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The dream rocked her awake. On her bedside table, her phone was blinking. She grabbed for it. The alert on the screen was from Gillian, not Rhiannon.
Can you talk?
It was sixa.m.Lenna groaned. She navigated back to her last text to Rhiannon from last night. She’d fallen asleep, but Rhiannon wrote back hours later, at nearly four in the morning.
Agreed,was all Rhiannon had said.
Lenna clutched the phone hard and started to type.Sorry I didn’t see this. Call me. Anytime. Let’s talk through it.
The text made abloopas it disappeared into the ether. A chime announcing that a new text had arrived sounded moments later. Rhiannon, again. Lenna stared at the new bubble that had appeared even though it made no sense.
This number has been blocked.
A glitch, she figured. She composed another text. The same error message appeared. She tried again. Same result.
Her heart started to pound. Why would Rhiannon block her after accepting text upon text aboutThe Bachelorall night?
Aping.Up soared her heart, until she saw Gillian’s name.SOS.
Lenna rubbed her eyes with the heels of her hands. The room seemed to have darkened instead of lightened, time moving backward. She was exhausted, suddenly, like she hadn’t slept at all.
The phone rang. Gillian’s number. Lenna didn’t want to answer. She wanted to dive under the covers and start the morning over. She ignored the call, but Gillian called again. Finally, Lenna hit the green button, saying through gritted teeth, “It’s so early.”
“Sadie’s being weird,” Gillian sobbed. “Can I come over? Can you meet me?”
“This early?” Lenna said blearily. “Can’t it wait a few hours?”
“I really need you, Lenna. I’m spiraling.”
“Is it because of what you told me? At the bar?”
A pause. “…What did I tell you?”
“I’m not sure. You started telling me that Sadie wanting a baby is triggering. But then you…well, you were pretty drunk.”
Another silence. Gillian cleared her throat. “Okay, can you come here, then? Maybe you can talk some sense into Sadie.”
“Me?” Lenna felt confused. “I don’t know Sadie. I don’t think that’s my place.”
“Fine, then come after she leaves.” Gillian sounded annoyed. “She’s heading out soon anyway. She has to see a patient, I think.”
Lenna’s head spun from how many times Gillian was changing her mind. All she could think of was theblockedmessage from Rhiannon’s number. Why did she reach out to her only to block her? Maybe she did know Lenna was the one who sabotaged her. Or…or maybe she’d found out last night?
“Lenna?” Gillian’s voice was sharp. She’d been talking, but Lenna missed what she said. “Hel-lo?”
“Sorry,” Lenna said vaguely. “I have to go. There’s, um, someone at my door.”
“What? Who?”
She hung up. She was halfway to actually walking to her door before she realized that she didn’t have to actually pretend to answer it. It wasn’t like Gillian could see.
She bent over the kitchen counter. The sheen on the surface, silver with dim morning sun, made her think of the glassy lake in her dream. All those geese leaving—and then Rhiannon turning into that baby. What did it symbolize? What sort of sign should she read from it?
She looked at her texts again. A person didn’t cry out for help and then block you. She scrolled all the way down, looking for what, she wasn’t sure. Then, in the upper left corner, she noticed a tappable word that readEdit.One of the options wasShow Recently Deleted.As in texts?
She tapped it, and sure enough, some of the texts she’d deleted previously came up—junk spam, all of it, or huge image files. But there was something strange. In this folder was a text she’d apparently sent to Rhiannon, except it was sent SMS instead of iMessage. The bubbles came up green and not blue. It was dated early this morning—shortly before foura.m., right about the time Rhiannon replied to theotherchain, that she hated how things were left between them.
Too fucking late. Lose this number.
