"Is it bad that now that I know who it is, I don't want to tell Joel?"
When I didn't know who the person was, it was easy enough to forget that they were a person with an actual life. Now that I knew it was Jo, I didn't want to see anything bad happen to her. I liked Jo. She was nice to me and seemed to genuinely care about the people of Willow Creek.
"No, it's not bad. It just makes you human."
"Yeah, well, now I feel guilty."
Nolen looked at me like he understood how I was feeling. "How long do you have before Joel contacts you again?"
"I'm not sure. I thought I had more time, but then this happened, and now I'm not so sure."
"Maybe we should ask Hannah what changed."
I looked at him like he was crazy. "What do you mean?"
"I mean you haven't heard her side of the story yet. You know what the facility told you and what the hospital had to say about the injuries, but no one has thought to ask Hannah how this happened."
I wanted to slap myself upside the head. Duh! Why hadn't I thought of that? Probably because my first instinct was always to protect Hannah at all costs even from emotional situations.
"You're right." I turned around and marched straight back into the room to find my sister lying there staring off into space. I hated to see her bruised and beaten, but a small part of me knew it was her fault as well. If she just hadn't gone down the road and started drugs, none of this would be happening.
"Hannah," I said her name when I got closer and watched as she slowly turned her head toward me. "Can you tell me what happened before you were attacked?"
I had a feeling I wasn't going to like what she had to say when she couldn't look me in the eye. It was a classic move to avoid lying to me.
"I'm not sure," she answered quietly. "Did you get the information we need?"
Instead of answering her question, I pushed on. "I need you to tell me what happened?"
Again she tried to dodge the question. "I'm sure they already told you what happened."
I could feel my blood pressure rising the further this conversation went. I was trying my hardest not to lose my patience with Hannah, but the line was growing thin.
"Hannah, enough with the avoidance. Tell me what happened!"
"You were always the perfect daughter, you know that. You never did anything wrong. Perfect Vanessa. Smart Vanessa. Why can't you be more like Vanessa?" The sneer in my sister's voice came completely out of left field and had me reeling.
"What the hell are you talking about? I made plenty of mistakes." Hannah was proof of that. If I was so damn perfect, then Hannah would never had fallen the victim of drugs.
"Not according to Dad. You were so damn perfect that you even took on the responsibility of raising me when he couldn't. All he ever did was sing your praises."
Sure, my father talked about me, but he did the same for Hannah. He was proud of his daughters and had no problem letting everyone know it.
"Dad's proud of both of us."
"No, he's proud of you. I'm just the screwup who flunked out of college and can't keep a job."
I didn't have anything to say to that because it was partially true. Hannah had flunked out of college, but that was due to her drug use. As was the reason she couldn't hold down a job.
"Are you really blaming Dad and me for your problems?"
Unbelievable. After everything I've done for her, she had the nerve to blame me.
"If you had just let me be who I wanted to be, I wouldn't have felt the pressure to do what you wanted and, therefore, never would've turned to drugs."
I pushed back from her bed like she had physically slapped me. "What are you talking about? You're the one who wanted to go to college to be a doctor."
A sadistic laugh fell from my sister's lips. "No, I didn't. That was your and Dad’s dream for me."
