“I was upset.” She wrapped her long, delicate fingers around her mug. “Too upset to stay at school where everyone was asking me questions about us.”
I closed my eyes. I hadn’t thought about that. It had never crossed my mind that people would hound Hana about me leaving. It should have. I should have been more sensitive.Dammit.
“I couldn’t leave my dorm without questions, so I called my mother.”
Hana had to have been desperate to call her mom. But I’d planned to marry her, and all her friends knew that. I took a deep sip of my drink, needing the liquid to ease the dryness in my mouth.
“Aiki and Mom showed up. I almost didn’t get in the car because I knew Aiki was going to gloat—tell me what an asshole you were. But at least at home, I thought I’d be able to get away from the questions if I shut myself in my room.” She looked over my head, her expression distant.
“But he didn’t say anything about you. Looking back, that was my first clue. I didn’t realize he was drunk or high or whatever it was until he ran the first red light. I asked him to pull over, to let Mom and me out. To give me the keys. He…he laughed. Said no way. He was still laughing when he ran the next light—head on into another car.”
Hana shuddered. “I have no idea how he survived. None. I was lucky because I was in the backseat. Mom died on impact.” She met my gaze. “So did the people in the other car.”
“Hana, holy—I’m sorry. I don’t… What you went through…I can’t imagine.”
She was quiet for a long, tense minute. “So, since you didn’t know about the accident, I’m guessing you didn’t know I was in the hospital for weeks myself?”
I shook my head. “Why?”
“My leg. It got caught when the car rolled.” She frowned. “I think it was seven times.”
“Holy crap,” I breathed.
She bit her lip in that utterly Hana way. It wasn’t shy or even flirty. She did it when she was deep in contemplation. “I almost lost my leg,” she said slowly. “But that wasn’t the worst part.”
Dread settled over me, and my diaphragm spasmed. Something dark hovered above us. Her eyes filled with pain and regret. I hated that look, just as I knew I was going to hate the words that came next.
Still, I wasn’t prepared. Nothing could have prepared me for the emotional blow.
“I miscarried during my second surgery,” she said.
Chapter4
Hana
Iwatched emotions flicker over Paxton’s face. The one that stuck with me was sadness. Or maybe it was regret.
“You were pregnant?” he whispered.
I nodded.
“And the baby died?” His voice cracked and his lip wobbled.
“Never really had a chance to live,” I responded, trying to be pragmatic when all I really wanted was to curl up in a ball, preferably in his lap. The loss hit me hard, a sucker punch, just as it always did. But this time it was both better and much worse because I could share the pain with Pax.
“I was probably seven, maybe as many as nine weeks along.”
“And you never called to tell me?” Accusation flashed in his dampening eyes.
“I did.”
He clenched his jaw tightly enough that I heard his teeth squeak. “My dad gave me a new phone after Aiki took mine. You wouldn’t have had that number.”
“Aiki told me that this morning, too,” I said.
So many lies and misdirections that had hurt us both. Paxton’s complexion had gone ashen. This wasn’t the conversation he’d thought he’d be having in this bright, loud diner this morning. The longer I watched him struggle, the more my heart ached for him.
He hadn’t known—about my mother, about me, about the baby.
