“Wow,” Hannah said. She and Blue exchanged a stunned look. She didn’t want to criticize anyone’s life choices, but getting married within a week seemed like questionable judgment. She’d never known Renee to be so reckless.
Renee must have sensed her concern because she squirmed in her chair and her cheeks turned red. She took a quick self-conscious glance around the room, those eyes reading everyone. Then she sat up straighter, smoothed her hair and smiled. “It was dumb, I know. But fortunately it all worked out in the end. And now I’m with my dream guy. Darrin is... I’m very lucky. You guys would love him.”
Hannah’s mind was filling with questions. Would they be invited to the wedding? If they were, would they go? She knew Blue wouldn’t. And then she and Maya couldn’t, could they? It seemed like another no-win situation, and her stress levels rose just thinking about it. The others must’ve been having similar thoughts, because the sudden return to quiet felt loaded.
“We actually met at a wedding,” Renee said, as if rushing to fill the void. “I was the wedding photographer. We joke that now having a wedding is like coming full circle. Unfortunately the couple whose wedding it was are now divorced.”
Hannah was reminded of how uncomfortable Renee used to be with silences, how she would scramble to fill them, how much it seemed like another form of running.
“Anyway,” Renee said, seeming to run out of steam. She peeked at Blue and sighed. “George Soros, huh? That’s amazing. Really, so cool.”
Blue nodded, but her face was hard and inscrutable.
The refrigerator hummed. Renee drummed her long, perfectly manicured nails on the table.
“Oh, here, let me show you a picture of Darrin!” Renee said. She took out her phone, pulled up a photo, passed it to Hannah. “That’s us on my birthday. The night he proposed.”
“Oh, wow,” Hannah said. She didn’t want to sound too enthusiastic for fear it might piss off Blue. “He looks nice.” He had thick black hair and shiny eyes and the kind of seductive smile that she distrusted but knew lots of other women liked. She held the phone up to Blue behind her. She noticed Renee watching for Blue’s reaction, seeming eager for her approval. Blue nodded at the photo and looked away.
Maya leaned over to have a look, as well. “Well, hello there, handsome!”
Renee laughed, more nervous than mirthful, and held out her hand to show them her ring. Something about the way she displayed it reminded Hannah of that stuffed animal fortress. “We live in this cute little cul-de-sac in Connecticut. Lots of trees and kids running around. I just love it. Maybe you guys can visit.” Her eyes darted again to Blue.
“I like cul-de-sacs and trees,” Maya said. “Just lock up the kids and that sounds great. Doesn’t it, guys?”
Blue pulled out her phone, began scrolling the news.
Renee’s face fell.
Maya frowned. “Something interesting happening in the world, Blue?”
“Just people being awful as usual,” Blue said, without looking up.
Hannah slunk lower in her seat.
“People suck,” Maya agreed. She turned back to Renee. “I gotta tell you...every Darrin I’ve ever slept with was a total maniac in bed. I mean that in a good way. And there’ve been like four of them.”
“Ew,” Hannah said.
“Seconded,” Blue muttered.
Renee smiled and shook her head. “Oh my God, Maya,” she said, “I’ve missed you.” Then after a pause, quietly, sadly, almost inaudibly into her lap, she added, “I’ve missed all of you.”
Hannah made a sort of cooing noise. She wanted to tell Renee how much she missed her, too, but then she caught the hardened look in Blue’s eyes, her lips pressed thin with anger. Whatever went on between the two of them must have been worse than Hannah could imagine. Blue had always been as loyal as a rescue dog, only bit when provoked. But what could possibly be that bad? To give up a sisterhood? To still be this furious after so many years?
As Hannah wondered this, the room went suddenly blurry. It was as if she were floating away from it, above it, seeing it at a distance from her body. There was a bright flash of light behind her eyes. Then a clicking noise in her brain like a camera going off. She knew that light and clicking sound well. The warning signs. She squeezed her fists, trying to stay present, but the images came anyway.
The girls at the party. Blue and Renee playing beer pong while Maya danced. Henry’s arms wrapped tightly around her, his lips grazing her ear as he sang to her the words of the love song playing on the stereo. Someone shouting over the music. Then Blue in a torn sweatshirt, bloody at the neck. A piercing scream—her own. Fear so loud in her ears it sounded like a waterfall. Henry! Henry!
She blinked, resurfaced with a silent gasp. A shiver of adrenaline went through her. Then the nausea hit. Keep blinking, she thought, fast as you can. It was what Dr. Maloney had taught her to do whenever she had flashbacks, because the mind can’t see images in the midst of a blink. Her stomach listed. She stood and went to the window, opened it wide.
“You all right over there?” Maya said.
“What?” Hannah said, stalling. The last thing she wanted to do amid all the tension was mention anything about that night. “Oh yeah... I just... I think I might be getting sick.”
Maya laughed. “You always think that.”
“Right,” Hannah said. She tried to smile but couldn’t quite get there. Sometimes it was funny that she was the designated neurotic but other times it bothered her. There were reasons she was the way she was. It wasn’t because she was weaker or less than or ridiculous—which is how they made her feel sometimes. Unintentionally, of course, but still. And yet they’d all seemed to survive so much better than she—Renee so in love, Blue and her success, Maya breezing through life like she was given the answers to the test while Hannah had studied and studied and still failed. Maybe this was why she didn’t like being in the world. It forced her to realize just how messed up she was.
Breathe. Blink. Stay present.
She drank some water. Waited for the shakes to stop. Her body felt weak and drained. Her mind activated. A lingering sense of disorientation, like she was a time traveler stuck between worlds. Couldn’t get her bearings in either.
She was used to the flashbacks by now. Not that they weren’t always upsetting. Trauma brain, it will pass, she told herself. Whatever happened has already happened.
But this time something new had unsettled her—the image of Blue in the ripped and bloody sweatshirt. Usually the flashbacks were the same. But this was a piece she hadn’t remembered before, couldn’t place in her recall of that night. Why was Blue bloody? Why was her sweatshirt ripped?