I stare at her. Is she seriously comparing my life-threatening degenerative disease to her desire for cosmetic surgery?
“Belinda!” Poppy yanks her back with an embarrassed laugh. “We’re just so happy you’re back. Drew’s been lost without you. Come sit by me and tell me about wedding planning!”
Wedding planning. I glance at Drew, unable to believe he and Mom have been pretending my leaving was just some temporary tantrum.
Once we’re seated, I sneak a look at my hands under the table while arranging my napkin. No engagement ring. Didn’t anyone notice?
But Drew’s already deep in shop talk with the men, so even though I’m sitting right next to him, I might as well be invisible.
“Forget invitations,” Belinda says, “let’s talk about what matters. Do you have the dress?”
I do have a dress, actually. I replaced my old phone, lost on that mountain in Alaska where my whole life changed, and everything had been downloaded from the Cloud like I’d never been gone. But scrolling through my camera roll, I see all these photos from my travels around the world, proof that I was already changing before Abaddon swept me away.
“Here it is,” I say, finding the wedding dress photo from that Saturday afternoon with Mom.
“Lovely,” Poppy says politely.
“But it’s just on the rack,” Belinda complains. “Don’t you have a picture of you in it?”
“Bad luck to be photographed in the dress before the wedding,” Poppy says. “What if Drew saw?”
I don’t mention that Drew’s already seen it—he picked it up from alterations because he said it would be easier. He doesn’t believe in superstitions anyway.
Right now, it’s hanging in the back of his closet like some ghost of a future I can’t imagine.
The thought makes my stomach drop because I literally cannot picture marrying Drew. And suddenly I’m wondering again if Abaddon misses me.
Which is when I finally admit what I’ve been avoiding all week: I miss Abaddon.
Maybe I didn’t give him enough time. He was actually changing, and isn’t that rare? But then I remember him attacking Thing so brutally, and my heart clenches. I can’t expose a child to that.
My hand finds my stomach under the table.
“Hannah?”
I jerk my head toward Poppy. “Hmm?”
She nods toward the waiter. “He’s asking what you want.”
The waiter stands there smiling politely, and suddenly I’m hit with the most important question of my life:
What do I want?
I push my chair back, the legs screeching against the marble floor.
Drew’s head snaps toward me. “Hannah, what are you doing?” His eyes narrow in a stop-embarrassing-me warning.
“I’m leaving.” I stand up.
He reaches out to help, but I pull away before he can touch me. “It was lovely seeing you both,” I tell Poppy and Belinda, then head for the door.
Drew catches up to me in the lobby and grabs my elbow—not to assist this time, but to control. “What the hell are you doing? You’re making me look like a fool!”
I stare at him. “Why did you ever want to be with me, Drew?”
He blinks, mouth opening and closing like a fish. At least he drops my arm. “What are you talking about? I love you.”
“But why?” I genuinely want to know. “I don’t think you even like me.”
