Page 54 of What You left in Me

“Meaning?” I ask, even though I know I don’t want the answer.

“Meaning,” he drawls, “I won’t just take money now. I’m thinking bigger. Something nice. Maybe a house.” He looks around, appreciative, as if the hospital itself is on the market. “You seem to be doing well. New town, new friends, new… opportunities.” His gaze snags on the blazer I’ve draped over the chair, Julian’s jacket, tailored within an inch of its life, and then on my ring. He whistles. “Shiny.”

Eleanor flinches. It’s tiny, just a tightening at the corners of her mouth, but it is the first time I have seen her body admit what her voice will not.

“Get out,” I say, and my voice is not steady now. It shakes. I hate that it shakes. “You don’t get to threaten us. Not here.”

He looks almost injured. “Threaten? I’m reminiscing. And troubleshooting.” He taps a pitted finger against the rail of my mother’s bed, one, two, three. “You left me holding a bill. Now I’m here to settle it. I can be creative. Cash. Property. Favors. Some combination. I’m flexible.”

“What favors,” I say carefully.

He smiles. “You’ll know when I ask.”

My stomach drops again. The hallway bends around us like a bad joke. I am aware of everything at once, the beeping that isn’t quite in time with my heart, the huff of the HVAC, the squeak of rubber soles, the taste of metal in my mouth, and then none of it, just the fact of him, the fact of Eleanor’s shaking hand, the fact that we did, we ran, and now the past has better shoes.

“Do you know how obscene this is?” I ask. “You come to a hospital. You touch her. You—”

“Hospital’s perfect,” he says lightly. “People cry here. People sign things here. No one notices one more family with bad luck.” His voice drops. “Besides, you owe me. Your father…”

“Don’t,” I say. The word detonates in my throat. “Don’t finish that sentence.”

He stops, studying me. “Brave,” he decides. “Stupid, but brave.”

“I’ll call security,” I say, because it’s the one move left on the board that doesn’t involve throwing a punch I can’t land.

“You do that,” he says, amused. “Tell them a friend came by to say hello.”

Mom’s head snaps toward him. “You are not…”

But the footsteps come before the words do, and the door cracks open before any of us can decide what happens next.

Julian steps in, all speckless lines and a phone in his hand, the word “acoustics” still half-shaped on his mouth. He takes in the tableau with a quick, tidy scan, the strange man at my mother’s bedside, my hand on the rail, my mother sitting too straight, too still. Confusion furrows his brow. It doesn’t look good on him; it’s one of the few honest expressions he owns.

“What’s going on?” he asks, stepping forward, then checks himself, tilts his head at me. “Ari?”

Mom smiles before I can speak. It is a practiced thing, pulled on like a glove, and it fits so well you’d never know it hurts.

“Julian,” she says warmly, and I watch the way her lips shape the lie. “This is an old friend. He dropped in to say hello. Would you mind giving us a moment?”

Julian blinks, recalibrates. “Of course,” he says automatically, the trained politeness of too many fundraisers and boardrooms. He hesitates, he does look at me and there’s a hint of confusion there, but Mom has already turned her face back to the man, smile fixed, and Julian reads what he wants to read. He backs toward the hall. “I’ll be right outside.”

The door snicks shut.

I stare at my mother. Friend. She called him a friend.Why? What does he have over her that makes her choose the lie rather than the lifeline?

He turns his head just enough to catch my stare, that carved smirk reappearing, patient and pleased.

“Now,” he says, as if we haven’t just been interrupted, as if he has all the time in the world, “Where were we?”

Chapter 17 – Finn – The Line We Crossed

I don’t go to the hospital.

Everyone else is there anyway. Eleanor rearranging reality with her voice, Ariane pretending calm like it’s an Olympic sport, Julian auditioning for “Most Caring Fiancé” in a mirror somewhere. I’m buried under work I don’t care about and problems I care about too much. If I go, I’ll have to be decent. I don’t have decent in me this morning.

The house is quiet in that expensive way that makes your thoughts echo. Floor-to-ceiling glass, skyline like a threat, concrete that remembers every footstep. I take the stairs two at a time and shut myself in my room, where I’ve set-up my makeshift office, making sure to turn the lock like that will keep anything out. It won’t, but what’s the harm in taking precaution?

Coffee is non-negotiable. The machine I had Maria bring up to my room hisses and spits out the double shot of espresso I favor. I don’t bother with cream or sugar to dilute it. I carry the mug to the desk and wake the laptop.