Page 44 of It’s Me, but Different

The world tilts at an impossible angle. My knees bend, but there's no strength left in them to hold me up. The letter falls to the floor, floating in slow motion like a leaf carried by autumn wind.

I fall.

It's not an elegant fall. It's not like in movies. It's a collapse. I crash against the floor with a dull thud that makes customers scream.

The impact resonates through my skull like an echo in an empty cathedral. I taste blood where I bit my tongue, but the physical pain is almost a relief compared to the agony tearing me apart inside.

I can't move.

I can't get up.

I can't do anything except stay here, on the floor of my own hotel's reception, trembling like an animal that's been beaten so cruelly it no longer dares to move.

“Miss Merriweather!” Sarah's voice sounds like it's coming from the other end of a very long tunnel. “Someone call a doctor, please!”

But no doctor can cure this. No medicine can fix a heart that's been trampled into dust.

I close my eyes and let darkness swallow me. It's easier than facing a world where Esme hates me again and I don't even know why.

A world where I've lost the only person I've truly loved.

Lost. I've lost her again.

And this time, forever.

“Sloane!”

My older sister tries to lift me while I disintegrate into a thousand pieces.

“She's gone, Harper,” I sob against her shoulder. “She says it was all a lie.”

“What? What the fuck are you talking about?”

Trembling, I clumsily point toward the letter with my index finger. I watch her read it, how her expression changes from confusion to horror.

“Fuck, Sloane. What happened?”

“I have no idea,” I admit with a sigh that can barely be heard.

“Oh, fuck. What a mess!” Harper mutters through her teeth.

“What's going on?”

“I think I know what happened,” she sighs.

“Will you fucking talk already?”

“She must have heard fragments of the conversation in my office. Look at this,” she indicates, pointing to a phrase in the letter. “The plan worked perfectly. Sometimes the best plans are the ones that seem like perfect coincidences.”

“Fuck, the Switzerland hotel,” I whisper.

“Exactly. The acquisition you recommended after your trip two months ago,” my sister confirms. “She thought we were talking about her.”

Harper hugs me tightly while I cry, but nothing can calm me now.

“You have to explain to her that it was all a misunderstanding,” she insists.

“She went to Denver. She's probably already accepted that shitty job that will keep her away from her children.”