"God, no!" Abigail said, taking a step back and breathing a sigh of relief. "I don't know where you got that idea, but it's going to make reality seem a lot more palatable, I can promise you that."
She was smiling again, but Andrew was just confused. If Cassandra wasn't dead, why had Abigail reacted in such an upsetting way at the mere mention of her name? What could have happened to make Abigail want to save the conversation until later? Part of him was desperate to discover the answer to this new mystery, but a far larger part of him was just happy to know that she was alive, and that she was okay enough that Abigail could smile like that. If she was injured or paralyzed or even if she needed fed from a tube for the rest of their lives, Andrew could work with that. He could love her through anything, and as long as she was still there, he felt certain that she would love him too.
He didn't waste his voice on asking again, and Abigail capitalized on this by changing the subject as quickly as she could.
"I've been in charge of your apartment, you know," she said. "I've pretty much redone everything at this point, because that place was barely livable. I mean, I know you liked all that plush stuff, but it kind of looked like you were living in an insane asylum."
"You redid my whole apartment?" he asked, trying to figure out how long it would have taken her to redo an entire room, not to mention the cost.
"Well, yeah," she said. "I figured that, you know... if you didn't wake up..."
"You were going to sublet my apartment?" he asked, somewhat appalled that his own best friend's first thought had been how she could profit off of him.
"Only if money got tight!" Abigail defended. "I mean, someone had to cover the bills, and you didn't really have enough saved to handle that forever on your own."
Andrew was pretty sure he had a lot of money saved away, and while she was probably right that it wouldn't last forever, it seemed a little bit premature of her to be assuming it would run out and she would be responsible for renting out his apartment.
"I just can't believe that you were even thinking like that," he said, looking up at her. "Shouldn't you have been... I don't know, worried about me?"
"Of course I was worried about you! But you know, after a while..." she shrugged, then met his eyes. "Don't get me wrong, I was totally freaked out about what was going to happen to you and I'm absolutely thrilled that you finally woke up, but after a while I had to stop letting you consume my every thought."
"After a while? After what, like an hour?" Andrew snapped.
The look of surprise on Abigail's face would have been impossible to miss even if she was better at concealing her emotions. She stared at him silently for a long time, and more than once she opened her mouth to speak. Andrew felt a little bit bad, as if maybe he had insulted her, and he thought about apologizing, but he was still annoyed with her. Here he was, lying in a hospital bed, not even certain what had happened to his fiancé, and all the while Abigail had been planning out how to make a profit off of him. He felt a little bit sick to his stomach, and he wasn't sure whether that was because of his injuries, his concerns about Cassandra, or his horror at the way his friend was treating him.
"I... You don't... Wait, what do you know about what happened?"
The question felt like it came out of nowhere, and urged Andrew to think of the things that made his head hurt. He pressed his lips together and squeezed his eyes shut as flashes of light and color and pain played across his memory. His breathing grew heavy, and he could hear the beeping behind him start to speed up.
"Woah, woah, woah," Abigail said, putting a hand on his arm. "It's not a big deal, you don't have to think about it. You should probably be resting. I promise I won't do anything to your apartment while you sleep."
Andrew opened his eyes and looked up at her, his mind still reminding him of a million tiny moments that didn't seem to form any cohesive picture, except for that of pain. When he looked up at Abigail's blue eyes, he something behind them that didn't remember seeing ever before: pity.
Something horrible had happened, Andrew was sure of it. He wished he could do something about it, but Abigail was leaving and his head was hurting and he could barely think anymore. The moment felt as if it couldn't get much worse, and maybe that was what gave him the courage to call out to Abigail one last time as she lingered in the doorway.
"Please," he begged. "Just tell me what happened to Cassandra. She's going to be my wife. I have to know."
Abigail looked at him. She pursed her lips, and even though she shook her head a little bit, she opened her mouth and answered his question.
"Nothing happened to her. But while you were sleeping... she got engaged."
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