“Eat up, my dear, because you look incredibly pale and thin lately,” Frank said while pushing the bowl closer to my plate. “Women who work as hard as you do tend to burn out very quickly, and you need to keep your strength up.”
Ten minutes later, I suddenly felt the entire dining room receding away from me as if I were drifting into a dark tunnel. Brian’s voice sounded as if it were coming from the very bottom of a deep swimming pool, muffled and distant.
“Hannah, you look absolutely pale,” Brian whispered, though he didn’t move to help me.
I desperately tried to stand up, but my legs felt like lead and simply would not respond to my brain’s frantic commands. Brian grabbed my arm and dragged me toward the guest room, where I eventually woke up three hours later with a terribly dry mouth and my blouse buttoned in the wrong direction.
“Your blood pressure must have dropped suddenly,” Brian said with a dismissive, practiced smile as he sat on the edge of the bed. “It always seems to happen to you whenever you skip eating a proper, nutritious breakfast in the morning.”
