Chapter 16 The Third Day #3
“Oh,” Joanie says, pulling the door open. “Hannah—”
Hannah walks into view of the door, and there she is, standing outside Hannah’s house, her hands tucked into the back pockets of her shorts.
“Hi,” Baker says.
“Hi,” Hannah breathes.
For a long moment, they simply look at each other. Baker’s eyes are nervous, but she steadies them on Hannah’s face.
“Would you like to go for a walk?”
Hannah’s heart swells. “Yes. Joanie, can you—?”
“I’ll finish the dishes,” Joanie says, a smile playing on her face. “You two go walk.”
The earth is buzzing when Hannah steps outside. She smells the perfume of flowers all around her, hears the trilling of insects deep in her ears. The sky is painted with the colors of dusk. She stands in front of Baker and just looks at her, and Baker lets her.
“You’re here,” Hannah says, full of wonder.
“I am,” Baker says, her voice shaking the slightest bit.
They stand across from each other, arms hanging loose at their sides, simply taking each other in.
“Walk with me?” Baker asks.
They turn onto Olive Street and pad along beneath the trees. The sunset filters through the leaves, creating latticework patches of golden asphalt. Hannah breathes in the summer air and tries to internalize that she is actually here, in this moment, finally on the other side.
“How’ve you been?” Baker asks, and then she laughs self-consciously. “Sorry, that’s like…”
“A loaded question?” Hannah teases, and they look at each other again, and Hannah sees the old spark in Baker’s eyes.
“Really, though,” Baker says quietly.
Hannah thinks about it. “I’ve been good.” She’s happy to realize she means it. “I feel—like I’m me.”
Baker’s eyes shine. “Good.”
Hannah kicks a pebble down the street ahead of them. It skips across the pavement, the only sound in the world. “You haven’t been here,” she says. “Where did you go?”
“New Orleans. I went down to stay with Nate as soon as my mom would let me.”
“How was it?”
Baker nods to herself, trying to articulate her answer. “It was what I needed.”
They cross over Drehr and continue down Olive, their sandals scraping against the asphalt.
“Hannah…,” Baker says.
“Yeah?”
“When I was there—in New Orleans—I figured out a lot of things. Not just the stuff with you and me, but, like, how I feel even beyond you. About girls, and boys, and faith, and my family … and it was really hard to do. It was really hard to figure out the truth.”
“I know what you mean.”
Baker takes a sharp breath. “I went to confession while I was there. I asked for forgiveness for everything I did to you.”
Hannah swallows. “It must have been hard to say all that to a priest.”
Baker takes a moment to respond. “It wasn’t him I was talking to.”
Hannah remembers that early morning in the St. Mary’s chapel, when she made her own kind of confession in a trembling, daring voice, and she understands exactly what Baker means.
“But Han,” Baker continues, “when I was there, what I realized was—I realized I was afraid of the truth. I was scared. I felt, like—I felt like I was trapped by these feelings I didn’t want to have, and I didn’t want to deal with what it meant, and what people would say, and how I would negotiate with my faith …
and I resented you for finding your way into my heart like you did.
I was scared of you. Being around you, it was like—you were everything I wasn’t supposed to want.
You’re—no one told me about you. When I was growing up, it was always, ‘One day, when you meet a nice boy,’ or, ‘When you have a husband…’ No one ever told me that it might be different.
That it would be okay to be different. So I just—I had this deep sense of shame about myself. About the way that I felt.”
“I had that, too,” Hannah says. “I talked to Ms. Carpenter about it.”
“I talked to my brother. I told him the whole story.”
“You did? What’d he say?”
“That it was important for me to figure out what it all meant, and that I couldn’t listen to anyone but myself. And he hugged me a lot.”
Hannah smiles. “I love Nate.”
“He loves you, too.”
“Did it help?”
“Yeah. But mostly—I think mostly it was just talking to myself. Really forcing myself to confront the truth, you know? And praying. A lot of praying. Because—ultimately I realized something.” She takes a slow, deep breath.
“I realized I had to deal with it, all of it, the fear and confusion and shame, because otherwise there was no way to be with you. And I realized that’s what I really want, when it comes down to it.
I want to be with you. I’ve wanted to be with you for a while.
I wish I’d realized it sooner. I wish someone had told me that it might be you.
I wish someone had said, ‘One day, your heart will feel a lot bigger than it was before, and that’s when you know.
’ Because—that’s how it is with you, Han.
You make me feel, like—God, I don’t even know.
Like being with you makes me a thousand times better than I am.
Like my eyes are clearer when I look at things.
And when I’m not with you, it’s like—like my heart can’t breathe. ”
Hannah briefly closes her eyes. She lets these beautiful words wash over her, lets them seep into her skin.
“Hannah,” Baker says, and her voice is wet now. “I want to be with you, and I’m so sorry for all the pain I put you through just to figure that out. I’m sorry for playing games, for hiding from you, for—for Clay—”
Hannah ducks her head.
“I know,” Baker says, tears spilling down her face.
“I am so, so sorry, Han. For that, and the email, and everything I did to you. I was scared and ashamed. I was a coward.” She pauses and looks at Hannah, her eyes pleading.
“But, Han … I’m tired of being scared. I’m tired of being ashamed.
And I’m tired of not being with you. I still might get scared sometimes, and I still might feel a little ashamed, but I want to work through it because—because all I want is to be with you.
I know you might not want that anymore after everything that’s happened, but I just had to tell you this because—because I love you. ”
Hannah stops walking. Baker stops, too. And, finally, they face each other.
“Hannah,” Baker says, searching her with those deep brown eyes. She speaks her name again, in the way that only she can do, and it rings in Hannah’s head over and over. “I love you. I love you so much.”
And Hannah knows it’s true, because she sees the proof in Baker’s eyes: They are vulnerable, and full of wonder, and begging Hannah to love her in return.
And suddenly, the most miraculous peace emanates from Hannah’s heart, spreading across her body from her core to her fingertips, warm and unstoppable and steady as a sunrise.
She steps forward and takes Baker’s hand.
“I love you, too.”
Baker breathes. “Really?”
“Yes,” Hannah says, wiping her tears away. “I love you very, very much.”
Baker’s smile breaks across her face, so bright and overwhelming that it makes Hannah dizzy. “This is—I mean, it’s like—”
“I know,” Hannah laughs.
“I need to ask you something, though.”
“Sure. What is it?”
Baker struggles to get the question out. She ducks her head, the tears coming fast again. Hannah wants so badly to help her through it, but she knows Baker needs to do this herself.
“Do you forgive me?” Baker asks. “For everything I did?”
“Oh, Baker,” Hannah says softly, reaching for her hand. “Of course I do.”
Baker’s whole body seems to sigh in release. Hannah pulls her flush against her, wrapping her as tightly as she can, cradling her head against her shoulder. She can feel Baker crying again, her tears bleeding through Hannah’s tank top and into her skin.
“It’s okay,” Hannah promises her, kissing her temple. “It’s okay.”
Baker clutches Hannah’s back, her body shuddering with tears, until her breathing starts to even out.
“You’re all right,” Hannah soothes, pulling her fingers through Baker’s hair.
Baker pulls away slowly, sniffling and clearing her throat. Her eyes are red and puffy, and she wipes at her mouth and her nose, embarrassed.
“You’re beautiful,” Hannah tells her.
Baker blushes and shakes her head, then holds her fingers up to her eyes, trying to collect the remaining tears from her lashes. “Let’s keep walking.”
“Where do you want to go?” Hannah asks.
“Home,” Baker says. “Let’s just go home.”
That feeling comes back into Hannah’s chest, that growing, drumming feeling that warms her from the inside out, and she begins to laugh, a wonderful, relieved, expansive laugh that shimmers in the heat.
Baker looks over at her, and a smile spreads across her face, a joyful, radiant, genuine smile that finally reflects the soul within.
There are so many more things Hannah wants to talk about with her, and she knows Baker wants to talk about them, too, but for tonight they simply fall onto the big couch in the family room and watch an old movie with Joanie.
Joanie doesn’t say anything to them, just smiles knowingly when they plop down next to her.
Baker curls up against Hannah, reaching shyly for her hand beneath the blankets, and for the first time in months Hannah feels whole.
She walks Baker out to her car when the movie ends. Baker leans against the driver-side door, her complexion flushed beneath the streetlamps. All of a sudden, she seems nervous again.
“Thank you for tonight,” she says, fidgeting with her keys.
“Thank you,” Hannah says.
“You’re the bravest person I’ve ever known.”
“So are you.”
“No,” Baker says, glancing at her feet. “But I’ll try to be right now when I ask you for something.”
“What?”
Baker looks up at her. “Um.” Her voice shakes. “Can I—can I kiss you?”
And it’s too perfect, and Baker is too pretty standing there against the car, and Hannah’s heart is too, too full.
“Are you sure?” Hannah asks, trying to fight down her silly grin. “Out here?”
Baker smiles knowingly. “Out here, Hannah-bear.”
Hannah steps closer to her, places a hand on her hip where her halter meets her shorts, leans into her. Baker finds her eyes and takes a deep, careful breath. She fits her hand on the small of Hannah’s back and leans closer.
And then, with a simple touch of her lips, Baker kisses Hannah beneath the lights of a street lamp and the leaves of an oak tree.