my features. “Black leggings. And that ratty old Pike’s Peak shirt you wore every night to sleep just to spite me.”
My hands come to my face and I shake my head as the image instantly clicks into place. “Oh my god, you’re right!” I snicker. “You hated that shirt. I don’t know what you had against slumbering in comfort but whatever.”
“The only comfort I got from that shirt was it meant you weren’t out having sex. No way any boy was finding your underage lady bits under that wretched, colossal mass of stained threadbare cotton.”
We’re both wheezing until our nail techs simultaneously clear their throats and level us with a scolding glare.
On a relieved sigh, I say, “I’m so glad you remember.”
Mom’s laugh fades into a barking cough that has me launching upright in my seat. She gives me her mom-eyes through the hacking fit, a silent order to keep my mouth shut. Biting back my words, I pass her my water bottle.
She takes a heavy sip, coughs some more. “Now, what else can’t you remember?”
I take a second to let the anxiety of the moment pass. Swallowing hard, I tread nervously with my next words. “That nurse was there and I’ve been trying to remember her name.”
“Pretty sure she didn’t tell us her name.”
“But you remember her, right?”
“Of course. Sweet woman. Never imagined a stranger would turn you into a chess whiz.” Mom’s playful eye roll has a fondness behind it that makes me smile.
“Do you um…do you remember what you guys talked about?” Ever since my suspicions began, I’ve been kicking myself for not paying attention to their conversation.
Mom’s brows knit together and she blinks several times, looking into the distance.
“Not really, I mean it was mostly mom small talk. She said she’d been a nurse her whole career.
We talked about our kids. She asked about you and Maddy, and she told me about her son she’d lost in Afghanistan.
” My eyes drift shut. “She showed me a picture of her grandson on her phone, and if memory serves, it was one of those professional military pictures, you know those headshot pics where they’re in dress uniform?
” A single tear slides down my cheek, and I press the heels of my palms against my eyelids.
She snaps her fingers. “Oh and she said something about him wanting to join a special ops group something or oth—”
Her words fade into nothing. For long, heavy seconds, it’s only silence as she connects the dots for herself.
“Oh my god,” she whispers, finally turning. “Do you think she was—”
I nod, tears streaming down my face. It’s so improbable I almost want to laugh, but the overwhelming hope of it all only leaves me speechless.
Mom’s hand bridges the distance between our chairs, stroking my arm, reminding me to breathe.
My phone vibrates in my pocket and I retrieve it. As fate would have it, Mr. Whitley’s name lights up the display.
Every piece of my heart already knows what he’ll say.
I tumble into the ballroom four hours ahead of show time, my dress and glam bag in tow, laptop cradled in my arms.
The hydraulic doors slam shut in my wake and my team’s heads all snap up at once.
“I need to rewrite my speech,” I announce, sounding as frazzled as I feel.
Olive appears at my side. “What do you need?”
“I’m gonna have to get ready here.” I pass off everything but my computer. “Can you find a place to stow this stuff until I need it? I’ll be in the lobby working on my speech if you guys need me.”
After we finished at the salon and I swore Mom to secrecy, I headed home.
Thankfully, Rowan and his family were out grabbing lunch so I didn’t have to explain why I was so frantic.
I swiped my dress, makeup bag, enough hair product and appliances to style a small film production, and hauled ass straight here.
I shoot a quick text to Rowan telling him I have things to do at the ballroom and to meet me here before I plug in my laptop and get to work.
Three and a half hours later, my speech is revised and I somehow managed to pull my look together in a staff bathroom tucked in the dark recesses of a service hallway.
The tink of wine glasses and a low hum of chatter can be heard on the other side of the main doors. A string quartet plays classical covers of contemporary songs as a soundtrack to the cocktail hour while guests mingle and await the official beginning of tonight’s festivities.
Through the ballroom, my team sets to work lighting hundreds of candles. The forty-piece, big-band orchestra warms up their instruments during their final soundcheck while I make one more pass through the room to ensure everything’s in order.
I ask one of the hotel staff to dim the overhead lights as the colored uplighting, centerpiece spotlights, and ambient candlelight begin to fill the space.
Full place settings along with crystal stemware are placed to perfection atop the satin table linens.
Floral print sashes are tied around each of the four hundred bamboo chairs.
The perimeter of the room is lined with tables displaying over a hundred auction items donated by local businesses large and small.
Many of which are expected to go to the highest bidder for somewhere in the ballpark of five figures.
Olive hollers from across the room. “Hannah, Rowan and his family are here. You want me to let them in?”
“Yeah, use the side door.”
She hurries off and I take a deep breath. I find my printed speech folded in the pocket of my dress and run it through my fingers. My pulse hammers inside my chest at what’s about to happen.
I know he won’t be mad or accuse me of anything malicious.
He’ll be as dumbfounded as I was at first. Then, his heart will catch up with his head, like mine did, and he’ll feel everything—a little lost, a little awestruck, and a whole lot hopeful.
And, finally, reality will sink in the way it has for me—after tonight, our two weeks is up. Tomorrow morning we’ll say goodbye.
Fate isn’t always some starry-eyed, fairytale destiny wrapped in bliss.
Sometimes fate is just plain cruel.