Chapter 8 Broken #3
“Yeah, her. She got into LSU Honors.”
“So just the two are going to LSU?” Uncle Joel asks, offended that the number isn’t higher.
“Yeah, but they’re probably happy about that,” Joanie laughs, glancing sideways at Luke. “I don’t think they’ll mind it being just the two of them.”
“What?” Hannah’s mom asks, her eyes growing wide at this new piece of gossip. “Are they together now?”
“I don’t know, kind of?” Joanie shakes her head. “They’re weird.”
“Very weird,” Luke agrees.
“I always thought they’d be cute together,” Hannah’s mom says.
“Is Clay going to play at LSU?” Hannah’s dad asks, speaking for the first time since they sat down.
“He might try to walk on,” Luke says. “But I don’t think he’s gotten his hopes up about it.”
“Tell him to try,” Uncle Joel says, pointing his fork at Luke. “No harm in trying. We need new talent. You tell him that.”
“Joel, for heaven’s sake,” Aunt Ellie says. “Leave the poor kid alone. Anyway, I want to hear about Hannah’s college plans.”
“Oh,” Hannah says, relieved to have moved on to a safer topic. “I haven’t decided yet.”
“Don’t they have deadlines for these things?” Uncle Joel says.
“She’s got time,” Hannah’s mom says. “She’s choosing between several schools that offered her admission. It’s a good problem to have.”
“She got into Emory,” Hannah’s dad says proudly.
“I heard!” Aunt Ellie says. “That’s beautiful news, Hannah. Beautiful. Are you leaning toward Emory?”
“I’m not really sure,” Hannah answers, trying to sound polite and engaged so Aunt Ellie won’t call her touchy again. “I got my acceptance letter just before we left for the beach, so I haven’t really had time to sit down and think about it. And Atlanta’s kind of far—”
“But isn’t that where Georgia Tech is?” Aunt Ellie asks. “So you’ll have your friend nearby?”
“Yeah, Han,” Joanie smirks, “so you’ll have your friend nearby?”
Aunt Ellie starts to laugh behind her hand. Joanie laughs, too, and Luke snorts into his napkin. Even Hannah’s mom has to bite her lip to keep from laughing.
“Are we done?” Hannah snaps, her heart hammering. “Or did you want to keep being a bitchy little blabbermouth, Joanie?”
The table goes dead silent. Aunt Ellie pauses dramatically with a bite of salad halfway to her mouth.
“Screw you, Hannah,” Joanie says, her eyes burning. “Learn how to take a freaking joke.”
“Stop being such a freaking gossip. Or do you just do that because you’re insecure about how much of a baby you are compared to the rest of us?”
“Screw you!” Joanie yells again, slamming her napkin onto the table. “God—you are such a—” She shakes her head with fury. “Come on, Luke,” she says, pulling him up from the table, “let’s go for a walk.”
They storm out of the dining room, Luke glancing uncomfortably back at the table.
The front door slams and Hannah sits stock-still in her seat, unsure of what to do.
After a long moment, Hannah’s mom starts to clean up the dishes, and Aunt Ellie gets up to help her.
Uncle Joel shakes his head and takes another bite of ham.
Hannah’s dad sighs at the other end of the table. When Hannah looks at him, begging him to say something, he takes off his glasses and stretches back in his chair in a way that only fathers of teenaged daughters can do.
“You always had a way with words, Hannah,” he says tiredly.
Hannah parks next to Baker’s 4Runner on Monday morning, just as she does every morning, but today Baker isn’t waiting for her.
Hannah looks over at the empty driver’s seat and imagines Baker sitting there as usual, tapping a pen against her teeth while she checks her daily planner, then grinning when she realizes Hannah has pulled in next to her.
Joanie gets out of the car without a word. She slams the door behind her and walks over to Luke’s car to take his hand. There is no sign of Wally or Clay, so for the first time all year, Hannah walks into the building alone.
She sits through first period with her stomach in knots, hardly paying attention to Mr. Montgomery.
During her unassigned period, she sits in the senior lounge with Wally and tries to distract herself with her Theology homework, but the leaden weight in her stomach gets bigger and bigger.
By the time she walks into the courtyard at lunchtime, she is almost sick with anxiety at the prospect of seeing Baker face-to-face.
“Yo,” says Joanie, joining her at their usual table. Hannah is shocked that Joanie is speaking to her again, but before she can wrap her head around it, Joanie asks, “What’s up with Clay and Baker ditching us?”
“What?” Hannah asks, not processing.
“Look,” Joanie insists, pointing across the courtyard.
And sure enough, there they are: Baker and Clay, ensconced at a table in the middle of the courtyard, surrounded by their friends from the volleyball and football teams. Hannah watches them with a clog in her throat, hating how everyone at the table fawns over the pretty pair of them, and how Clay smiles at Baker like she hung the moon.
“Is this some sort of, like, We’re-dating-now-so-we’re-gonna-branch-out-on-our-own gesture?” Luke asks, dropping onto the bench next to Hannah.
“They’re not dating,” Hannah says before she can stop herself.
“Well, whatever they’re doing, I have to admit I feel pretty slighted. Shouldn’t we at least have gotten some sort of friend group breakup memo about this?”
“Maybe they’re pissed because we cockblocked them in Destin,” Joanie stage-whispers to him.
Wally joins them at the table, tilting his head thoughtfully at Baker and Clay.
“What?” Hannah asks him. “What are you thinking?”
“It’s just weird,” Wally says after a moment. “It’s not like them.”
The four of them stare forlornly for a moment, their lunch trays forgotten on the table.
Hannah knows they must look pathetic, at least judging by the snickers coming from nosy classmates at other tables.
Michele in particular keeps swiveling her head to watch them, looking entirely too grateful about the band breaking up.
“Is this, like—should we talk to them?” Joanie asks. “Maybe it’s just a honeymoon phase?”
Hannah truly feels like she might be sick. She grabs her fork and clenches the cool metal in her hand. “Let’s just eat.”
The four of them do their best to laugh and talk and tease as usual, but Hannah can hardly swallow her food. When the bell rings, Baker grabs onto Clay’s book sack and follows him into the building, and Hannah’s stomach is somehow emptier than before she sat down for lunch.
Hannah stares at her Calculus homework for a very long time that night.
We missed you at lunch today, she texts.
Baker doesn’t reply.
Baker’s 4Runner has moved four parking spaces away the next morning. Hannah’s stomach drops when she sees it.
“What the hell?” Joanie says, momentarily distracted from applying her mascara. “What is going on?”
Hannah stares stupidly out the window. “I don’t know,” she says in a dead voice.
“Hannah. Seriously. What’s going on?”
Hannah’s torso aches like someone just rammed into her side.
“I don’t know,” she says again.
Baker doesn’t speak to Hannah during Ms. Carpenter’s class. It’s the most excruciating silent treatment yet, because with only the width of an aisle to separate them, this is the closest their bodies have been since Destin. Hannah wants to cry when she smells Baker’s familiar perfume.
Baker and Clay sit at the other lunch table again. Hannah sits with her back facing them, determined to pay attention to Wally, Luke, Joanie, and no one else. She pushes her feelings down the same way she pushes her spoon into her pudding cup.
“I guess we’re on Day Two of our trial separation?” Luke says, nodding his head toward Baker and Clay.
“Guess so.” Joanie frowns. “I’m tempted to go confront them about it, those assholes.”
“Don’t,” Hannah says quickly.
“Why not? They’re being so weird. Clay keeps doing this awkward guilty smile thing, like he knows he’s being a piece of shit but doesn’t want to acknowledge it, and Baker won’t even look at me.
I passed right by her on the way to lunch and she totally looked the other way.
Like, on purpose. The fuck is that about? ”
“She’s been fine to me,” Luke says between bites of his sandwich. “We worked on our Econ study guide together this morning. By which I mean, she worked on finding the answers while I worked on telling her jokes.”
“Do you think they walked in on us in the hot tub?” Joanie asks under her breath.
“Oh my god, stop,” Hannah says, holding up her hand.
“I don’t think this has anything to do with what y’all choose to do in hot tubs,” Wally says seriously. “They’re being weird for some other reason.”
“You have to know, Hannah,” Joanie says.
“What?”
“Come on. I know we’re all close with each other, but you and Baker literally tell each other everything. I have a hard time believing you don’t know what’s going on.”
“Joanie, I told you already, I don’t know.”
Joanie takes on that challenging expression she used to get as a little kid, the one she’d wear when she and Hannah would sneak downstairs to watch the Disney Channel in the middle of the night. “You’re lying. I can tell.”
“I’m not lying,” Hannah says heatedly.
“Hannah, your ‘best friend’ is sitting way over there, completely ignoring you, and completely ignoring us. So maybe it’s time you let some other people in, huh? We’re your best friends, too, you know. Maybe it wouldn’t kill you to share the truth with us for once—”
“That’s not even—Jesus, Joanie—”
“Maybe we should take a breather—” Luke interjects.
“Just tell us, Hannah,” Joanie huffs. “God, it’s not like the rest of us are withholding information from each other—”