Chapter 13
Helen
I come to the hospital every day and the nurses in the ICU are very helpful. They bring me a chair and a box of tissues, lower the lights, and leave me alone to sit beside Lon.
“I love you,” I say quietly and try to stop shaking before touching his arm but it’s impossible. He looks so old and frail in the hospital bed, so caught in the tangle of IV lines and monitors, so far away from me in his sedation that I don’t know how to reach him. He’s never been out of reach before—not since the beginning anyway, when I wasn’t supposed to fraternize with him—and this separation terrifies me.
“Don’t you leave me, old man,” I whisper, holding his hand, bending my head, and letting the tears fall. “You told me you would never leave me, so don’t you do it. You have to rest and get well, Lon. You have to come home. You do.”
He has to, because I don’t know how I could live without him.
Chapter 14
Hanna
Tomorrow is my birthday. Sammi is coming home with me after school and then we’re sleeping over Crystal’s, since her brother is throwing the first keg party of the season and we’re invited.
My mother woke me up with the same song she always plays on my birthday, some dinosaur named It’s a Beautiful Morning. I used to love it when I was younger and she made a big fuss over me, but come on, I’m sixteen now, okay?
Still, she dances in, invading my room and opening the blinds, but no matter how crabby I act, she just keeps singing until I peek an alligator eye out from under the covers and she knows I’m up.
Okay, honestly? I love my birthday.
It’s a day when anything can happen.
When I got to school Sammi was waiting in the courtyard with a shiny red Happy Birthday balloon that only lived long enough to tell the world (including Seth) that it was my big day before a bunch of seniors grabbed it and sucked out the helium.
I didn’t mind because at least it had gotten the word out, and that was the whole point.
The only dark cloud is that me and Seth haven’t really talked lately, and once again, I don’t know why. I never know why with him. He doesn’t look mad when we bump into each other, or disgusted or anything, he just sort of recedes and does his friendly but distant thing where something is off but I can’t pinpoint what.
It’s maddening.
And according to Sammi, who saw him in the hall with his current girlfriend Solange this morning, he has a big hickey on his neck almost hidden under his hair.
That’s not good birthday news.
Anyway, Sammi bought me pizza in the caf, which was nice, and we brought it out to the courtyard and hung out on the curb eating and keeping an eye out for Seth, who of course never showed up.
Maddening, I tell you.
“What if nothing good happens?” I said, leaning back on my hands. “I mean, this is my birthday, Sammi. Something has to happen.”
“Maybe he’ll dump Solange,” Sammi offered, drawing up her legs and resting her chin on her knees. “That’d be a good present, right?”
I shrugged. “Only if I was next.”
“Do you really still want to be?” she said, glancing at me.
“Yeah,” I said without hesitation.
Sammi sighed.
“What?” I said.
“He dumped Solange,” she said and met my startled gaze. “I heard it in the pizza line.”
“Oh my God, why didn’t you tell me?” I said.
She shrugged and reached for a pebble.
“I knew it,” I said, jumping up and brushing pizza crust crumbs off my skort. “I knew this was gonna be a good day.”
“Where are you going? Like I don’t already know,” she added in an undertone, tossing the pebble back onto the driveway.
“To give Seth a chance to give me my birthday kiss,” I said, nudging her with my foot. “Come on.”
She shaded her eyes with her hand and peered up at me. “Why don’t you wait until he comes to you for a change?”
“Because you know he won’t,” I said, shifting impatiently.
“Right,” she said. “Isn’t that kind of the whole point?”
“Not on my birthday,” I said, scowling. “God, Sammi, I have one wish, and why should I just sit around hoping it happens when maybe I can do something to make it happen? You know I’m not exactly the sit-back-and-take-whatever-comes-to-me type.”
Sammi arched an eyebrow. “Except when the whatever is him.”
“No,” I said coldly, but that was a giant lie and we both knew it, so I abandoned my snotty self and resorted to begging. “Come on, Sammi, come with me. Pleeease?”
She did but I lost her outside the media room to some junior guy, so I told her I was headed for the upstairs hall if she wanted to catch up. And then I walked and looked and, finally, right before the next bell rang, I spotted Seth and a bunch of seniors climbing out of a car in the parking lot. I stepped down the hall out of sight, listened to their approaching laughter, and right before they came in, set down my purse and crouched to fuss with my shoe.
They swept in reeking of pot and having some kind of sports argument.
I picked up my purse and rose, searching out Seth in the mix. He was talking to the guy next to him and didn’t seem to see me, so I said, “Hey,” as he passed.
He glanced my way, eyes bloodshot, and said, “Oh, yeah, hey, how’re you doing?” and went back to his conversation.
I ducked to search for something in my purse, just in case anyone turned around, but no one did. And I should have left, I should have but I didn’t, because I thought maybe he’d come back, and that’s when the voices drifted to me, one kid saying, “Man, she’s been dogging you all year. Why don’t you just do her already and get it over with?”
Seth’s response was too low to be heard, but the following burst of laughter wasn’t too low at all.
Neither was the single sharp crack as my heart broke.
I couldn’t even think for the rest of the day. All I could do was sit there replaying the laughter and getting sicker and sicker. Teachers called on me and I just said, “I don’t know,” to whatever they asked. Sammi asked me what happened and I just shook my head and said, “I’ll tell you tonight,” because I couldn’t bear to say all the things that were rising into my mind.
I thought I’d been so careful, secretly restructuring hall routes, just happening to be in all the places he was, occasionally dating other guys so he wouldn’t think all my hopes and dreams revolved around him…
But they knew.
Stoned guys, deaf and dumb to all but sports, partying, and their dicks, knew.
And if they knew, then everyone else knew, too.
Seth knew.
I hadn’t been subtle, I’d been obvious.
I’d been dogging him.
Oh, God, just the word made me want to puke.
I was so miserable that I never even noticed the thousand-year-old nun who creaked up and snagged me for being out of uniform with my black stockings, so I had to buy a brown pair from the office, which apparently carried only the Original Yodeling Goatherd Brand of Thickest, Ugliest, Lowest-Hanging-Crotch Panty Hose in the Entire Free World, and put them on.
Wynn passed me in the hall and said, “Hey, happy natal day!” and gave me a big smile. Connor’s girlfriend Teresa stopped and asked if I had anything good planned, and in the heartbeat before I answered, I realized that whatever I told her would get back to Connor and then to Seth, and if I ever wanted to make a stand and end this before I had no pride left at all, it would have to be now.
“Oh, yeah,” I said, studying my reflection in my locker mirror. “Me and Sammi are heading down to an all-night kegger some guys I know are throwing for my birthday.” I fluffed my hair. “Ought to be a blast.”
“Sounds like it,” she said. “Is it an open house or invite only?”
“Invite only,” I said without hesitation. “They’re not from this school and they’re kind o
f older. Sorry.”
“No problem,” she said, smiling. “I just figured it was worth asking, since we’re always up for a good party. Well, have a great time and don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”
I snorted a laugh and said, “Then it had better be a short list, Ter.”
And she grinned and walked off.
I shut my locker and headed in the opposite direction.
Chapter 15
Hanna
“Where have you been?” Sammi said when she caught me at my locker at the end of the day.
I shrugged and jammed my books onto the shelf. No homework this weekend. Not on my birthday.
“Hanna.” She grabbed my arm and leaned in close. “What happened? Seth came up to me and said he was trying to find you to wish you a happy birthday but you were, like, gone.”
“Yup,” I said. “I am. Gone and done.”
She drew back, eyebrows high. “What does that mean?”
“It means that everybody in this place except you can kiss my ass, okay?” I said, slamming my locker. “I’m done with all of them.” I gave the leg of my granny tights a vicious yank. “We’ll be out of here in like three weeks, and you know what? Nobody’s gonna be asking me out or calling me over the summer to see if I’m even still alive, so why am I putting myself through all of this? How long am I going to beat my head against the wall, getting all excited, getting my hopes up every time he looks at me, Sammi? I’m like a bad joke. I get stepped on, I come back for more. I get shoved aside, I come back again. What the hell am I doing waiting for him? I have to get it through my thick head that it’s just not going to happen.”
“I didn’t mean it would never happen,” Sammi said, touching my arm.
“Yeah, well, you know what?” I said, shouldering my purse and starting down the hall. “I’m tired of waiting. I’m tired of the whole stupid thing. So I’m done. Period. The end.”
Sammi caught up and walked beside me. “Really?”
“Mm-hmm,” I said. “Do you have to go to your locker?”
“Yeah, my overnight bag’s in there,” she said.
“Good, then let’s go this way,” I said, veering off to take a staircase we never used.
“Oh my God, Hanna, I can’t believe you just did that,” she said in a low voice after I kicked open the doors and strode through into the empty vestibule. She grabbed my arm and looked back over her shoulder. “Didn’t you see him?”
“Who?” I said, clattering down the stairs.
“Stop!” she hissed, yanking on me. “Seth! He was coming right toward you—”
The doors flew open on the landing above us, and I looked up to see Seth leaning over the railing, grinning down at me.
“Hey,” he said.
I arched an eyebrow.
“Happy birthday,” he said.
Sammi nudged my ankle.
“Thanks,” I said and started to leave.
“Hey,” he said again.
I paused, teeth gritted, and looked up.
“I owe you a birthday spanking.”
I snorted and kept walking.
“Hey.”
“What?” I snapped and stopped again.
“You mad or something?”
And the absurdity of it, the fact that two hours ago I would have given anything to have him thudding down the stairs toward me, looking curious, maybe even puzzled, giving Sammi the chance to mutter, “Meet you at my locker,” and leaving me there alone with him in this unpopular, unused staircase, wasn’t lost on me. Neither was the fact that I was just dead inside, squashed flat by chronic disappointment.
“No, not at all,” I said. All emotion had receded, pulled out like low tide, leaving my brain an empty ocean bottom.
He studied my face. “Yeah, you are. Come on, I can see it. You have a glass head, Hanna. I can read you, and you are seriously pissed off.”
“Really,” I said, because that just made it worse. “Well, think what you want.” I turned to leave, but he grabbed my arm.
“Hey,” he said, frowning. “You don’t have to get shitty. I just wanted to say happy birthday, okay? God.”
And that’s when the tide returned, swept in like a boiling tsunami at that chiding God, as if I had been surly and ungrateful, like I was wrong for not being a happy, eager puppy leaping for any scrap, for daring to have a will and an opinion of my own, for biting the hand that, when he felt like it, might pet me.
I could feel the tears gathering behind my eyes and my nose starting to sting, and if there was one thing I didn’t want to do, it was start bawling, because that would show him that he could hurt me and he didn’t deserve that kind of power.
“I have to go,” I said without looking at him.
“Not until you tell me what’s up,” he said.
“Nothing, all right? It’s my birthday and I’m going to a party and you know what? I can’t wait. I can’t wait to get out of here and be with people who aren’t just out for what they can get!” My voice cracked. “Now get offa me.” I wrenched free and stalked out.
I waited until we were home and safely ensconced in my room to tell Sammi all of it, from the minute I left her at lunch to my parting words to Seth.
“If he can read me, Sammi, then he’s known since the first day that I liked him and he’s been playing me all year,” I said, dropping my vest on the bed and unzipping my skort. “Got nobody to talk to? Wait one second and Hanna will show up. Want to cut out? Ask Hanna; she’ll risk everything just to follow you around for a day.”
“You weren’t that bad,” Sammi said, shaking her head in amusement at the sight of my saggy-crotch panty hose.
“No, worse,” I said grimly, peeling off the geriatric tights and flinging them toward the wastebasket. “I hate him so much, I can’t even say.”
“No offense, but I’ve heard that before,” Sammi said, opening her bag.
“Yeah, well, this time it’s true,” I said, yanking the ugly yellow blouse up over my head and tossing it onto the laundry pile in the corner. “I’m done following him around. In exactly”—I glanced at my watch—“two hours and forty-three minutes, I will be born, and I’ve already decided this is going to be a stellar, Seth-free year.”
“Well, good, because that’s exactly what I got you for your birthday,” Sammi said, lips twitching. “One of those kick-ass T-shirts with a big red circle and a slash through his name that says ‘This Girl is a Seth-Free Zone.’”
“Oh, shut up,” I said, snickering and shoving her onto the bed.
We had Chinese takeout because moo shu shrimp was my food of choice.
“You’re welcome to come back on Sunday, Sammi, when we do the cake and presents,” my mother said, handing out fortune cookies. “I invited the Schoenmakers, too, because I think the outing will do them good. They haven’t been anywhere since Lon came home from the hospital, and frankly, I’m getting a little worried. Helen was always so fearless, going everywhere, doing new things, zooming around town in that big old Buick she used to have, and now…”
“Now she’s like an old lady,” I said, thinking of how bad Gran had been trembling the last time I’d seen her.
“I think Lon’s heart attack really knocked her for a loop,” my father said, cracking open his fortune cookie and pulling out the slip of paper. “Hmm. ‘The smart man prepares for the unexpected.” He frowned. “I hate these things.”
My mother’s said, “Flattery will go far tonight.’”
“Hey, somebody’s getting lucky,” Sammi said without thinking and, at my mother’s astonished look, clapped a hand over her mouth and fled the table, laughing.
“Sure, keep right on teaching them sex education,” my father said drily. “They won’t use it, they just need to know. Nice Catholic school. Right.”
The rest of the fortunes were useless, but the good part was that since it was my birthday, I didn’t have to load the dishwasher, so me and Sammi escaped to get ready to go down to Crystal’s.
“You’r
e sure Crystal’s mother is all right with hosting the two of you?” my mother said when we clattered back into the kitchen with our party wear stuffed in our bags and our faces innocent of all anticipated wrongdoing.
“Oh, yeah, she doesn’t care,” I said. “And we’re good, anyway.”
“Mm-hmm,” my mother said, giving me an amused look. “You’d better be.”
“We will,” I said, scowling. “God, Mom, nothing like being suspicious.”
“Mm-hmm,” she said again. “Just remember that I was young once, too, okay?”
“I know, I know, now bye, Mom,” I said, hustling Sammi out the door and into the gorgeous May twilight. “Come on already. No, don’t walk so fast, just in case she’s watching.”
We set off at a casual pace, talking and laughing, until we were camouflaged by the woods, and then picked it up because the party started at nine and it was almost eight and we still had to get to Crystal’s, change our clothes, and do our makeup.
We made it to Crystal’s within the half hour. Sammi and Crystal had met before and even though they were different kinds of people, they got along well and cracked each other up, which was excellent.
There’s nothing as good as best friends.
Crystal gave me a killer black top almost exactly like the plum-colored one I’d borrowed to wear to Connor’s party, except this one was a light, silky material instead of a sweater.
“Oh, I’m definitely wearing this tonight,” I said, modeling it.
Then Sammi gave me a beautiful black cord choker with a really artsy, hand-carved tiger eye butterfly hanging from a delicate gold loop in the center.
“I would have gotten you the earrings, too, but I ran out of money,” she said and, grinning, lifted the front of her shirt to reveal her pink and tender-looking new belly button ring.
“Oh my God!” I said. “When did you do it?”
“Three days ago,” she said, admiring it in the mirror.
“I hope you’re wearing a crop top tonight,” Crystal said.