Annika nodded, staring at the Formica table, seeing patterns in it that were likely not there. God, she was tired. And she would never sleep again. “What if his brain’s not okay? What if he doesn’t wake up? Or what if he does, but he’s not himself anymore? What if he doesn’t recognize me?” She raised the coffee to her lips, her hand trembling so much, the coffee sloshed over the side and onto her shirt. So she’d smell like coffee and tears for the rest of the night. It seemed fitting.

“You can’t think like that, sugar,” June said, leaning forward to catch her eye. “You’ve got to keep positive. That’s what the nurse said, remember? They’re taking really good care of him.”

“Right. Yeah. Sure.” She was just saying what she thought June wanted to hear. She had no idea if he would be okay, or if anything would be okay ever again.

Her phone beeped. When she flipped it over to check the screen, it was a calendar reminder: EPIC pitch!! Woo hoo!! starts in 8 hours on Sunday, June 13th. Annika stared at the reminder blankly. She’d set it to alert her in the middle of the night so she could see it first thing upon waking. She’d meant to wake up at five, with several hours to practice and refine her pitch.

For just a moment, her heart had surged with a desperate hope that the notification was a text from Hudson, that he was reaching out to say he was sorry and that he was coming. For just a moment, she felt a fierce burning to be held in his strong arms, to be comforted the way only he could comfort her, to be spoken to in the way his heart could speak to hers. But of course it wasn’t him, because Hudson, too, was gone. He wasn’t who she’d thought he was. It had all just been one big illusion, a magic trick her heart had been desperate to believe.

June cleared her throat and tapped Annika’s phone screen. “Don’t you worry about that. I’ll withdraw us. I already told Ziggy we were probably going to do that, and he said it’s an easy process. You just have to tell the—”

“I don’t want to withdraw.” Annika frowned at June. It was hard to get the words out; they stuck in her throat like tar. “I have to do the pitch. There’s no other way to save Make Up.”