He holds up his hands, palms splayed toward me, his eyes wide. I flinch even though he’s clearly not threatening me. His chest is heaving, which causes me to look down at my own chest. I seem to be holding my breath, because it doesn’t move at all.

“This is over,” he says, closing his eyes. “I thought you could handle this. We had an agreement... I can’t believe this.” He says that last part to himself.

Anger and pain tangle in my chest. A sob escapes my lips. I’m so confused. I reach up and touch my face, feel my features; this isn’t a dream, this is real.

Seth’s face softens. “Listen to me. I’ve been trying so hard. What we had was real, but things change. After you lost the baby, you changed.”

“No!” I shout. “I’m going to tell everyone who you are and what you’ve done. You can’t keep your lifestyle a secret anymore. Even Regina is cheating on you.”

There is a sharp silence following my words. His eyes grow wide and I can see the red streaks on the whites as he says, “Stop it.”

I throw back my head and let my throat churn out a hoarse chord of laughter. “Are you kidding me right now?” My fear has morphed into anger. It’s better to be angry than to be afraid, I decide. “You’re going to be exposed for what you are.”

“I’m calling your doctor,” he says. He roots for his phone, pulling it from his back pocket, never taking his eyes off me as he places his thumb on the screen to unlock it. A deep furrow appears between his brows as his fingers dart across the screen.

“I found the doctor’s bill in your pants pocket—Hannah’s. I went to see her.” I say all of this calmly, watching his face for a betrayal. He’s pretending that this is all in my head, why?

“What doctor’s bill?” He shakes his head, and then I see it. A spark of recognition. He sets his phone on the counter next to the coffeemaker, forgotten. “Oh my God,” he says. “Oh my God.” He shakes his head. “When I was at the doctor, a woman checked out in front of me. She got distracted by her phone and walked out of the office without it. I ran it out to her, except once I was out there I couldn’t find her. She must have driven off. I stuffed it in my pocket. I should have turned it into the receptionist, but I didn’t even think to do that. That’s what you found.”

I don’t believe him, not even for a second. This is crazy. He’s lying.

“You need help. You’re having delusions again.”

Again? I’m so angry that it’s me who launches at him this time, my hands extended like I can claw his eyes out with my bitten-down fingernails.

“Liar,” I scream.

I ram into his chest—that was a mistake. Once I’m in his range, he uses his strength against me, holding me at arm’s length. I can’t reach him, but my arms flail, anyway, as I try to make contact with something. His open water bottle falls from the counter and makes a dull thud against the wood floor. Water pools around our feet, and as I struggle to get away from him I feel myself slipping. Seth tries to catch me, but as my feet lose grip and slide out from under me, so do his. We fall in a tangle; I slam into the ground, my shoulder blades hitting the floor with Seth’s weight on top of me, and then I see nothing but the dark.

   EIGHTEEN

“Hello, Thursday. Can you hear me?”

A voice tugs at my consciousness, unfamiliar. It pulls me forward like a hand in the fog. A blinding headache pounds behind my eyes and I know that the moment I open them it will be ten times worse. I roll my tongue over the roof of my mouth and I wake to a bright room—not naturally bright, but lit by the fizzing hum of fluorescents overhead.

A woman leans over me and I register navy blue scrubs and the stethoscope, which hangs like jewelry from her neck.

“There you are,” she says brightly—too brightly. “You’re going to have a headache—we’ve given you something for that. You should feel better in a bit.”

I let my head fall to the right where an IV stands sentinel beside the bed. I am terribly thirsty.

“You were extremely dehydrated,” she says. “We’re fixing you up. Would you like some water?”

I nod, and a pain shoots through my head, causing me to flinch.

“Try not to move around too much.” She disappears and comes back with a thick plastic cup, color unidentifiable, straw perched from its lip. The water tastes like plastic, but it’s cold, and I close my eyes as I suck it down.

“Which hospital am I in? Where’s my husband?”

I listen to the squelch of her shoes as she crosses the room, a familiar and soothing sound. Years ago, a patient told me that the sound a nurse’s shoes make on a hospital floor made her have a panic attack. It’s when you know they’re coming to inject you with more shit, or to tell you bad news, she’d said.

“You’re in Queen County. I haven’t seen a husband, but it’s past visiting hours and I’m sure he’ll be back tomorrow.”

Queen County! I try to sit up in bed, but yelp when a pain shoots through my head.

“Easy,” she says, rushing over. “You have a concussion. It’s minor but—”

“Why am I in Queen County? Where’s the doctor? I need to speak to him.”

She opens my chart, glancing at me disapprovingly over the top of it. Her eyebrows are two sandy brown caterpillars—she’s in need of a good pluck. I don’t know why I’m being so mean except that she has answers and I don’t.

“Says here you came in by ambulance. That’s all I can tell you for now until you speak to your doctor.” She snaps it shut with an air of finality and I know it won’t do me any good to keep hounding her. I know her type; she has the whole nurse hard-ass thing going on. We have three or four of them at my hospital. They’re always assigned the more difficult patients as a mercy to the rest of us.

Momentarily defeated, I allow my back to rest against the flat hospital pillow and squeeze my eyes shut. What happened exactly? Why didn’t they take me to Seattle General? My friends and colleagues are there. I’d receive the best care among my own. Queen County has a reputation for bringing in a rougher sort of crowd. I know, because this isn’t the first time I’ve been here. Queen County is your criminal uncle you only see on holidays: grubby, sagging and tagged up. It’s the house whose lawn has soda cans and beer bottles dotting its yard like weeds, the shopping cart abandoned on the street corner. It’s a place where dreams never have the soil to grow, everything lost in the cracks.

I have a flash of memory: a wheelchair, blood—plenty of blood—and the tense face of my husband as he leaned over me, assuring me everything was going to be all right. I’d half believed him at the time because that’s what love does. It gives you a sense of well-being—like bad things will evaporate under the strength of two people who adore each other. But it hadn’t been all right, and I’m much emptier in my marriage than when I arrived that first time.