Page 185 of Spicy Ever After
“Beck.” She says my name with a kind of practiced calm that does anything but calm me. “I’ve spoken to Hattie. She’s fine. She’s safe. And everything is fine.”
“Where is she? Why hasn’t she?—”
“L-let me try to explain.” I hear her draw a breath. “Hattie doesn’t want you to worry. She?—”
“Too late for that.”
“She… she understands that now, and she wants you to know she’s very sorry for upsetting you.”
My heart is thudding hard inside my chest. Cold rushes over me. “Why can’t she tell me that? What the hell is?—”
“Beck—Beck, just listen for a few minutes, okay? I’ll try to explain as best I can without going against Hattie’s wishes.”
Going against Hattie’s wishes?
My thudding heart drops to my knees. When my words come out, they sound shrink-wrapped. “Is it me? Does she—did I do something wrong?”
“No. No. Nothing like that, Beck,” Margaret says vehemently. “But she’s not ready to talk to you right now.”
“Not ready?” I’m surprised I can even get the words out. My face feels numb. She’ll tell her sister this, but not me. Even after days of radio silence, it’s stunning how much this hurts.
How humiliating it is.
“Why?”
“Beck. Listen to me.” Her voice lowers, and it’s the hush that grabs my attention. She’s confiding. “She’s not ready to talk to you right now because she doesn’t want you to know where she is.”
“But she’s in San Diego, isn’t she?”
Margaret hesitates for just a second. “She is.”
I don’t get it. “So…”
Another pause. “She doesn’t want you to know… specifically… where she is.”
My first panicked thought is that she’s with someone else.
Because I could see why she wouldn’t want me to know that.
Yet I know to my bones this isn’t true. Hattie would not do that to me.
Still, where could she be that she wouldn’t want me to know about?
I don’t know everything about her, but it sure isn’t something like rehab. That’s the last place she’d be.
But maybe?—
“You said she’s okay. Margaret, did… did she try to hurt herse?—”
“No. Nothing like that!" she nearly shouts. “Beck, God, I’m sorry she’s making this so hard on you. For the record, I tried to convince her to call you and talk to you herself. I swear. She’s… just… Hattie.”
While I’m grateful Margaret tried to get Hattie to reach out, it also sucks that I’d need anyone to appeal to my girlfriend on my behalf.
I mean, less than a week ago, she told me she loved me.
And she knows I love her.
I want to be patient and give Hattie whatever she needs, but this isn’t how you treat your partner.
