She loved that she could still hear her voice echoing in her mind, off-key and out of time.
“Don’t leave me singing all alone, Arizona,” Milo said between verses. The bridge approached—a big note her mother never even got close to leaving both their lips. Hanna broke. A laugh bubbled out of her, her forehead leaning on his shoulder, and he tightened his grip on her.
“There it is,” he murmured, spinning her out and back in again.
When he caught her, her laugh cut short. Exposure therapy to her memories of her mother was one thing—exposure to the way it felt to dance in a half-lit living room after a night out was another entirely.
Milo held her stare, frozen with her, his fingers weaving into the sleeves of his flannel slung over her hips.
Her stomach rolled in on itself, queasy at the heat in her chest.
How long had it been since she’d felt that little flicker of something? Anything?
“All good?” he whispered.
Hanna forced a half smile, searching for any semblance of a thought to latch onto.
“It’s just always so wild how it sneaks up on you. I heard the first few words and knew it was coming, told myself it was okay to let it kick me in the teeth, and then it took so long to crush me I thought maybe I’d—I don’t know.”
Milo listened, stroking the dark stubble on his neck as they stood, still entangled.
“Well, let me ask you a question. When did you stop loving your mom?”
Hanna’s mouth fell agape. Milo had a lot of nerve, but the notion that there was even an ounce less of love within her sent the heat in her chest straight to her shoulders, pulling back and away from his hold.
“What? I didn’t!”
He held up a hand and circled his fingers as he drank, urging her to follow the thought.
“I never will,” she whispered.
“Then why do you have it in your head that there’s this distant future someday when it won’t take you to your knees? They’re two sides of the same coin—the price of love is grief, Arizona.”
Hanna sighed. “Hate that,” she said, throat closing around the other words she wanted to use. “So I’m just supposed to live the rest of my life between breakdowns?”
“You can minimize the potential for them. That’s what I do,” Milo said. She was sure he thought he was being aloof, but she saw through the veneer of it.
Hanna laughed—and not with him.
“Coward.”
Milo stepped back, tilting his head. “Excuse me?”
Hanna leaned back on her hip, grounding herself as she folded her arms.
“You’re such a coward. I’m a fucking disaster, but at least I haven’t closed myself off to the possibility that one day I might not be. You waltz around here like you’re so well adjusted… but of course you are. You’ll never have anything new to hurt you,” Hanna said, shrugging her shoulders in an attempt to dispel some of the strain building in her muscles. Milo flopped back into his chair and took a long sip of his drink.
“Goddamn, Hanna. I’m just over here trying to be a good little grief counselor?—“
She flinched. “But I didn’t ask you to be. In fact, I’ve pretty much asked for the exact opposite?—”
“Okay. See, this is exactly why…” Milo trailed off and set his glass on the coffee table.
She swallowed. “Why what?”
“Nothing.”
“I should go,” she mumbled. She brushed by him, seeing red when his hand caught hers once more. “Milo?—”
