Chapter 9 The Prom Queen #4
He hurries away and sneaks down to the first floor. Hannah shuffles like a zombie to the second-floor guest room, where she curls up on the floor with the other girls, praying and praying and praying that the simple math in her head isn’t true.
Mrs. Landry cooks French toast for everyone the next morning, working with an infinite number of eggs and bread slices like a modern interpretation of the Loaves and Fishes. Clay monitors the coffeepot, pouring mugs of dark roast for his many friends, his eyes glazed with tiredness.
“He was up late,” Wally says, following the direction of Hannah’s gaze. “He didn’t come to bed until after we got back.”
“I know,” Hannah says. “I bumped into him upstairs.”
“Wonder what he was doing.”
Hannah picks apart her French toast and tries to focus on the here and now, especially the feeling of Wally’s hand in hers under the table. She squeezes his fingers and commands herself to stop watching the hallway that leads to the stairs.
But it doesn’t matter anyway: Despite the scraping of silverware and the loud voices of classmates around them, Baker never wanders into the kitchen.
Joanie slinks into Hannah’s bedroom while she’s unpacking her overnight bag. “How was it?” she asks, her voice full of acid. “Did you have a wonderful time?”
“It was fine,” Hannah says tiredly. “Not that exciting.”
Joanie’s voice quivers with anger. “Yeah, well, it was probably better than watching Dateline reruns with Mom and Dad while trying to ignore all the photos people were posting. Oh, and trying to forget the beautiful prom dress I had hanging in my closet—”
“I get it, Joanie, I’m sorry. I don’t know what else to say besides that.”
“—Not to mention Luke still hasn’t talked to me, and yesterday would have been his parents’ wedding anniversary, which was one of the main reasons he wanted to go to prom so badly. So that he could forget about it.”
Hannah’s heart sinks. “I’m sorry.”
“You’re going to have to come up with something better than that,” Joanie says bitterly. She spins on her heel and storms away.
That week at school is a tough one. Baker continues to avoid Hannah; Clay speaks to her only sparingly; Joanie ignores her altogether; and Luke, when Hannah tries to apologize to him, simply blinks a few times and wanders away.
Only Wally, with his concerned eyes and his warm hand wrapped around Hannah’s, continues to talk to her.
It makes it both harder and easier for her to make her college decision.
She plops on her bedroom floor, barefoot and wet-haired from the shower, fanning her decision letters across the carpet like she and Joanie used to do with Blockbuster videos.
She eliminates three of them within minutes, and then she’s left staring at her letter from Emory and her letter from LSU.
She reads through their admissions literature again. She browses their websites for hours, reading about campus life and student groups and libraries. She downloads course catalogs and scrolls through schedules and even pulls up coffee shop menus to imagine what she’d order when she’s studying.
None of it matters. She knows, instinctively, which one she’s going to choose anyway.
Her mom hikes her eyebrows excitedly when Hannah treads downstairs with the college letters in hand. “Did you decide?” she asks, setting her reading glasses over her nightgown.
Hannah’s dad, sitting in his beat-up leather armchair, lifts his eyes from his book.
“Yeah,” Hannah breathes.
“What’s it going to be, honey?”
Hannah bites her lip. “What do you think I chose?”
Her parents study her for a moment. Her mom tilts her head thoughtfully; her dad sits very still, his gray eyes unblinking as he reads her with his engineer’s mind.
“Emory,” he says.
Hannah smiles. “Atlanta, here we come.”
They stand up to hug her, and she holds her Emory letter tight to her chest as they wrap their arms around her.
“So, have you heard the news about your best friend?” Joanie says after school on Wednesday. She struts up to the car and waits for Hannah and Wally to break off their conversation.
Hannah squints in the sunlight, shocked that Joanie is willingly speaking to her. “What news?”
“The news about Baker and Clay and their little four a.m. tryst.”
Hannah’s stomach turns over. “What?”
“Joanie—” Wally says warningly.
“Yep,” Joanie says, flinging her bag onto the pavement. “They done the deed, condoms and all. Kind of clichéd in my opinion, having sex on prom night, but whatever gets them off, I guess.”
Hannah cannot breathe. That cold, sick instinct she felt at the top of the stairs spreads over her again. “Where did you hear that?”
“Emily Zydeig just told me. Apparently Clay had to ask Walker for some condoms. Clay was trying to keep it quiet because Baker didn’t want anyone to know, but it sounds like everybody’s hearing about it anyway.”
Hannah looks desperately at Wally. “Did you know about this?”
Wally’s jaw clenches. He doesn’t meet her eyes.
“Oh god, Hannah,” Joanie says disdainfully. “Stop being so goddamn dramatic. It’s just sex. Lots of people are doing it. Except you, apparently.”
“Stop talking, Joanie,” Wally says harshly.
Joanie withers under his glare, but Hannah can’t bring herself to feel offended by the petty dig. She is too busy trying not to throw up.
“I’m sorry,” Wally says, turning to her with crinkled eyes. “Clay asked me to keep it in confidence.”
“So you kept it from me, too?”
“It wasn’t mine to tell.” Wally looks pointedly at Joanie. “It wasn’t anyone’s to tell.”
The sun beats down on Hannah’s hair, burning her. The nausea climbs up her throat and she has to breathe through her nose to beat it back. She’s not sure what to do, where to look, so she stares at the parking lot blacktop while her emotions roil and churn like a ship tossed about in a storm.
“That’s pretty crazy,” Hannah says at last. She swallows and forces herself to smile at Wally. “I feel like a fool, not knowing about it—”
Wally opens his mouth uncertainly.
“I’ve gotta go,” Hannah says, backing away toward the car. “Big paper due tomorrow. Come on, Joanie.”
“Han—” Wally says.
“See you tomorrow,” she says, her voice catching in her throat. She shuts herself in the car, waits for Joanie to do the same, and speeds out of the parking lot with the nausea still threatening to overpower her.
Joanie narrows her eyes in the passenger seat. “What’s wrong with you?” she asks aggressively, but there’s a twinge of doubt in her tone.
Hannah punches the radio dial. “Nothing.”
She drops her book sack on her bedroom floor. She locks the door. She leans her forehead against the wall.
Baker and Clay and their little four a.m. tryst.
She mouths the words to life again. She mouths them a second time.
She mouths them over and over and over until the badness inside of her finally leaks out through half-formed, jagged cries.
They are all air—broken, disrupted air—and no voice.
But she cannot lend her voice to her suffering. Joanie might hear.
She touches her palms to the wallpaper, brushes her cheek against the filmy surface. Her tears bleed into the paper. Her tears. These offerings from her body. She can smell them and taste them.