Page 86 of Gilt

The third floor is relatively quiet. The woman at the nurse’s station doesn’t look up as I pass or when I double back to head in the right direction.

I stop in the doorway, realizing far too late that Leighton’s room isn’t empty. Hugo leans into view before I can make a quiet exit.

“Pawn Star,” he says affectionately. Hugo Roth has the amazing ability to sound like he’s complimenting you and insulting you at the same time. A stranger might have found his greeting friendly, but I know that its intended effect is to keep me in my place, beneath him on the social, financial, and sexual scales. He’s one of the original Housers, the group of students at Belle Mère Prep who make it their mission to squash as many people beneath them as possible.

“What are you doing here?” I ask him as I move hesitantly into the room. I don’t mean to come off so accusatory, but he’s always brought out the bitch in me.

“Someone needs to visit her,” he says in a flat voice.

I don’t push him on it because I can hear how much he hates this question in his reply. “I just got back in town,” I explain to him. “My mom didn’t want me to come back until I was fully recovered.”

Hugo looks me up and down, then turns away, and stares at Leighton. Something about him looks lost until he finally speaks. “You look fine.”

“I guess I was the lucky one,” I murmur in a low voice. Seeing Leighton connected to a half-dozen machines that monitor her heart rate, breathing, pulse, and a number of other things I don’t recognize is a pretty harsh reminder that I was fortunate to walk away that night. In the giant hospital bed, she looks small. Her skin is too pale, and they’ve chopped off some of her blonde hair on one side where stitches still pucker her scalp. On the other, her hair still brushes her shoulder.

“What do her doctors say?” I ask the question and then realize how stupid it is. Why would Hugo know that?

To my surprise, he answers, “There’s brain function, although it’s not as strong as they’d like. Really, it’s just a waiting game.”

“What are we waiting on?” I ask him.

“Whether or not she wakes up.” His fingers twitch, and it takes a second for me to realize that he nearly reached out for her hand. I back up a few steps, feeling the need to give them space. I should ask him about The Dealer and try to get the scoop on the rumors floating about Belle Mère. He’s always had a finger on the pulse of what’s going on in our tiny enclave. Instead, I say, “I’ll leave you two alone.”

“You don’t have to,” he says. “She’s not much of a conversationalist.”

I tug my purse strap higher up my shoulder. Right now, I don’t feel very social, either. I search for a topic knowing that half the things on my mind I shouldn’t even bring up. “I saw Jonas,” I blurt out.

“That must have been exciting for you,” he says in a snarky voice, which I ignore.

“Just as I was coming up. He was leaving.”

“You thought you saw Jonas.” Hugo corrects me. “He’s in Indiana, or Illinois, or Omaha visiting his grandmother.”

“You just named like half the country,” I say. There’s no doubt in my mind that I spotted Jonas. Considering that Hugo can’t even remember where his best friend is supposed to be, it hardly matters.

“He’s somewhere in the middle, then.”

If ‘by the middle’ he means downstairs, then he’s right, but I don’t push him on the subject.

“What are your plans for the rest of vacation?” I ask when I can’t come up with anything else to say to him.

Hugo groans loudly, running a hand through his spiky blond hair. “I think I might learn how to do macramé. What are yours?”

“The same.” I don’t miss the resentment in his voice. I roll my eyes, recalling that when it comes to Hugo Roth, you need a full-body condom because he’s such a dick. “I guess I should go.”

I should be the one in that bed. Not her. I back toward the doorway, and when my foot hits the outside hall, Hugo calls after me, “Emma, thanks for stopping by.”

I blink a couple of times, trying to process that he just showed appreciation for something I did. “You’re welcome.”

I make it a few steps toward the elevator before I turn around and creep back to Leighton’s room. Hugo has his hand over hers as he whispers to her. I can’t make out what he’s saying, but it’s enough to make me comprehend that miracles are possible because Hugo Roth has a heart.

I’m inside the elevator when a far less welcome realization hits me. I do look like Leighton. It isn’t that it could be me in that bed, I conclude with sickening certainty.

It was supposed to be me.

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

A bell over the door tinkles as I walk inside the shop. Nostalgia surges through me, not just because the store is full of crap but because I spent most of my life calling it home. There were times when I slept on a cot in the back with Becca. I’d been working off the clock since I could count in order to fly under child labor law regulations. I used to consider myself an integral part of keeping this place functioning, but now I know I was just a Band-Aid. I can’t spend my whole life being the glue that holds my dad together, and this is the first place I need to let go of if I’m going to send him that message.