Sunday, August 3rd.

A D D I E

I've never been much of a drinker. I've been drunk before, but it didn't hold a lot of appeal after I woke up with a hangover from hell. I couldn't see how it was worth the nausea, the headache, the overall feeling of death that crawled beneath the skin. It wasn't something that I wanted to experience ever again.

Yet, here I was, feeling much the same right now even though I had no recollection of touching alcohol last night.

I rolled over, not having opened my eyes and felt my hand thud against cold steel. The smell of hand sanitiser stung my nose, plastic tubing tugged on the inside of my elbow. When I did manage to peer through one half lidded eye, I saw an IV bag hanging above me, taupe walls and a worn leather armchair beside the bed. Hospital. How on earth had I ended up in hospital?

There was no one else in the room so I sat up and was careful not to lean on the tube which stemmed from a vein in my arm. A small remote dangled over the bed rail so I picked it up and pressed the button which I assumed was a nurse calling signal from the little stick figure and exclamation mark on it. The other button read emergency and I didn't think it would be wise to cause that sort of panic.

A few moments later, the door opened, and two women appeared. One wearing pale blue scrubs and the other in a police uniform.

"Honey," the nurse rested her hand on my shoulder. "Are you feeling alright?"

"What happened?"

"Oh, officer Raine brought you in last night dear. She said you were wandering alone and collapsed right in front of her. You were very dehydrated but there were no injuries apart from some surface abrasions on your arms and legs."

"You're officer Raine, I assume?"

The woman stood at the foot of the bed with a kind smile. She was lean, muscular and tall with tight ringlets in a bun at the bottom of her neck and golden-brown skin. "I am," she looped her thumbs through her belt loops and rocked back on her heels. "You had me worried, honey. Can I ask what you were doing walking alone at night?"

I swallowed and tried to recall what it was that I had been doing or planning on doing. As far as I could remember, it wasn't much. "Just walking," I said. "My train arrived at nine in the morning and I was just. . . walking."

"Where did that train arrive?"

Peering up from the stiff white bedding, I met her expectant stare. She wasn't demanding answers though, not in the same tone that a cop might question someone suspected of a crime. It was more like she wanted to find out what had happened that put me in such a vulnerable position.

"Uh in Austin somewhere," I grasped for the station name, but it had evaded me. "I can't remember the name of the train station."

"You walked from Austin?! Walked?"

I nodded; brows furrowed at her disbelief.

"You were on the outskirts of Georgetown, Miss. that's almost nine hours on foot."

"Like I said, I was just walking."

The nurse stepped in at that point. Her aged white hands were covered in bright blue veins and she held up the chart, reading it over. "The Doctor has cleared you to be discharged. So, is there someone that we can call, sugar?"

Sugar? Honey? These people were fond of their sweet nicknames. Inhaling a deep breath, I shook my head. "No. I'm here alone."

"Where are you from?" Raine asked, hands resting on her belt.

"Beverly Hills. In California."

The nurse pushed her glasses up her nose. Her name tag read Helen. She didn't look like a Helen. She looked like a Jan. "Are you here on vacation?"

"I don't know."

Raine and Helen shared a brief look of concern. It was all I could do not to scoff. I'd seen that pitiful look of concern about several thousand times over the last week. Wren, Sam, Lo, co-workers that assisted in helping Margo and I run the business, they'd all looked at me like that while they asked me over and over again if I would be alright.

The answer was no. I fucking wouldn't be alright. But I'd accepted that.

"Can I just. . . go?" I kept a gentle tone. I didn't want to seem ungrateful or demanding. Raine had done me a huge favour not leaving me on the side of the road in the middle of the night. "I'm not a minor, I don't need to be let go to a parent or whatever, right?"

"Oh of course not, sugar," Helen laughed and gave me a pat on the hand. "We just thought that you might need a ride or something of the sorts. I'll get those discharge papers sorted. It should only be another few minutes. I'll be right back."

She left me alone with Raine, who was still smiling. "I can give you a ride somewhere," she offered. "I work nights and I came back after my shift ended to make sure you were okay. So, I'm not working right now, and I can give you a ride. Somewhere. Wherever."

As much as I wanted to answer her, I couldn't. Every time I opened my mouth, I realised that I had no place to be. Nowhere to go. No plan.

"Um," her brows pulled, and she held the rail as she rounded the bed to stand beside me. "Look, it's kind of a Sunday tradition to have brunch at my dad's farm. I don't work Sunday nights, so I don't have to get straight to sleep. You should come and have something to eat and you can figure out what the next step is?"

"You— you don't even know me."

She widened her gaze with exaggerated fear. "Were you out and about to murder last night?"

"No."

"I know," she laughed. "I had a peep through your backpack. Nothing but beautiful clothes and shoes."

"You went through my backpack?"

"Had to. I was looking for some ID."

"You wouldn't have found that," I mumbled and threw the sheets back. I was still in the T-shirt dress that I'd been wearing last night. The sweat had dried but it stunk. "I left my clutch at home. All I have is my phone."

"Yes," she nodded. "I did see that in the backpack."

She seemed nice. Nice enough to extend an invitation to brunch when I was a complete stranger. No one had ever shown that sort of hospitality to me before but perhaps that was just how things were done around here. Or at least, that was how she did things.

"Yeah I'll come for brunch. I don't have much else to do. Can I shower and change first?"

Her eyes darted around the room and then landed on the bathroom door. "Go ahead. I'll wait."

The hospital shower wasn't half bad. The pressure was decent, and the temperature was warm. After I felt cleaner, I slipped into a dark green sundress. The straps were thin, and the bodice was fitted tight. After experiencing the heat yesterday, I was going to wear as little as possible. That included bras. The main reason for not wearing one was actually because I forgot to pack spares. It was times like this that I was glad to be a small B cup. All of my curve began at the waist down.

My trainers were almost ruined to the point of no return so I slipped into a pair of Havana flip flops, tied my hair into a loose knot with a few tendrils framing my bare face and slipped out of the bathroom to meet Raine who was in the arm chair on her phone and with what looked like my discharge papers in her lap.

"Ready?"

In the front seat of her cruiser, I watched the old Victorian inspired buildings of Georgetown pass in a rushing blur. There were a lot of peaked roofing, old red brick, and quaint charm that surrounded the historical Georgetown central district.

"There won't be a lot of people there," Raine said with abrupt manner. Perhaps she'd taken my silent sorrow as nerves or concern over brunch with strangers. Strangers didn't bother me all that much. I wasn't afraid of big crowded places or meeting new people or having to converse with people that I've never met before.

Well, I hadn't been in the past. Now the concern laid with the fact that I needed to pretend that I was put together so I didn't appear unstable.

Raine continued. "It'll just be my dad, my fiancé and his daughter and maybe some of the farm hands. Oh an— "

"You don't have to explain," I told her. "I'm not worried or whatever."

"Can I ask you something?"

"I guess."

"What are you doing so far from home? Why were you walking for miles and miles?"

It wasn't an unreasonable question, even if she wasn't a cop, she'd still be curious. I was just as curious as she was. Why had I decided to walk for close to ten hours in a state that I'd never been to before? The truth wasn't a secret that I wanted to keep a lid on but finding the words was a challenge in itself. I hadn't said it out loud and I wasn't sure if I could.

"My sister died and I— I just needed a break," I exhaled, a harsh band of tension forming around my head. I could see Raine looking from the road to me and back again, no doubt she would tell me that she's sorry or something of the likes, but I didn't want to settle on this subject for longer than I had. "You have a fiancé?" I asked. "And a soon to be stepdaughter? That must be nice."

"Oh," her voice was tight for a moment and I saw her nod. "It is. Willa is the sweetest little thing. She was part of the proposal. Milo proposed on the fourth of July. We were all out on the farm and there were fireworks and little Willa and I were passing a ball back and forth- she loves softball- and it was dark but when I caught one of her throws, it wasn't a ball, it was a ring box and then Milo appeared and I cried and ugh- it was beautiful."

"Congratulations," I said, admiring the ring on her finger. It was a simple white gold band with a tear drop shaped diamond that glittered in the morning sun. "How old is Willa?"

"She's ten. Her mom died when she was two, so it was just her and Milo up until about three years ago. He transferred here from a station in Austin. Milo is a police officer too."

I smiled and watched the outskirts of Georgetown. There were a lot of large acres of land that held beautiful farmhouses and ranches. Trees scattered in fields and lined long winding driveways.

"It's so green here," I murmured and then a thought occurred to me and I panicked, reaching down into my backpack which was between my feet.

"What's the matter?" Raine questioned as I ignored the dozens of missed calls from staff and friends at home. Instead I dialled Pete's number and waited with a bouncing leg until he answered.

"Hello? Addie?"

I swallowed and tried not to sound murderous when I spoke. "Pete, I need you to go to the condo and get all of the house plants. Re home them. Give them to someone who will water them, alright?"

"Uh. . . sure. Yeah, I can do that I guess. Is the gate code the same?"

"Yeah. There's a key in the third to the left potted plant on the doorstep."

"Got it," he said, and I could hear his toddler cooing in the background. "Uh. . . how are you doing Addie? Are you—"

I hung up before he could ask me if I was okay. Margo had moved on with her life when she died. Pete was nothing more than an ex-husband who had found his forever with someone else. But I still hated him. I hated that he'd shown up at her funeral, weeping and sobbing as if he'd lost someone that he cared about. I hated that he was living, laughing, in love with some other woman who had given birth to his perfect son. He was living the life that Margo deserved but instead, she was six feet under dirt. I hated Pete.

"Ex?" Raine asked and I realized that my knuckles had turned white while I clutched my phone.

"No," I answered. "Not mine."