Thirty-Eight
The door opens before my hand even lands on the knocker.
Madison stands in the entryway looking like a stressed mother hen on the verge of a breakdown. Her hair is pulled back, her eyes are wide, and the second she sees me standing outside her apartment, her face shifts from panic to absolute certainty.
“Oh God,” she breathes, yanking me across the threshold and wrapping her arms around me so fast I stumble. “You’re pregnant.”
I choke on my own saliva.
Is it any surprise I’m dramatic, given that Madison is my sister?
Before I can even get a lungful of air to defend my virtue, Noah sticks his head out from the kitchen—a half-eaten apple in one hand—with Beckett hovering right behind him.
Noah’s head snaps toward me. The apple hits the counter. He storms across the living room like a man possessed.
“You’re pregnant?” he yells, his hands flying to his head. “I’m going to fucking kill him!”
“Oh my God, I’m not pregnant!” I shout back, wriggling out of Madison’s iron grip and holding my hands up. “Relax. Both of you. And for the record, Noah, I’m twenty-six, not sixteen.”
I step into Noah’s space before he can march out the door to commit homicide, grabbing his arms and pulling him into a hug.
“Hi, kid,” he mutters into my hair.
“Hi,” I whisper, pressing my face into his shoulder. “Missed you.”
“Missed you too,” he says, pulling back to give me a suspicious scan from head to toe. “You sure you’re not pregnant?”
I place a hand over my heart. “I swear on my life.”
He exhales and smooths down his shirt. “Good. I really didn’t want to go to prison today.”
We move into the living room, and Madison immediately rounds on me, her arms crossed over her chest. “Okay, then why were you avoiding me if you’re not pregnant?
” She starts pacing the rug. “Because Beckett said Hudson was keeping secrets, and then you texted Noah an hour ago out of nowhere asking to meet here, and you’ve been dodging my calls for days.
If you’re sleeping with Hudson, go girl.
Hudson is great. He’s tall, he’s smart, he’s fine as hell. You get yours, Rowan.”
She’s rambling. Madison only rambles when her nerves are shot. She also has a terrifying sixth sense for family disasters. She knows something is wrong. She just hasn’t pinpointed the exact shape of the wreckage yet.
“I mean, look,” Madison continues, gesturing wildly. “Everyone needs a fling every now and then. You’ve been working hard, the show was a hit, you deserve a little fun—”
“He’s not a fling, Madi.”
The sentence drops into the living room like a lead weight.
Madison stops dead in her tracks. Noah’s jaw slacks. Even Beckett, standing quietly near the kitchen island, looks up.
Tears spill into my lashes before I can sweep them back down.
“I’m in love with him,” I say softly.
Noah blinks, totally bewildered. “After a weekend?”
Hearing it out loud, I realize how ridiculous it sounds when they don’t know about the months we’ve spent together.
Madison’s brow furrows as she steps toward me. “What’s going on? Last I heard, he helped you once because you fell.”
“You fell?” Noah asks, his head snapping toward me in shock.
This is getting out of hand fast.
“How did you even cross paths?” Madison demands, throwing her hands up. “How did any of this happen?”
I take a breath and pull my hands into my sweater sleeves to stop the trembling.
“I wandered into the wrong group at Westbrook,” I tell them.
Beckett clears his throat, shifting uncomfortably. “Look, maybe I should give you guys some space—”
“Actually, can you stay?” I interrupt, my voice wavering slightly. “There might be some things you can explain better than I can.”
“Sure, Ro. I’m right here.”
“I didn’t ask you guys here to talk about Hudson,” I say, looking between Madison and Noah. “I asked you here because I made a promise to Piper.”
I give them the quick, stripped-down rundown.
I tell them about the creative block that had been eating me alive for weeks, how terrified I was that I’d end up having to cancel another show, and how desperate I got for anything to fix it.
I explain how I accidentally walked into Hudson’s research group, and how, after he realized I didn’t belong there, he let me stay as an observer so I could sketch and get my work back.
Noah frowns, stepping forward. “You said you were in the wrong group? What group were you supposed to be in?”
I look down at my shoes, my pulse skittering in my throat. “The chronic illness group.”
Madison falls into the nearest dining chair.
“What illness?” Noah asks.
I force myself to look up and meet their eyes.
“I have Ehlers-Danlos syndrome,” I say. “And POTS.”
Madison turns to Beckett, her eyes wide and terrified. “Beckett, what is that?”
Beckett steps forward. “It’s a connective tissue disorder,” he explains.
“It means the collagen in her body doesn’t build properly, so her joints are loose and prone to severe pain and dislocations.
POTS is a condition that affects her autonomic nervous system.
It makes it hard for her body to regulate blood pressure and heart rate when she’s standing up.
It causes sudden spikes in heart rate, severe fatigue, and fainting. ”
Silence.
Total, airless silence fills the living room.
Madison looks back at me, her eyes glossy.
“I was diagnosed two years ago,” I add quietly.
Her eyes close. “Two years? And you didn’t tell us?”
“No.”
“Does Piper know?”
“Only recently.”
“Hudson?”
“He knows everything.”
She sits there, hands tight in her lap, looking smaller than I’ve ever seen her.
“What does it mean for you?” she whispers.
I sit, take a deep breath, and tell them everything.
∞∞∞
By the time I finish, Noah is leaning back against the wall, staring at the floorboards, his knuckles white as his hands clench into fists.
Madison hasn’t moved.
“All those years,” she whispers. “You weren’t clumsy.”
“Sometimes I was.”
She looks up, her eyes bright with unshed tears.
I squeeze her hand. “Madi, don’t.”
“I’m not asking you to make me feel better. I’m just trying to understand how we missed it. How I missed it.”
“It’s not your fault. Even the doctors missed it.”
“That doesn’t make it okay. We were told for years that you manifested your pain in your head.”
Noah finally steps forward. “Why didn’t you tell us when you found out, Ro? Two years? We’re your family.” His voice breaks. “Why didn’t you come to me?”
I could give them a hundred complicated answers. I pick the rawest, simplest one.
“Because I didn’t want to become the next family emergency.
Mom already has enough guilt. Dad thinks I have a habit of making things about me.
You had the wedding planning, Madi. Piper had finally gotten her life back.
Noah was building his practice. Everyone had something, and I didn’t want to be the broken one taking up more room. ”
The silence that follows has teeth.
Madison slowly stands up from her chair. “Back up. Dad said what?”
I look down at my shoes. “Madi, it’s fine.”
“Like hell it is. Tell me, Rowan. Now.”
“He said when something important happens for one of you, I tend to… divert the attention.” I swallow hard. “He said it right before the dress appointment.”
“No,” Madison says.
“Madi—”
“No. Absolutely fucking not.”
“Please don’t go over there,” I beg softly. “Please.”
Madison presses both hands flat against the table, her head bowed. I watch her stop herself from barging out the door to rip our father to shreds. That might actually be a first in Callahan history.
She grabs my hands.
“Listen to me,” Madison says. “You being sick does not take anything from me. My wedding doesn’t matter less because you’re sick. Mom’s illness doesn’t become less real because you’ve been hurting too.”
My eyes burn, tears finally spilling over my cheeks. “I know.”
“Do you?”
Noah comes up beside her, wraps an arm around my shoulders, and pulls me tight against his side. “She’s right, kid. You don’t hide this shit from us. Never again.”
Madison looks at me. “So Hudson knows everything?”
“Everything,” I say.
“I’m glad.”
“You’re really in love with the head doctor?” Noah asks.
A wet laugh bubbles out of me. “Yeah.”
“Does he know?”
“Dear God, no.”
My phone buzzes in my pocket. I pull it out.
Hudson: Are you okay? Do I need to come rescue you from your family?
A real, genuine smile breaks across my face.
Me: No rescue needed. They know.
His reply comes back in seconds.
Hudson: How are you?
I stare at the screen. The old instinct rises up—to type Fine, to sweep it under the rug, to pretend I’m invulnerable.
I delete it.
Me: A little wrecked. But okay.
Hudson: I’m outside.
Madison wipes her eyes one last time, a smirk tugging at the corner of her lips. “Well, go on then. Send him in so I can thank him for taking care of you, and then threaten him about the whole sleeping-with-my-sister thing.”
“I’m going to stand over here,” Noah says. “I’m too pretty for prison.”