Chapter Forty-Six
Christopher
We opt for a diner north of Hannah’s office.
I asked her if we should go to the beach, but she told me it would be a betrayal to Lucy, who loves the beach and would smell the salty water on her immediately upon our return.
So, instead, we’re in a booth across from each other, eating our meals. I pick at a Denver omelet while Hannah eats waffle fries hand over fist, her eyes glued to her plate.
“I haven’t really been hungry lately. I guess I didn’t realize how anxious I was.”
I smile at her, glad that she’s getting the right nourishment. Her confession forces me to realize that I need to keep a closer eye on her health, though. I’ve been leaving her to it, not realizing the burden she’s been carrying.
“We should call your mom, huh?”
She shrugs, her shoulders tensing next to her ears. She dips a french fry into honey mustard. “I guess so. She’d want to know.”
“What’s up with you? Why don’t you want to tell her?” I ask her.
Her attitude’s confusing me. She should be more excited than she is, and I know Piper has been worried sick.
“I do, I do. I know she worries. I just…let’s have this moment just us for today. We’ve been sharing so much of ourselves, and that’s how Tyler was able to take some of our joy.”
“Oh, I see, my private Hannah Banana.” I grin at her, remembering the way I found her, living in her office with no intention of ever telling anyone.
Her mother told me she put herself through her accreditation without telling anyone, either, just showed up one day as a CPA.
“I wonder what things you’ll keep from me.”
I reach for one of her fries, and she makes a show of following my hand with her eyes before cutting them back up at my face.
“My fries, to start,” she jokes, pulling her plate farther away from me.
Her phone trills just as she puts another fry in her mouth.
She chews the bite quickly, swallowing it and quelling a coughing fit with a swallow of water before answering her phone.
“Hello? Hannah Banana speaking. So sorry, yes, I meant Hannah Jackson…who is this?”
I stifle a snorting laugh at her mistake, and she shoots me a look that could kill before refocusing on her phone conversation.
“Oh, really? That’s…wow, that’s fast. Are you sure? Okay…well, let me talk to the client about it, and I’ll let you know by end of day tomorrow.”
She chews on the end of a fry, not quite eating it, just chewing it like a pacifier, before rolling her eyes.
“Yes, I know it will move quickly, thank you. Let me talk to the client, and I will get back to you by end of day tomorrow, as I said.”
She hangs up her phone and silences it before setting it face down on the table next to her plate. “Vultures,” she mutters.
“Am I your client?” I ask her, rubbing my ankles against hers and batting my eyelashes at her.
She drops her fry and rubs her fingers together to clean off the seasoning.
“Okay, listen, you know how you said you were thinking Maine?”
“Like a week ago?” I laugh, flickering my eyes to her plate and back to her eyes. “Yea, I remember.”
She sighs heavily and faces her head to the ceiling. She closes her eyes and breathes in deeply.
“Hannah, what is going on? I feel like I’m lost here.”
Hannah’s eyes snap open, and she reaches for my hands.
“Sorry, so basically, I started submitting offers to locations in Maine. Just leasing locations, nothing crazy, I didn’t take out a loan or anything. But. That was one of the leasing managers calling to approve you for a space in Maine.”
She watches my eyes, her chest heaving with breaths as she watches me think it over.
I grip the side of the table with my fingers and chew on the inside of my cheek.
I pictured myself looking for the location, of course, and I pictured myself finding something overlooking the water, something that would fill my nose with the smell of saltwater, where I could walk down a sandy beach and go get lobster from a nearby restaurant.
Without being able to look myself, it’s a blank space where I try to picture the gym. I crack my knuckles. “Well, tell me about it.”
“Okay!” she chirps, sitting up straighter in her booth, wiggling around to get settled.
She reaches over the table and runs two fingers over my eyes so that my eyelids automatically close.
“Close your eyes. Okay, picture this. A two-story, red cabin structure but with expansive, modern windows that go from floor to ceiling. The natural light fills the space and allows clients to work out while looking out over the rocky water as it crashes on the wooden stilts that the building sits on.”
“It sounds beautiful,” I admit, opening my eyes and spearing a particularly thick slice of parmesan cheese on my fork. I chase after a thick crouton that continues to avoid the teeth of my utensil.
“Doesn’t it? And there’s a deck, like a widow’s walk, you know? That’s what they call them when they’re on the roof.”
“Rooftop patio, huh? What am I, a DJ?”
“No, you’re a gym owner, and you’re cool and hip and all that crap.”
She waves around her fry at the same time that I’m waving around my fork. She catches my eye and offers me a sly smile that settles itself into the folds of one of her cheeks.
“You can bring some Los Angeles to Portland.”
“Portland, Maine?” I ask her, and she smiles before shoving three french fries into her mouth at once.
“I know, kind of ironic, right?”
I look at her as everythingng around me fades into the background.
I picture uprooting my life and moving it and I can’t really see anything there. This is the only life I’ve ever had. I don’t have anything else, and I don’t know how to have anything else, either.
It’s hard to imagine the simple things like grocery shopping or taking Lucy on a walk. I’ve pictured all of the fun parts, but the small actions that really make up your life, those are the ones that I can’t imagine.
Part of it, I know, is that my new life will have two children in it, something that I’ve never considered before.
To have two children, a new gym, and be on the other side of the country is a lot of take in. As long as my new life includes Hannah, it’s the one I want, though.
I know that. I feel in my pocket for the engagement ring.
I’ve been carrying it in my pocket ever since that day I realized that I didn’t need anything from Julie, that Hannah had healed all of my wounds. I haven’t been sure of how to propose or where, only that I have to have Hannah in my future.
I bite by bottom lip and chew on it, tapping the top of the table, the fake marble rimmed with gray.
“Are you okay?” Hannah asks me, tilting her head so that her beautiful copper hair splays out across her neck and collarbone, falling forward over her breast.
I reach out and twirl a few strands of it around my index finger. “I’m more than okay. I have a question to ask you, actually.”
“Okay, shoot,” she says, looking across the table for a napkin, finding one, and dabbling at her lips with it.
“Getting to know you this year has been the most amazing time of my life. I know you probably already know this, but a lot of what you’ve brought to me is just the courage and strength to live authentically. You’ve taught me to stand up for myself and that sharing myself with someone will result in that person sharing herself with me.”
Hannah slaps at my elbow. “Why do you sound like you’re proposing?” Her grins widens, showing her big teeth and gums, the smile that I love so much.
I smile back, tears brimming at my waterline. I feel unable to breathe until I look at her, and then the oxygen returns to my lungs as though she herself controls my breathing.
“No,” she whispers. “You’re not serious, Chris.”
“I am so completely serious, Hannah. I started thinking about this when you told me that I needed to confront Julie. It made me realize that…well…that I don’t.
“Because you are everythingng to me, and you’ve healed all my brokenness, even in the places that I thought weren’t broken. You taught me how to be myself in a way that was healthy, and I believe I have been good for you as well. I would be honored to live this life with you by my side as my wife.”
I take out the ring box, and Hannah’s eyes widen, the green bright and sparkling under the light, and she covers her mouth with two hands, her shocked expression peeking out from behind her fingers.
“I know this isn’t fancy, and if you want something different or larger we can change it and I’ll plan a candlelit boat ride. But Hannah, just now, thinking about what life would be like in Maine, I realized I want nothing more than for my life to be with you and our children. Wherever we are. Geography means nothing to me. You are the map, the key, and the compass.”
She laughs through tears, tossing back her head so that her tears momentarily sink back into her eyes. “You are seriously the nerdiest, corniest gym bro,” she says endearingly, looking back at me.
“Well, I guess I only have one more step then,” I tell her, swallowing hard as I lower down onto one knee on the filthy, diner floor. Something sticks to the knee of my pants, but I stay in position, holding out the ring box for Hannah.
“Chris,” she says, my name coming out in one long breath. “Get up, Chris.” She pulls up at my elbow.
Reluctantly, confused, I lean against the table to get back up to a sitting position in the chair. “Hannah, um, I just thought…”
“No, I know what you thought,” she says, looking down at her fingers while she talks. Her cheeks have a pinkish tinge to them, and her freckles stand out against the blush.
“But…you don’t feel the same?”
Bile rushes up my throat, and my vision tunnels. I wipe sweat away from my brow as I struggle to meet her eyes.
She reaches out for me, her facial expression apologetic.
“Chris, I love you, if that’s what you mean. It’s just…” she flags down a waiter, who bops up to us in all black, nodding already as though he can read her mind.
“Could I get a vanilla milkshake please?” The waiter nods and slinks away, gone just as quickly as he appeared.
“I think we should wait until Tyler is supportive of…us…of… everythingng. He’s my big brother. And your best friend,” she whispers the last part as though people in the diner might hear and judge her, already knowing the whole story somehow.
I nod silently and let her continue. “He’s important to both of us. Let’s just…see if we can’t fix things, OK?”
I fold my hands together underneath my chin and lean against them, watching her beautiful mouth move as she talks.
A shiver goes down my spine as I think of her lips wrapped around my cock. I see her tongue press against the back of her lower teeth, and I imagine that tongue licking at the underside of my mushroom head.
I sit up straighter and push the thoughts away so that I can focus on her words.
“I understand, Hannah. You’re right. I want it to be the best day of our lives, so if it can’t be that without Tyler…” I trail off, thinking of who exactly would be my best man if Tyler weren’t. She’s right, of course she’s right.
“I love you, Chris, and I will love you while you’re in Maine. You don’t have to propose to me to keep me. We can make a long-distance relationship work while you get everythingng set up on the east coast.”
“You wouldn’t want to come with me?” I ask her, pushing my salad away from me with a loud scrape that makes me cringe.
She tilts her head with a serious expression and pushes her own plate away as well.
“I can’t, Chris. I’m running a business here. I have clients that I’m still helping. I’m still helping you. You can’t really ask me to leave right now. I’m just getting this off the ground here. I mean, I still have over half a year left on my lease.”
Seeing my expression, which I’m sure reflects that I feel I’ve been kicked in the gut, she squeezes my fingers and whispers, “We will be okay, Chris. I will be okay.”
I deflate as her words kick in.
I believe her, that she thinks we could make a long-distance relationship work and that we could, but I can’t do it to her. I can’t leave her here pregnant, and she can’t leave here to help me.
She cups my cheek with her palm and murmurs, “Chris. I mean it. I will be okay here, and so will the babies.”
Her waiter arrives with her milkshake and drops it off between us, with two straws inserted into the thick liquid. They sit comically bent toward us, seemingly mocking our moment.
I sit on the sticky booth, making eye contact with Hannah in the dark diner. Her shoulders droop, and I sigh deeply, our bodies having a silent conversation of their own.