My eyes widened, but he still wasn’t looking at me.
“And I just—I couldn’t trust her after that. She had been lying to me for a year. And if she had gotten pregnant—I mean—that’s forever. It’s not like the little kind of lie, like when she knocked the mirror off her car and claimed she didn’t know how it happened. This was—it was too big. I couldn’t go back from that.”
He finally looked up at me, but I didn’t know what to say. Tricking someone into creating a new life was a whole other level of betrayal.
He brushed the pieces of his beer label into a napkin and balled it up. “So anyway. New subject?”
“Sure.” He looked uncomfortable at having shared that much, so I reached around for something else to talk about. Anything. “Okay, new subject. Um, oh, okay, I’ve got one! That horrible bridesmaid in Caryn’s wedding? She used the wrong ‘your’ in an email today!”
He smiled weakly. “What a moron.”
“Right? Like how are you going to ream me out and not even use proper grammar? I will destroy you in a reply to that.” His grin finally looked more genuine. “I need to figure out something appropriately passive-aggressive to troll her with. Maybe a mug that says ‘Grammar: the difference between knowing your shit and knowing you’re shit.’ I saw that online somewhere. I could send it to her.”
“I thought you were overextended on your wedding budget?”
“There’s always money to passive-aggressively mock someone horrible. Duh.” I paused. “I’ve also heard really good things about glitter bombs.”
“What’s a glitter bomb?”
“You anonymously mail someone an envelope full of glitter. It gets everywhere. And it’s cheap, so you can do it yourself. Glitter costs almost nothing.”
Alex shook his head. “Remind me never to cross you.”
You don’t know the half of it, I thought gleefully, already planning how to mock Caroline’s idiocy in the blog. But Alex was reaching into his pocket and pulling out his phone, the screen glowing.
“Hang on, it’s my sister,” he said, answering it. “Sam? What’s up?” He held his hand over his free ear. It wasn’t loud in the restaurant, but it wasn’t super quiet either. “Wait, slow down, I can’t understand you.” He listened. “Oh God. Okay, which one? I’ll be right there. I’m coming right now. I love you too.”
He hung up and pulled his wallet from his back pocket, his face suddenly pale. “I have to go.”
“What’s wrong? What happened?”
“My dad—another heart attack—I have to—”
I slid out of the booth, grabbing my coat and scarf. “Which hospital?”
“Sibley.”
I punched it into my phone while he threw some cash down on the table. “I’ll have an Uber here in two minutes. Come on. Let’s go outside.” He nodded and followed me to the door. “Did she say how bad it is?”
“She doesn’t know yet.”
“I’m sure he’ll be okay.” I wasn’t. This was his second, which wasn’t a good sign. But, oh God, the look on Alex’s face. “This is us.” I gestured toward the blue sedan that pulled up to the corner.
Alex opened the door and got in, and I went around to the other side. He looked up, surprised to see me in the car. “You don’t need to come.”
I nodded. “Yes, I do.” I turned to the driver. “We’re rushing to the hospital for an emergency, so speed is good tonight.”
“You’ve got it. Everyone okay?”
“We don’t know yet.”
The driver looked at our faces in the rearview mirror. “You’ve got a good girlfriend there,” he told Alex. “Marry the ones who will come with you to the hospital.”
“He’ll take that into consideration,” I said grimly. “But please hurry.”
I picked up Alex’s hand, barely realizing I was doing it, and held it in mine for the entire drive. We didn’t talk.
The Uber driver dropped us at the emergency entrance, and we ran inside to the desk, where we were directed to the cardiac unit. There, in the waiting room, Alex dropped my hand, which I hadn’t realized he was still holding, and embraced an older woman with a tear-stained face. I didn’t need to see that she had the same eyes as Alex to know she was his mother.
“How is he? What happened?” He turned to the younger carbon copy of his mother and hugged her as well.