Chapter 1 - THE INVITATION ON MY BLANKET
The invitation was cream-colored, thick enough to leave an edge against my skin. My name was printed on the envelope in the same curling font Alex and I had used for our wedding six years ago.
Paige Sutton stood beside my hospital bed in a red satin dress that looked expensive and uncomfortable. One strap kept slipping. She pushed it back up without taking her eyes off me.
"You shouldn't be in here," I said.
"The nurse said five minutes."
"I didn't mean the hospital."
Paige's smile wobbled. For a second she looked twenty-eight and tired instead of untouchable. Then she glanced at the ultrasound picture on my bedside tray.
"Is that the baby?"
I placed my hand over the small, uneven curve under my hospital gown. The doctor had warned me not to confuse a good heartbeat with a guarantee. There was bleeding behind the placenta. There were things she couldn't promise.
"Don't," I said.
Paige reached into her purse and brought out a glossy black-and-white photograph. "Eighteen weeks. A girl. Alex cried when he found out."
I had seen the video of their gender reveal. Everyone in the backyard wore white. Pink smoke rose around Alex as his mother clapped and Paige jumped into his arms. I knew exactly what his face had looked like.
I hadn't known then that I was pregnant, too.
"Congratulations," I said. I was proud of how flat it sounded, which should have embarrassed me.
She set the sonogram on top of the invitation. "Alex asked me to make sure you got this," she said. "I didn't come to fight."
"You wore that dress to tell me you're marrying my husband."
"Soon-to-be ex-husband."
I turned the envelope over. The date was six weeks away. Alex and I weren't even divorced yet. My lawyer had told me the paperwork still needed a judge's signature, but Paige had already booked the ballroom.
"Why are you really here?"
She looked at my bandaged forehead. Her lipstick was too dark for the hospital's blue light. "I saw what happened at the house."
My fingers stopped moving.
"You were there?"
"I came to pick up Alex." She swallowed. "I waited outside for eleven minutes. He was taking forever."
"You could see the stairs from the front hall."
Paige didn't answer.
The machine beside me gave a soft electronic chirp. I felt suddenly ridiculous, lying there in a gown with a rust-colored stain on the cuff, trying to make a stranger admit she'd seen me hurt.
"Did you call for help?" I asked.
"Alex said someone had."
"Did you see anyone call?"
Her eyes moved to the door.
I reached for the call button. Paige caught my wrist, not hard, but hard enough to make me remember the stairs.
"Listen," she said. "If you tell anyone I was there, he's going to think I—"
The door opened. A nurse in blue scrubs stopped with one hand on the frame.
"Take your hand off my patient."
Paige let go. The sonogram slid sideways, exposing a printed number at the top of the page. The hospital logo wasn't the one Alex had mentioned in the video.
May you like
And beneath her name was a date that didn't fit the story Alex had told me about when their relationship began.
