Hanna could have sworn she was talking to Cami, thirty years younger. The thought pulled at another thread—would anyone remember her mother’s facial expressions enough to think the same thing about her?
“Your stuff is always important to me, Hanna. I feel like we haven’t talked about you in a while. Check in?”
Hanna inhaled slowly, chasing the burn of her previous thought. When Sara said ‘you,’ she could have meant ‘your mom’ or ‘Logan,’ but she had no idea she should have meant ‘Milo.’ All at once, Hanna realized how dramatic it all was.
Nothing happened.
“I mean. Sure. Logan stuff sucks, as per usual. He’s been calling relentlessly since he was here. I haven’t answered.”
“Of course.”
“Mom stuff sucks more.” Hanna bit her lip. “I feel a little like I’ll never take a full breath again. I think I’m just lonely,” she confessed. “I’m in this house all by myself. I work from home. I never leave. Phoenix always felt like home because my mom and Logan were here, but now I’m the only one left.”
Sara nodded, absorbing her words. That, right there, the silence, was why Hanna loved her best friend. She didn’t need to fill it with platitudes or weird speculation. She could let the grief be what it was.
“What if you came out here for Memorial Day weekend? Would that be helpful or hurtful?”
Hanna considered this. She’d visited them a few times over the years, but it had been a while since she’d been out that way. She could use the coastal exposure.
“A long weekend could be nice…”
“Or just, like, sublet your house for the summer and come be my friend!” Sara tried not to look too eager.
Hanna could smell the desperation, but perhaps that was better than the smell of rotting drywall.
“The whole summer!” Hanna gasped.
“What? Like it’s that crazy? We could get so much wedding planning done!”
Hanna twisted the other direction, her lower back popping as her eyes fell on the bronze sunflower bookend resting at the end of her shelf. Logan had given it to her mother for Christmas one year.
She hated that it was hers, but, in that moment, the sight of it felt like a push she needed.
“Okay.”
“What?” Sara asked, her eyes wide. She’d posed the question a dozen times over the years. It was as common as asking about the weather or work.
“Okay,” Hanna mumbled, the relief in her shoulders foreign. “I’ll do it.”
“Ohmyfuckinggod,” Sara yelled.
“Are you good?” Matty burst into the bedroom, appearing over Sara’s shoulders.
“Can I tell him?”
Hanna nodded, the light in her eyes irresistible.
“Hanna is going to stay with us for the summer.”
Matty snatched the phone from his fiancée. “Don’t play with me, Hanna.”
“Only if you guys are sure I won’t be in the way! It will make wedding planning easier, and I could use the shake-up. I have a friend who just lost her roommate. She could probably use a few months to figure her shit out.”
And I’m not at all interested in hanging out in an apartment that occasionally has Adonis’s cooler, tatted-up brother in the living room, she thought.
“How soon can you be here?” Sara asked.
“I’ll look at flights tonight,” Hanna answered.
