Page 92

“Oh,” Hannah replies after a long pause. “You can’t crash with me.”

“Why not? The condo’s really not—”

“He’s staying here,” she blurts out. “On the daybed.”

Hannah has a small one-bedroom apartment just outside the city. She’s still debating if she’s going to give it up and move closer to campus when she starts her MFA program at Northwestern in the fall because it’s such a steal. Whenever I visit her, we share her bed like we’ve done since we were little, but she also has a daybed in the living room, where she likes to read.

“Why is Henry staying with you?” I don’t mean it to come out so accusatory, but between the lack of faith she has in me and this new information, it feels like a betrayal.

“We’re friends! We talk all the time. And he’s going to be our stepbrother. Not everything is about you.”

“He can afford a hotel. Or he can take the guest room at the condo.”

“Kristine’s aunt is staying at the condo. You really should have made it clearer that you were planning to attend.”

I squeeze my eyes shut and count to five. “Yes, I can see how the screenshot with my flight info and the four follow-up texts in the family group chat about how I would be there could be misconstrued.”

My sister lets out a rough exhale. “Well, we’ve seen this before. Thanksgiving, for example.”

“I’m really trying here, Hannah,” I insist, but it feels like a waste of breath.

Every instinct inside me is screaming that this is a sign. I shouldn’t even bother flying to Chicago. No one expects me at the engagement party anyway. That couldn’t be more clear. It’s hard not to feel a little like no one wants me there either.

It would be so easy to use this as an excuse.

But I don’t want to be the person they’ve come to see me as. I want to be reliable. I want to be included. I want to know I tried my best. If they can’t see that, if I’m perpetually stuck as the selfish, flaky girl I’ve been in the past, at least I’ll know I’m trying.

I text Frankie before I’ve even hung up with my sister, and she says I’m more than welcome to crash with her for the weekend.

With that settled, I stare at my phone. There’s one more person I should talk to before the party. Normally I would just ignore it and hope the circumstances were too uncomfortable for it to become a thing, seeing each other in person for the first time.

Henry deserves more than that, though.

Before I can talk myself out of it, I scroll to his name and hit Call. The phone rings. It goes for long enough that I assume a voicemail will have to kick in soon, or maybe that’s just my anxiety stretching every millisecond. I should have thought this through before I dialed.

“Norah?” Henry sounds like he’s hurrying down a flight of stairs, his breath short, steps echoing. “What’s wrong? Are you okay?”

Relief rushes through me at the sound of his voice. I take a second to breathe with him, knowing he’s at the other end of the line.

“You there?” The background noise changes and I can tell he’s now outside. I wonder if he’s by his apartment, or maybe he stepped out at work? I hate that I don’t know small details like where his office is in the city.

“If this was a pocket dial, I’m going to be—” Henry mutters, and I realize I still haven’t said anything.

“No, no. I’m here. Hi. Hi,” I say again, slower this time.

“Are you okay?” he repeats, his tone urgent.

“I’m fine, sorry. Didn’t mean to scare you.” The embarrassment hits me now. He clearly thinks the only way I would ever call him was if something was tragically wrong. “I was hoping we could talk.”

Henry goes so quiet that if I didn’t hear the sounds of traffic around him, I would think he hung up. “You want to talk. Now,” he says, measured.

“Yeah,” I reply, feeling stupid. “Do you have a second?”

“Do I have a—” he mutters. “You went radio silent for almost two months.”

“I know.”

“You got my letter.”