“Hello?”
A pause.
“Hi, Hannah.”
My stomach fell and I dropped the shirt I had been holding onto the floor.
“Why are you calling me?” I demanded, not taking time for pleasantries. I didn’t ask how she had gotten my number because Rose Norris could find anyone if she wanted to.
“Wow, that was to the point, Han. No ‘Hey, how’s it going?’ Or ‘What have you been up to for the last decade?’ ” Rose asked blandly. Emotionless as always.
“If you wanted to engage in small talk, you would have called a long-ass time ago. Clearly you want something. Or at least want to tell me something. So get on with it.” I abandoned the search for an outfit and went to the kitchen, reaching for the bottle of wine in the cupboard. I was going to need alcohol to talk to Rose. Otherwise I’d end up screaming.
“We’ve never been good at small talk, have we?” she said, then laughed. It made me want to growl in frustration.
“Rose, I’m busy. I have things to do. Tell me what you want to tell me or I’m going to hang up.” We were way past being nice to each other. There was too much history. Too much baggage. She wasn’t the sort of person you put on pretenses with. She’d rip through them each and every time.
“Fine. If you’re going to be like that. There’s a lot of chatter about you lately. Lots of speculation. What’s going on?”
I didn’t need clarification as to what she was talking about. I understood her half sentences and vague questions. Once upon a time I had been fluent in Rose-speak. I guess I still was.
Talking to her brought up memories. Too many of them. And with them came the familiar anger.
After years of radio silence she dared to storm back into my life with too many questions. Too many demands.
I should freeze her out. It was what she deserved.
Yet I couldn’t hang up. Not yet.
Not until I knew why she was there, ready to bulldoze her way into my life after I had decidedly shut her out years ago.
“I don’t want to hear this, Rose,” I muttered, turning on the lights. Drinking wine in the dark was pathetic.
Drinking wine in the dark while talking to my ex-friend was just downright depressing.
“Hannah, listen to me. Someone mentioned you in a group chat today.”
I sighed. Of course. I should have known it had to do with rescuing me, even if I didn’t want it. Or need it. Rose had always liked to imagine herself as my protector. It had chafed then and it chafed now.
“Rose, lots of people talk about me in group chats. What else is new?” I said it without a hint of modesty. Because it was the truth. In the online community Freedom Overdrive was a legend. One I had cultivated carefully over the years.
Rose Norris was the only person in the world who could connect Hannah Whelan to Freedom Overdrive. After all, she was the one who had helped me craft the persona many years ago.
—
“How sad is it that in this day and age, people still fall for the chain-letter shit?” Rose muttered, watching me as I gained access to the hospital payment system.
I found Charlotte’s name and the outstanding balance my mother owed for her continued care. An amount that she would never, in a million years, be able to pay.
“People are stupid.” I frowned and changed the amount to zero.
“Yeah, but so is that,” Rose stated, pointing to the screen.
“What are you talking about?”
Rose had helped me cobble together an email to be blasted to everyone in the finance department of Stanley Graves General Hospital. It was a silly email saying that unless they clicked on the link, bad luck would befall them. Rose and I had giggled like children as we concocted fake anecdotes to convince the receivers that the bogus email was in fact true.
Rose had come up with Gene Taylor (our coding professor’s name), who hadn’t clicked the link and so he had lost his job, his wife left him, and his dog was run over by a Mack truck.
