Chapter 8 Broken #4
“Are you kidding me?” Hannah says dangerously, feeling her skin flush with fire.
“As if you’re some paragon of truth telling?
Fine, Joanie, then why don’t you disclose all your secrets to the table?
Maybe you could start with, oh, I don’t know, how you’re planning on dumping Luke right before he goes off to Alabama? ”
Hannah wants to snatch the words back as soon as they leave her. A stunned silence spreads over the table, the kind that presses on and on until the point where nothing anyone could say would pull the conversation back from the edge.
Joanie sits paralyzed across from Hannah, her entire face aflame, her eyes wide in shock. Luke sits frozen next to her, his mouth open like he was just punched in the gut, no shadow of dimples on his face.
“I—” Hannah says.
Luke turns to Joanie. “Is that true?”
Joanie can’t look at him; instead, her eyes cut loathingly into Hannah’s. Luke pushes back from the lunch table and moves to gather his snack wrappers, and only then does Joanie grab his wrist and plead, “Luke—Luke, listen—”
He jerks his wrist out of her grip. “See y’all later,” he huffs, storming away.
Joanie turns to Hannah with her face full of a horrible rage Hannah has never seen before. “I hate you,” she spits, clenching her teeth against her anger and tears. “I—hate—you.”
She heaves herself up and runs after Luke, and Hannah sits numbly in her chair, unable to process the wave of hopelessness that comes over her.
She and Wally don’t say anything for a long minute. Hannah is afraid to look at him, to face his disgusted reaction. She can only look at his hands, folding his napkin into tinier and tinier squares.
“I didn’t mean to say that,” Hannah says finally. She chances a glance at him and finds him staring hard at the napkin in his fingers.
He looks up at her, and the expression on his face is not judgmental. “I know. What are you gonna do?”
“Apologize to her when I can.”
“And to Luke.”
“And to Luke,” she agrees, hanging her head.
Joanie doesn’t speak to Hannah on their drive home from school. When they reach the stop sign at the corner of Kleinert and 22nd Street, Hannah takes a breath and reaches deep into her stomach for an apology. “I’m sorry.”
Joanie’s quiet for a long minute. Just before they turn onto Olive Street, she says, “I don’t think you are.”
Hannah glances sideways at her. Joanie stares straight at the windshield, her jaw set and her eyes wet.
Please talk to me, Hannah texts that night.
At two in the morning, when Hannah is asleep, Baker finally responds.
I’m sorry Han. It’s better this way.
On Wednesday morning, Joanie rushes out of Hannah’s car and into the building without looking back.
Hannah watches her go, feeling guilty and shameful and lonely.
She slumps against the driver’s seat and half-heartedly applies her eyeliner until Wally’s green Camry pulls into its usual spot across from her.
“’Morning,” she says as they step out of their cars.
“Hey,” he says, fixing his tie. “How’d everything go with Joanie?”
“She won’t talk to me.”
Wally gives her a sympathetic look. “She’ll come around.”
Just then, Luke’s car skids past them. He bypasses his usual spot and parks in a space much farther down the row. Hannah and Wally watch as he ambles out of his car, hair ruffled, shirt untucked, tie askew.
“Manceau’s gonna slam him with a ton of uniform infractions,” Hannah says.
“I don’t think he’s worried about that right now,” Wally says.
It goes on like that all week: Hannah and Joanie drive to school in silence; Hannah casts a longing look at Baker’s car as she parks; Joanie dashes off into the building without a word; Luke pulls in just before the bell and hurries inside without looking at anyone; and Hannah and Wally continue to hang out by themselves, at lunch and in the parking lot, neither one of them mentioning how much they miss their friends.
“Wally,” Hannah says on Friday afternoon, as they sit on her trunk in the parking lot, “you don’t have to keep me company, you know. You should still hang out with the others. I feel bad.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Wally says, lacing up his track shoes. “This thing’ll fix itself. Friends have arguments, you know? It doesn’t change anything.”
Hannah bites her lip, debating. “Wally…,” she says finally, “this whole thing is my fault. Joanie was right—I was lying before. Baker’s avoiding me, and the rest of you, because of something that happened with us.”
Wally squints at her in the spring sunlight. Hannah looks away because it’s the only way she can keep talking.
“Baker and I—we had an issue. An issue that I don’t know how to resolve.”
Wally waits for her to explain, but Hannah can’t bring herself to say anything else. She merely swallows and meets his eyes.
“It’s okay, Han,” Wally says kindly. “I already knew that, actually. Clay told me.”
Her heart stops. “What?”
“He felt really bad about not sitting with us at lunch. He wanted me to know it wasn’t personal.”
Hannah’s mind races a million miles an hour. What does Clay know? What did Baker tell him?
“He said Baker went to his house on Sunday night and asked if they could talk,” Wally continues. “And … um. She told him she needed some space from you.” He rubs the back of his neck uncomfortably. “I’m sorry, I know that’s hard to hear.”
Hannah struggles to keep her expression even. She sits on her hands to stop her fingers from trembling. “Did she tell him why?”
“Clay said it was, like, something to do with branching out? He felt really torn up about it, but apparently Baker was sobbing and hardly making sense, so he thought he should support her until this whole thing blows over.”
Sobbing. Hardly making sense. Hannah can hardly breathe around the worry and longing and heartache swelling in her chest. “What if it doesn’t blow over?”
Wally puts a protective arm around her back.
“I’m sure it will, Han. It sounded to me like Baker is just trying to figure out who she is independent of us.
Of you. Graduation is right around the corner, and college will be here before we know it, and you know Baker is always thinking seven steps ahead… ”
“I miss her,” Hannah whispers, wiping her eyes on her sleeve. “I just wish she would talk to me.”
“I know,” Wally says soothingly. “But sometimes, when people are scared, they don’t know what to do except run away. And we have to let them go until they’re ready to come back.”
Hannah is full-on crying now, leaning into Wally’s shoulder. “What if she doesn’t come back?”
“You really think she won’t?”
“I—” The question nearly suffocates her. “I’m not sure.”
“Hey,” he says, shaking her lightly. “Everything will be okay. It will work out the way it’s supposed to.
And until then, we just have to look for the silver linings.
Like, maybe part of this will be good for Baker.
It sounds like she’s finally letting Clay in.
He’s all excited because she agreed to go on a date this weekend. ”
Every atom inside of Hannah freezes. “She did?”
“Yeah, they’re going out to dinner tomorrow. He’s actually way nervous about it, which is kind of funny to see. But I think it’s good for him.”
Hannah tries with all her might to infuse some heartiness into her voice, but she feels dazed and exhausted, and has the strongest urge to curl up in her bed. “That’s great.”
Wally smiles. “Right? Personal growth for our guy.”
Hannah tries to smile back, but she can’t help shifting out of Wally’s grasp.
He gets the hint and hops down off the trunk. “Well—I’d better go. I’m gonna be late for practice.”
“Yeah. Sure thing. Bye.”
Wally starts to walk away, but then he stops and doubles back to the car. He wraps his arms around her in a sturdy, secure hold, and Hannah gives in to the embrace, drawing comfort from the warmth of his skin and the woodsy smell of his neck.
“It’s gonna be okay,” Wally says into her ear.
She hugs him hard and doesn’t let herself think about anything else.
Hannah stays in bed until one in the afternoon on Saturday, her mind drifting in and out of sleep, her dreams splintered with memories. She wakes up to fogginess and slips back into darker fogginess. The memories ebb and flow, as real and powerful as the ocean.
Hey, come here, Baker says. I want to show you this piece I’ve been learning.
And Hannah watches, in the theater of her subconscious, as fourteen-year-old Baker, with braces and an overlarge sweater vest, plays the piano for her.
Tell me your favorite thing about nature, sixteen-year-old Hannah says.
Trees, Baker says right away. Really old, beautiful trees.
Hannah wakes again to the sound of the television playing downstairs. She hears her dad pacing around the office. That responsible voice inside of her berates her to get up and do her homework, do something productive, but she turns onto her stomach and slips into the memories instead.
That night, she lies on her back on her bedroom carpet and stares at the ceiling, at the glow-in-the-dark stars Baker helped her tape up there when they were freshmen. She can’t stop picturing everything Baker and Clay are doing right now.
The dress Baker wears. Is it the beige one with the brown belt? The lilac one with the lace sleeves?
Tell me if this looks good, Baker says as she frowns at the mirror in the Urban Outfitters dressing room.
Of course it looks good, Hannah says. Everything looks good on you.
Does Clay wear a Polo shirt and khakis? The new cologne his mom got him for Christmas? Does Baker want to tuck her face into his neck?
You smell good, Baker says on the back porch. Are you wearing perfume?
No, Hannah laughs.
I think it’s just your shampoo, Baker says, leaning her head on Hannah’s shoulder. It smells like you.