“How do you know my name?”
Maren looked at Adrian.
He stared at the floor.
That silence answered too much and nothing useful.
The nurse tried again.
“Sir, I need to know your relationship to the patient.”
Adrian rubbed his face.
“Can we get her checked in first?”
Maren grabbed his wrist.
“No.”
Her tone changed.
“Tell her.”
Adrian looked at me.
“Hannah, this isn’t what you’re thinking.”
Something inside me hardened.
“Then tell me what I should be thinking.”
He glanced around as though an escape route might appear.
None did.
Maren’s eyes filled.
“I thought she knew.”
That sentence frightened me more than anything Adrian had said.
“Knew what?”
He stepped toward me.
I stepped back.
“Don’t,” I said.
He stopped.
For five years, Adrian had been the calm one.
The man who packed lunches before I woke.
The man who remembered my late mother’s birthday and sent flowers to my
