The Good, the Bad, and the Gwen | ✔️

35 - A Million Tiny Pieces

WARNING: This chapter may contain body image and mental health triggers.

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The emergency waiting room is packed with kids from the party, though none are speaking to one another. Instead, they stare off into the distance or at the folded hands in their laps, mouths grim. Even Nick looks worried—an emotion I didn't think he was capable of unless it was directed toward his car.

Bastian sits a few chairs away from me with his knees pinched together, his tall frame folding in on itself. He's still wearing his dress, but he left the wig and hair net behind. He looks out of place in the hospital waiting room, sitting among visitors dressed in shorts and sweat-stained T-shirts. He reminds me of the purple hyacinths that bloom in front of my house every spring. Even during freak April snowfalls, they manage to push their way through the soil and ice.

I'm planted in a corner with Penny and Jolie, my heart in my stomach, waiting for someone to explain what's going on. But they're silent, lost inside their own heads. There's an unspoken current between them. Something that tells me they've been down this road before.

Finally, Penny's red-rimmed gaze finds mine. "Gwen." She hesitates, clutching the tissue in her hand. "There's something you need to know."

I have no idea what she's about to say, but already I don't like it.

"Hartley's sick," she begins, pushing back mussed strands of brown hair. She looks older, the creases at the corners of her eyes more noticeable than before. "She's been battling an eating disorder for the past two years. Ever since her father's accident."

My stomach flips into a free-fall. "An eating disorder?" It's all I can say.

Her eyes fill with tears. "She said she'd be better if you were here. She said she'd be stronger. She promised." She covers a strangled cry with her hand.

I stare at the ground. Hartley's been sick all this time and I didn't even know? What kind of best friend am I? I could tell something was off with her, but never did I think it'd be something like this.

A sudden thought breaks through the fog and I'm thrown back to the argument I walked in on when Sully dropped me off after our first date. "I thought this would help," Penny had said as I stood outside the front door. "I thought having her here would make things easier for you, but I'm not sure it has."

The early-morning runs, Hartley pleading to go farther. The pushing of her food around the plate; the minuscule bites. Throwing up after Melanie's parties even though she hadn't had that much to drink. Penny asking me to make sure she finished her dinner. Even that morning at Sully's, when I watched a lone jogger advance down the street. The sun hadn't even risen yet but Hartley was wide awake when I got home, sitting in her robe at the edge of the bed, fresh out of the shower.

Jolie wraps an arm around Penny's shaking shoulders, her dark hair disarranged. "You bought your plane ticket to stay with us the day she was released from the hospital."

The words ping inside my head. "Hartley was in the hospital?"

She nods. "For four weeks this past spring."

Four weeks? How did she hide that? Hartley and I talk to each other every few days! Except for when she was grounded last spring.

For four weeks ...

An unsettled feeling washes over me as the pieces fall into place. I've been so preoccupied with my own problems I've completely overlooked Hartley's, even though they were right in front of my face.