“You left your ring on the counter at the bakery again,” Liz says, fumbling for an explanation. She nudges me. “I told you to buy a chain to wear it around your neck while you work.”

My thumb rubs my bare ring finger. “Good idea,” I mumble.

“Well, the doctor said they won’t be letting me go today or tomorrow, so I’ll have to make you a list of the things that need to get done before the wedding. It’s coming up fast, and it’s time you take a more active interest in the plans anyway.”

Nix gives Mom a smile. “Right now, you should rest.” She turns to me and Liz. “I need to get back to the office. Your mom is working with a fantastic cardiologist, and she’s in good hands, but you know where to find me if you have any questions you don’t want to ask him. Hanna?” She tilts her head toward the hallway.

“I’ll be right back,” I tell my mom. Then I follow Nix into the hallway.

“How are you doing?” she whispers after the door closes behind her.

I cross my arms. “What do you mean?”

“How are you handling the news of your pregnancy?”

“I’m not pregnant,” I tell her flatly. “Virgins don’t get pregnant.”

There is so much pity on Nix’s face that I nearly squirm under the weight of it.

“That would have shown up before if it was true, right?” I point out. Because I’ve been thinking about this a lot since she called with the news yesterday. “If I were pregnant, we would have known when I was in the hospital. You guys test for that kind of thing, don’t you?”

“We do.” Her words are cautious. Measured. “Your hCG levels were normal when you were in the hospital.”

That’s what I thought, and if it weren’t for my worry over my mom, I might actually smile. “So I’m not pregnant. There was a mistake. The blood work must have gotten mixed up or something, because I remember every day since the hospital, and trust me, there’s been no sex.”

“Or,” Nix says, looking over her shoulder to make sure this conversation is still private, “you were so newly pregnant when you were hospitalized that your hCG levels hadn’t yet elevated. Pregnancy isn’t just a snap occurrence. It’s a process. Egg meets sperm, moves down into the uterus, implants in the uterine wall—”

“I took bio in high school.”

“Then you know there’s a window between conception and when the body starts producing the pregnancy hormone.”

I shake my head. I can’t deal with this right now. It can’t be true. “Someone’s screwing with me. They switched my blood work or something.”

“That only happens in the movies.”

“Well, virgins only get pregnant in the Bible, so…”

She studies me for a beat. “Are you sure you’re a virgin?”

“I haven’t slept with Max and I haven’t slept with Nate, so unless I’m an even bigger ho-bag than I thought and there’s a third guy I’m not remembering”—I meet her eyes and speak slowly so she understands—“I. Am. Not. Pregnant.”

We stare at each other, engaged in a battle of wills.

“Call my office and make an appointment,” Nix says. “If you’re so convinced we ran the wrong person’s blood, we’ll need to do it all again anyway.”

“Fine.”

“Hanna.” The voice calling my name makes me close my eyes. It hurts too much to hear his voice.

When I open my eyes, Nix must see the question on my face. How much did Max hear? She mouths, “It’s okay,” then says out loud, “We’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

Slowly, I force myself to turn around and face Max. He’s carrying a vase of colorful roses, and even though he attempts a smile when I look at him, he can’t mask the hurt in his eyes or the questions there.

“Is she okay?” he asks quietly.

I nod. “I think so?”

“Do you mind if I go in there with you?”

“That would be good.”

He opens the door, and I step in before him.

“Max,” Mom says, delighted when she spots him behind me.

“How are you feeling?” he asks Mom.

“Better now that I see the bride and groom standing together again.”

I feel Max stiffen next to me, but he doesn’t say anything. Instead of correcting her, he steps forward and sets the flowers on the nightstand next to her bed.

“You didn’t have to do that,” Mom says.

“I wanted to,” he assures her.

Mom sighs and leans back against her pillows. “Thank you all so much for stopping by, but I’d like to rest, if you don’t mind.”

“Of course, Mom,” I whisper.

“I can’t help but worry about my girls,” Mom says as we’re heading to the door.

“You don’t need to,” I promise, but I’m wondering what she means by that.

After we exit, Liz closes the door behind us and exhales heavily.

“I’m sorry she still thinks we’re getting married,” I whisper to Max. “I can’t bring myself to tell her the truth right now.”

He winces. “Of course. I wouldn’t expect you to…” He drags a hand through his hair and exhales slowly. “I wouldn’t expect you to break it to her while she’s in the hospital.”

“It’s just for now,” I promise. “I’ll tell her when the doctor says she’s in the clear.”

Lizzy’s eyes grow big. “The wedding is in three weeks. You can’t put it off for long.”

Liz is right, but I can’t wrap my brain around a solution. My mind is swimming with everything that’s happened in the last few days. “I know.”

Liz smacks Max’s shoulder. “I’m pissed at you.”

“Liz!” I hiss. I wave my hand, leading the two of them away from Mom’s door. This is probably the worst possible place to do this.

“A baby?” Liz growls at him when we reach the elevators. “With Meredith?”

Max doesn’t say anything, but his jaw hardens.

“Liz, let it go,” I warn.

She pokes Max in the chest. “Maybe Hanna’s not upset anymore, but I—”

“Stop!” I say. She must hear the desperation in my voice, because she does. She steps back and drops her hands.

The elevator dings, and I force myself to follow Liz and Max inside.

“Can we talk?” Max asks. “Tomorrow?”

I nod dumbly. As confident as I was just yesterday in my decision to end this, anxious even, now I want to drag my feet to the finish line. Not only because of my mom, but because I love Max.

We climb out of the elevator and head toward the parking lot. When we arrive at Lizzy’s car, Max studies me for three beats. Four. Like he wants to say more but doesn’t know how. “I’ll see you later, then.”

I watch him walk away and feel half of my heart leave with him.

20. Max

THE SIGHT of Hanna in a wedding gown steals my breath and makes my chest ache. She’s so f**king perfect—dark hair flowing down her back, lips parted as if the photographer caught her mid-sentence.

Meredith hoists her purse on her shoulder and flips her blond hair. She’s carefully put together, as usual, and smugger than ever. She was heading in to see Hanna’s mom and caught me in the parking lot.

“Gretchen was looking at that headline right there when she started having chest pain. The ambulance had to come to my salon and get her.”

I’m trying to tear my eyes off the pictures on the cover of the gossip rag, but I can’t. Not when right next to the picture of Hanna in a wedding gown, there’s a picture of her straddling Nate Crane’s lap in a hot tub. The picture is only a couple of days old if this piece-of-shit publication is to be believed.

“This is the woman you’re promising your tomorrows to?” Meredith asks.

I exhale slowly and force my shoulders to release. I can’t believe I ever thought Meredith’s nastiness was an admirable quality. “I’m sure it’s not what it looks like.”

She crosses her arms and shakes her head. “You said I treated you badly, but what about this?” She throws up her hands and turns to the hospital entrance, leaving me alone with this f**king magazine.

When I look down at the publication again, my heart plummets. For the first time, I understand why I once preferred women like Meredith to women like Hanna. It wasn’t their hearts I was trying to protect. It was mine.

21. Hanna

“CAN WE go get coffee somewhere?” I ask as Liz puts the car in gear.

“Coffee?” She blinks at me. “Screw that. I vote for drinking martinis until we can’t feel our faces. Considering the day we’ve had—hell, the month we’ve had—I’d say we deserve it.”

I shake my head. “No martinis.”

She arches a blond brow. “Tequila?”

“Coffee?”

“Buzzkill,” she mutters, turning the key in the ignition and bringing the car to life.

When we finally get settled into a booth at the greasy spoon by campus, she’s practically vibrating with all the questions she’s not letting herself ask.

I make her wait and order decaf coffee and a milkshake. She orders coffee and a mountain of fries with liquid cheese, and we stare at each other while we wait for our food to come.

“Meredith’s baby isn’t the reason I called off the wedding,” I tell her. “Meredith was pregnant in October. Max and I didn’t start dating until November.”

She frowns. “Then why?”

I take a breath and wrap my hands around my coffee mug, needing its heat. “Because it hurt to find out that he only ever started dating me because he felt sorry for me. That he didn’t intend for anything to come of it.”

She draws in a quick breath but doesn’t lift her eyes to mine.

“But you already knew that, didn’t you?”

“I didn’t realize you knew,” she finally says. She dumps three sugar packets in her coffee and follows them with as many tubs of creamer. “About me telling Max to date you.”

I sigh. “It wasn’t that you told him to date me, Liz. It’s that you told him to fake interest in me.”

Her eyes fill. “It worked out, didn’t it?”

“I had to find out from Meredith of all people. And it hurt.”

“I’m sorry,” she says. She exhales heavily. “How long have you known?”

“I found out last May the first time. Then I remembered Sunday morning.” I show her the text messages between Meredith and Max.

“That son of a bitch,” she breathes.

Watching Lizzy read the texts is like seeing them for the first time all over again. “I didn’t tell anyone back then because I was afraid Max would lose the grant for his club.”

“So you remembered this and went to see Nate?”

I nod. “It seemed like the logical choice at the time.” A moth has taken up residence outside the window, and I watch its fluttering wings.

I’ve felt strangely calm since Liz told me about Mom’s heart attack. The same calm I felt when I saw my father unconscious in our backyard. It was like my brain put all of my emotions to the side until I did what needed to be done—call 911, check his pulse, start CPR. Triage. Nothing is real during triage. Nothing can hurt you because you’re operating like a machine, going on to the next necessary task and the next.

With Dad, it wasn’t until later that it all hit me. After the ambulance pulled away, my father already pronounced dead. After my mother collapsed and we had to call the doctor to get her a sedative. After my sisters clung to each other and cried. Only after did the emotions hit—the fear, the anger, the terror. And finally, the soul-ripping grief. I’m still waiting for the news of Mom’s heart attack to hit me, but right now, I’m still numb.

“So are you two an item now?” Liz asks. “You and Nate?”

The sound of his name makes my heart ache. “We were never together. Not really. It wasn’t supposed to be more than a fling. The night we met, he was very upfront about what he could and couldn’t offer me.” I exhale slowly. “Whatever it was between us is over now anyway. We said goodbye.”

She stirs her coffee. “So…you’re staying with Max?”

I shake my head. “How can I?”

Of course, now there’s the question of my pregnancy, but I’m not ready to tell Liz about that until I know for sure. Could Nix be right? I can’t help but hold out hope for the lab mix-up.

When our food comes, we eat in silence. Lizzy takes mercy on me and doesn’t ask any questions.

We’re both exhausted, worried about Mom, and emotionally spent. But when we leave the restaurant, Liz drives to the drugstore instead of my bakery.

“Come in with me?” she asks.

I nod and follow her into the store, where she heads straight to the back and stops in front of the pregnancy tests. “A one- or two-pack?”

My breath catches. “I’m not pregnant,” I object, but the words sound weak even to my ears.

“I’m your twin,” she says quietly. “I can sense these things. Have you taken a test yet?”

“Nix said that the blood work…” I shake my head. “It can’t be true. She’s wrong.”

She takes my hand and squeezes. “It’s going to be okay.”

My eyes fill. How is it that four weeks ago I woke up to my dream life and every day it becomes more of a nightmare? “What am I going to do if I am, Liz?”