Page 15 of After You

She nodded. With an eyeroll.

“Okay, this is good,” he said, feeling optimistic about Hannah’s visit for the first time. At least something good would come from it. Two somethings—Alice would finally move on and quit getting her hopes up and then dashed about Hannah moving home, and they would get a PT intown.

“So, you’ll help then,” Alicesaid.

“Help?”

“Convince Hannah to movehome.”

Kyle felt a big rush of oh crap go through him. “What are you talking about?” he asked, playingdumb.

“We have to make her miss it here,” Alice said, a bit impatiently if he wasn’t mistaken.

“I thought you were going to work on making her miss it here,” Kylesaid.

“I’ll handle reminding her of her childhood and getting her involved with the family,” Alice agreed. “And you will handle the romanceside.”

Oh, yeah, that was not happening. “Alice, that is the worst idea you’ve ever had,” Kyle told her honestly.

“You have to,” Alice insisted. “You’re the main thing that she’ll want to come homefor.”

Kyle snorted at that. Yeah, clearly he was a huge draw. “She’s known where I am for three years.”

“But you’ve been so supportive and understanding,” Alice said with more than a touch of sarcasm and a definite frown. “It’s your own damned fault it was so easy for her to stayaway.”

Well, that wasn’t true at all. He hadn’t been supportive or understanding. If he remembered correctly, his response to her had been, “You’ve got to be fucking kiddingme.”

No, it hadn’t been mature and supportive and loving. He’d been young and pissed off and hurt and stressed out. He remembered distinctly that he’d been standing in the hallway of the hospital where he’d been doing his family medicine residency when he’d taken her call. Three days after she hadn’t shown up at the gazebo, hadn’t returned any of his calls, and hadn’t called him herself. He’d been running on about four hours of sleep a night, had a take-no-shit attending physician breathing down his neck, had a little girl dying of cystic fibrosis on his caseload that was tearing him up, and had every other person in his hometown asking what was going on with Hannah. He had not been in a good place to take her call and be supportive and understanding about her getting an “amazing opportunity” to stay in fucking Seattle.

He’d been worried and confused, too. So hearing her talking about how excited she was about the research project at the university over a thousand miles away, had done nothing to make him feel understanding.

And then she’d said, “I’m really sorry, but I’m not coming home. I have to stayhere.”

That was the part he’d said “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me” to.

“I got this really great opportunity to work on a research project.”

He hadn’t said anything tothat.

Then she’d said, “Everything has changed. I can’t…explain it. I just can’t come home. I need to…behere.”

And he’d said, “For howlong?”

And she’d said, “Forgood.”

And he’d said, “Fine. Do what youwant.”

Okay, that hadn’t been everything they’d said. Of course. A person didn’t end a ten year relationship in twelve sentences. But that was the highlightreel.

“So you think that if I want her to stay here, she will?” Kyle asked Alice.

“I think you’re a huge key to her staying, yes,” Alice said. “She needs to see her family and friends and the clinic and the town again, too, but without you, I don’t think she’ll want to behere.”

Well, no pressure there at all. But he couldn’t deny that there was a tiny, albeit stupid, part of him that thought is she right? Could he actually make Hannah want to stay? Not that he wanted her to, of course. He’d moved on. Or was working on step seven, anyway. He sure as hell wasn’t going to go back to step one. But, though it probably made him an immature asshole, there was that thought of she definitely should fucking missme.

“So if she leaves, you’ll be mad at me?” Kyle clarified with Alice. “It’s all onme?”

“Of course not,” Alice said. “But I do expect you to give it a really good effort.”

---