twisted | ✔️

chapter six

I woke up to the smells of coffee and bacon stirring my senses, to the sounds of forks clanking against plates, of a woman yelling to turn off the TV, that breakfast was ready. I shot up in the bed, not registering where I was for a few seconds. My head was pounding, and my mouth tasted awful, and the night before came rushing back to me. My heels and purse were piled up on the nightstand next to me, and I knew how well I'd been taken care of in spite of the circumstances, making me feel somewhere between safe and guilty.

I stepped out into the hallway, tiptoeing down the stairs, looking around as if I was going to get caught. I couldn't count on one hand how many times before I had done this same walk. I was halfway down the staircase when the smell from the kitchen hit my nose again, and my stomach rumbled loudly. But I couldn't stay; I couldn't let the people who had been like parents to me for so many years see me like this, and I couldn't run into Noah when that look of regret on his face was the only thing I could see.

Fortunately, it was Crishell who crossed my path right as I reached the last step.

"Hilly!" she shouted, a habit she'd carried over from when she was little, when she could never fully pronounce my name. "You're awake!" She ran over to me, wrapping her arms around my waist. She was taller now, an effect of three years' time. What was she now, seven? Eight? I felt bad not knowing. Freckles dotted the bridge of her nose like stars, her blonde curls forming around her face like that of a lion's mane, and she was beautiful. "Mom wanted to do breakfast earlier, but I told her that we had to wait until you woke up."

I was speechless as she took my hand and pulled me toward the kitchen. Brad was there, at the stove, transferring a pancake from a skillet to a pile on a plate in his hands, and Danielle poured orange juice into the five glasses scattered around the table, and Noah sauntered in, telling me good morning and calling me Sleeping Beauty, his hand grazing my lower back, and I knew I wasn't leaving.

"Come sit down," Brad said, setting the plate onto the table next to one full of sausage and bacon and a bowl of scrambled eggs. He pulled out a chair for me and I tentatively took it. Noah took one across from me and looked up at me through his eyelashes, an expression I couldn't decipher, as if he was trying to figure out where I stood after previous events.

"How have you been, honey?" Danielle asked as the food was being passed around. I pushed a couple bites of each into the corners of my plate, starving but not wanting to seem intrusive. "It's been such a long time."

"I hear your mom's getting married," Brad added.

"Yeah," I responded, "she, uh, she's excited. Are you guys still coming?"

Danielle was surprised at my inquiry. "We didn't receive an invitation."

I laughed as if it was some sort of joke, but she looked serious. "That can't be right. There's no way—" But I knew there was, that while Brad and my father had been close friends, my mother had never been so much so with Danielle. "You should come, though. Of course you're invited."

"Oh, no, you don't mess with a bride's wedding plans. She probably has the whole thing already planned out down to the minute, and if she wanted us there, she would have invited us."

"You should have seen Danielle on our wedding day," Brad said. "That's the stuff they make those Bridezilla movies out of."

"I wasn't that bad," she retorted.

"She threw her shoes off the balcony of a three-story hotel because they weren't the right color," he said, reaching across the table to grab his wife's hand, "and then proceeded to wander around outside for about twenty minutes, veil and everything, looking for them. Needless to say, she was late to the altar."