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“And he’s stayed away this entire time?” Harriet asks in disbelief.
“It’s what I wanted.” At first.
“Is it?” Margot continues to toy with the ends of my hair.
“No. Yes. I don’t know.” I croak and bury my face in my hands. “I don’t know what either of us wants anymore. We’re not the same people, and I’m…” Fresh tears sting the backs of my eyes. “I’m scared to face the truth, knowing it’ll end in him leaving me once and for all. It was like I lost my husband overnight. Suddenly, he was all about the money and fancy brands. I tried so hard to come around to the idea of being married to someone famous, but within the space of a few weeks, everything fell apart. Our idea of a future together didn’t look the same anymore. People drift apart all the time. I just never expected it would happen to us.”
My next words sit heavy in my stomach until they claw their way up my throat with an acrid taste. “I tried to reach out shortly after he left, but he never responded. I get he’s hurting too, but his silence stung. I couldn’t cope with the idea of him leaving me, and I spiraled.” I feel like I’m going to throw up. “I had divorce papers drawn up.”
The three of them gasp.
“Divorce? Talia, why didn’t you speak to us?” Harriet fixes me with a sympathetic look.
“Because I just wanted life to go on as normal.” Even though it was imploding before my eyes.
“But you haven’t sent them to him?” Parker asks.
“No.” I wince at how hard I’m pinching my skin. “I want Tate. I’ll never not want him. But I don’t want the life he’s leading.”
“Oh, babe.” Parker flops down next to me and draws me into a tight hug.
Harriet sways closer as she moves to keep the baby asleep and strokes my head in soothing motions.
“So, what do we do?” Margot asks.
“I don’t know. Wait to—” My ringtone cuts me off.
It’s face down on the coffee table, and Harriet reaches down to pick it up. Her eyes widen. “It’s Annie.”
A chill breaks out across my skin, an acute awareness sinking deep into my bones. I scramble for the phone and press it to my ear, voice shaky. “Annie, what’s happening?”
She sniffs. “He’s in the hospital. He had a seizure.”
SIX
TALIA
I was with Tate the first time he experienced an epileptic seizure at fifteen years old.
We were riding the bus home together. I was talking at him nonstop, complaining about how I didn’t think my biology teacher had graded my test fairly. He was quiet, which was very unlike him, but I didn’t think much of it. He’d nod and smile, but his actions were slightly delayed, as if the gears in his head needed oiling.
I was yapping away, staring out the window, when the seat started shaking and a few kids gasped behind us. When I turned to see what was happening, Tate was rigid as a plank, eyes rolling into the back of his head, face contorted in an expression that still haunts me to this day.
No one knew what to do.
Girls shrieked in dramatic horror, and boys laughed when he wet himself. When his lips turned blue, I started to panic, screaming for the bus driver to pull over. All I could do was watch my best friend’s body betray him for the three longest minutes of my life.
The second he stopped convulsing, Tate gasped for air, sucking down sharp breaths and frantically looking around. It was chaos after that. The EMTs arrived, asking him all sorts of questions on the way to the hospital, but Tate wasn’t making much sense, and his speech was slurred after biting his tongue. Someone got hold of his momma, and when Annie turned up, he still had no clue what had happened.
I sat by his side, clutching his clammy hand the entire time. I’m not even sure I was allowed to be in there with him.
The doctors came in, asking the same questions, and to my and Annie’s relief, he started making more sense.
“Do you know what year it is?”
“Twenty-fourteen.”
Correct.
