Chapter 14 The Fall #2
“You could put an end to it, you know,” Michele taunts. “Tell the truth about Baker’s dirty little secret, and they’ll be too shocked to remember why they were fighting in the first place.”
Hannah can’t turn away from the malicious, satisfied gleam in Michele’s eyes. Whereas Hannah is breaking apart at the seams, Michele seems to be swelling with dark, rotten energy, as if she spent the whole night waiting for this moment.
“I mean it, Hannah,” Michele whispers, staring her down, and with a jolt, Hannah realizes Michele might be the only other sober person here. “Tell them who actually caused all of this. Tell Clay who really hurt him. Take the heat off yourself and get out of here.”
“Stop it,” Hannah says through her teeth.
“You’re no saint,” Michele goes on, “but you deserve better than how she’s treated you.”
And for one terrible, desperate moment, Hannah considers it: throwing in the towel, offloading the burden, leaving Baker to fend for herself in a world of her own creation—
But then Baker appears in the circle of onlookers, and she finds Hannah’s eyes through the shroud of violence between them, and in that long, shattered, naked look, there is something that Hannah recognizes, something that tells her nothing is finished—
“You know,” Michele says keenly, following Hannah’s gaze. “I’ve got a better idea.”
And without warning, something smacks against Hannah’s right cheek with the force of a wooden plank.
“Just a warm-up,” Michele says, retracting her hand.
Hannah’s whole face is stinging, her throat full of tears. Across the circle, Baker looks at her with anguished eyes, and Michele watches Baker’s reaction with a hungry, expectant look. It dawns on Hannah that Michele is using her like bait, hurting Hannah until she gets Baker to crack.
Michele takes a cup from one of her friends and Hannah knows what’s going to happen before it does. She tries to turn away, but the beer hits her full-on in the face, seeping into her eyes and mouth before she can process what happened.
“HEY!” Joanie shouts. “Get away from her!” She launches herself at Michele, slapping and pushing her with all the force she has, until Hannah jumps forward and pulls her off.
“Joanie, Joanie, stop, please stop—”
One of Michele’s friends jabs Joanie in the stomach, and she stumbles backward into Hannah, toppling them both into the dirt.
“HEY!” Luke roars. He jerks himself free from Cooper’s choke hold and starts to run at Michele, but Miles and Walker grab him.
The commotion causes the fight to break up.
Clay and Wally retreat to opposite sides, panting and dabbing their bruised, bloody faces.
The crowd falls eerily silent, and if Hannah didn’t know better, she would think the violence was over.
But a dark, slithering hunger pulses through the onlookers, and Hannah’s neck prickles as she senses the feral anticipation among them.
She knows in her bones that this is merely the eye of the storm, that the crowd is eager to see what Michele will do next.
“I’m giving you three seconds to run, Hannah,” Michele says in a low, deadly voice. Her gaze flickers to Baker and the malicious gleam in her eyes grows brighter. “And then we’ll see what happens when people don’t follow the rules.”
Hannah blinks up at her, her heart in her throat. Joanie starts to rise off the ground, her hand clamped on her stomach, but Hannah pushes her down with a firm hand. She casts one more look at Baker, who stands stock-still, her eyes full of tears and her mouth open on a silent cry.
“Get out!” Michele screams, and then she and her friends lunge forward, and Hannah moves without thinking, jumping off the grass and running a wide circle around the yard, the crowd hot on her heels.
She runs until she’s at the back of the yard, just before the fence and the steep drop to the woods, and as these boundaries come into view, she switches her path to sprint the opposite way—
But Michele’s followers block her path, and she halts, terror gripping her, inching backward to the edge of the yard. She backs up until she’s mere feet from the rickety fence, equidistant from two of the blazing torches.
“Funny predicament you find yourself in,” Michele taunts as she draws near.
The crowd swells behind her, bloodthirsty and ready to strike.
“You’ve backed yourself into a corner even though you didn’t have to.
I gave you an out, Hannah, but you wanted so badly to play martyr. Why couldn’t you just listen to me?”
“You need to calm down,” Hannah says, feeling seriously scared for the first time. “There’s a cliff behind us—Clay’s mom is always warning us about it—”
“There’s also a fence behind you, you drama queen,” Michele sneers.
She steps forward and shoves Hannah, laughing delightedly in her face.
The heel of Hannah’s foot brushes against the fence, and she can feel the weak wood cracking at the touch, and the blood rushes to her head so fast she feels dizzy with it—
“STOP!” someone screams.
Hannah’s breath catches in her chest.
Baker is pushing through the crowd, running toward Hannah, and then she’s scooping her into her arms, pulling Hannah away from the fence and tight against her body.
“I’m sorry,” Baker gasps into Hannah’s ear, “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry—”
Hannah clings to her for dear life, her whole body shaking beyond control.
“Are you okay? Are you okay?” Baker asks, frantically wiping the beer from Hannah’s face.
“Well, this is interesting,” Michele says gleefully. “You ignore Hannah for weeks, but now you want to save her?”
Baker turns to her, quivering with rage. “This is dangerous, Michele. Call it off, right now, before someone really gets hurt.”
“I’m not the problem,” Michele says with a tinkling laugh, gesturing to the riotous crowd around her. “Our dear classmates are pissed, Baker, haven’t you noticed? You’re a woman of the people, after all. Surely you can tell how badly they want someone to pay for all the shit that’s gone down.”
“Hannah hasn’t done anything wrong.”
Michele narrows her eyes and a dark, ravenous smile spreads slowly across her face. “Somebody has, though.”
Baker’s jaw twitches.
“Tell me, Baker,” Michele says in a baiting tone, “why are you suddenly defending her after ignoring her for weeks?”
“Leave,” Baker says through gritted teeth.
“Oh, I’m happy to leave. But before I do, let’s be honest for a second, Baker: Why do you care what happens to her?”
Baker flushes red in the firelight. She opens her mouth to speak, but her words catch.
“Wow,” Michele says, “so much love for your best friend.”
Baker turns to Hannah, her expression tortured. Their eyes lock, and Hannah sees the exact moment she makes the decision.
“I wrote it,” Baker says. Her voice quivers and her arms shake, but she faces the crowd so there is no mistaking her words. “I wrote the email to Ms. Carpenter, and I let Hannah take the blame, and I am the only person you should be angry with tonight. Hannah has nothing to do with it.”
A stunned, choking silence fans over the yard. Hannah, still dazed and reeling, can only focus on Baker’s face: terrified but defiant, confronting the thing she is most afraid of.
“No,” Clay says in a strangled voice.
“I’m sorry,” Baker rasps, but she’s not apologizing to Clay or to anyone else: She is apologizing to Hannah.
Her eyes fill with tears, and the soul shining forth from those eyes is so beaten and bare, so afflicted and terrified, but still so very much the girl Hannah loves.
Baker presses close and cups Hannah’s bruised, stinging face in her hands, touching her skin so tenderly, so achingly, completely giving herself away.
“Oh my god, I told you!” Michele shrieks. She points wildly at Hannah and Baker, putting them on display for the crowd to see. “I told you it was Baker! Look at her—look at them—it’s disgusting—”
Everything happens very slowly. Hannah looks up to see Michele charging toward them, her ugly face contorted with rage, and in the same instant, in her peripheral vision, she sees Baker throw her body behind Hannah’s with the same speed and skill she had on the volleyball court—
And the next thing Hannah feels is a barreling into her chest, a blow that knocks all the breath out of her, and she is ready to tumble over the fence, she is ready to surrender to this last great fall—but no, her body slams into something unexpected, something solid and warm, something shielding her from the worst-case scenario—
And then she is on the ground, and debris is clinging to her skin, and she looks up, dizzy, to see a gaping hole in the fence, as if something has crashed right through the weak, splintering wood—
The crowd of people starts to scream into the night, their panicked voices reaching a fever pitch. Hannah rolls onto her side and peers over the cliff with her very soul caught in her throat.
“Where is she?” someone’s panicked voice shouts, and then Clay is kneeling next to Hannah, his hands clawing at the edge of the yard like frightened crabs in the sand.
Hannah moves on instinct, crawling headfirst down the slope of the yard, her legs dragging against the earth, her hands scrabbling over the dirt.
She crawls farther and farther down, the force of gravity pulling her torso before her legs, and she hears Clay’s voice behind her again, hears it erupt from his throat in a mangled cry, and she knows he’s crawling down the slope, too, and that Wally and Luke and Joanie must be as well—that they’re all crawling down this slope, poised to fall, desperate to stay upright if only to find their friend—
Something catches Hannah’s attention, and a few feet to her right, she sees the trunk of a mammoth tree with a dark shape twitching against it.
“HERE!” she shouts, her voice desperate and raw.
She can still hear people yelling, and now she hears police sirens blaring distantly in the night, but all she cares about is the girl in front of her, the girl whose body has been pinned against this massive tree—this tree that broke her fall—
“Baker,” Hannah whispers, reaching her at last. “Can you hear me?”
“Han,” Baker whispers. She takes a breath, and her whole body seems to rattle with it.
“HELP!” Hannah screams. “HELP! Call an ambulance!”
“Han,” Baker says.
“I’m here. I’m here. You’re going to be okay. You’re fine. You’re fine.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry. There’s nothing to worry about.” Hannah wipes furiously at her eyes, the tears wetting her dirty hands. She bends forward and kisses Baker’s bleeding forehead. “Everything’s okay, Bake. Everything’s okay. Just hang in there. Stay with me, okay? Stay with me.”
Then Clay appears, his strong body crumpled in fear. “Baker,” he cries, reaching for her, “Baker—I’m sorry—Baker—”
Hannah’s not sure what makes her do it, but she reaches toward him and clasps his hand. He jerks his head toward her, his tears glistening in the darkness, and Hannah doesn’t look away.
And they stay like that, holding hands, each of them holding one of Baker’s hands, until the paramedics reach them.