Hana tilted her head. “At the beginning.”
I smiled at her gentle snark. “All right. Let me grab some wine, because if I start there, this is a long story.”
“I have all night,” Hana said with a smile. “Especially if you have wine and food.”
I laughed as I moved around the kitchen. I placed an order for takeout and brought back two glasses, the bottle tucked under my arm. I sat down in the overstuffed armchair across from her.
“For as long as I can remember, it was always my mom and me,” I began. That seemed like the right place to start. I scratched my cheek. “My dad was around when I was very young, I think, but he and my mother got divorced. Family life turned out not to be for him. He was in the military, and after one tour, he decided not to return to our house around the time I started elementary school.”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” Hana said. Her eyes held the sympathy of someone who understood. “I lost my dad when I was a kid. I still miss him.”
“Thanks.” Yet another thing Hana and I had in common. I swallowed a gulp of wine. “That’s old news. Mom and I were fine for years, but then she was diagnosed with cancer. She fought hard, but she didn’t make it.” I stared into my empty glass, shocked that I’d finished the drink already. But talking about this part of my life was difficult.
The door buzzer made that static-laced honk I’d come to find amusing. Excusing myself, I ran down the stairs to the small entry vestibule, grabbed our food—onigiri had become our thing—and gave the delivery teen some extra cash. The wine had hit me, thanks to my empty stomach, so I appreciated that when I returned, Hana had set out plates and napkins for us both at the small, round table I kept behind the sofa. Like most of my furniture, it was secondhand, but it was solid wood and sturdy, and the dings and dents added a farmhouse air to the piece.
“That’s why you went into nursing,” Hana said, picking back up the conversation.
I poured another glass of wine and raised the bottle toward Hana. She shook her head, still cradling her half-full glass.
I nodded. “I was kind of lost, and I missed my mother. I still do.” I swallowed. “At the end of last summer, I went back to her hometown to spread some of her ashes, like she’d asked. I met a guy. He was on vacation there. We really hit it off, and the weekend was so special.”
I sighed and shook my head. “We were out on the last night before I had to fly back, when these guys came out from behind a building. They had knives and demanded our money. We gave them that, but… But then…they decided they wanted me.”
Hana’s soft gasp caused me to meet her eyes. “Lennon lunged so fast, I barely saw him move—and he’s a big guy. He managed to get the knife out of the first guy’s hand, but there were four of them. Still, Lennon didn’t hesitate to wade in to the fray. He shouted at me to run and get help. So I did. Luckily, there was a police car just a few blocks away, but even in those few minutes it took to find them, Lennon was left bleeding, close to passing out.”
“Oh my goodness…” Hana pressed her fingers to her lips, her eyes huge.
“While the officers searched for the robbers, I stabilized Lennon, and we got him to the hospital. Thankfully, most of the wounds were superficial. He needed forty stitches in total, which was way better than it could have been.” I shuddered as a hint of that night’s terror swam through my bloodstream.
“Your guy kept their damage to a minimum.”
I nodded. “To me at least. He had some head trauma, I’m pretty sure. I stayed with him that night, but then I had to go home. Well, I would have stayed, but he wanted me to go home. Told me flat out I needed to go.” I shook my head. “I hated to leave, you know? We’d connected before the attack, and after… Well, not many people experience something like that. But he pulled away. I, I guess he couldn’t see me the same way anymore.”
“Wait, go back. He never told you the reason he wanted you to go?”
“Not really, no. He was going to visit, see if we had a future, but now I just get an occasional text about his dog.”
“And this has been going on for…what? Two, three months now?”
I shrugged. “About that, yeah. I mean, I get that he was hurt, and that was traumatic. But I can’t understand why he keeps in touch via text if he doesn’t care for me.” I shook my head. “The whole situation confuses me. Worse…” I stared down at my last onigiri. I wasn’t hungry any longer.
“Worse?” Hana prompted.
I met her gaze, willing back the tears I didn’t want to shed. I sucked in a breath. “He called today, and talking to him hurt. Not talking to him hurts. My heart hurts.”
Hana hummed. “I feel like there’s more to this. Like, this guy should have explained his reasoning to you. You deserve that.”
“I mean, what could change if he did?”
Hana studied me. “You’re scared.”
I narrowed my eyes. “How could you possibly know that?” I didn’t like to admit it, even to myself.
“Please,” she scoffed. “Your fear is obvious. Why don’t you talk to him? Sit down and have a conversation about your concerns?”
I blinked at her, a rock settling in my belly. “I haven’t seen him in person again.”
“That seems odd,” Hana said. “Based on what you told me about your first days together.”
