Chapter 3
THREE
Hanna had forgotten how pretty he was.
Logan called out her name like it was a sacred prayer, and her skin flushed with a boiling red tint and thin layer of sweat. She crossed the final distance between them.
“Hey,” she mumbled, resenting how feeble it sounded as she leaned in and hugged him.
In all her imaginary dress rehearsals, she hadn’t blocked a hug, and the motion threw her off her balance.
She leaned into the momentum and did what none of the thirty sets of eyes on them expected—she hugged Sloane too.
She smelled even better than Hanna feared. Expensive.
“It’s so nice to meet you,” Hanna croaked.
“You too,” Sloan managed, an unexpected sweetness in her tone. She rambled off the requisite small talking points as Hanna tried to manage her breathing.
She liked Phoenix, the sunsets are amazing, the heat is a lot, but at least it’s dry!
Logan’s eyes clung to the floor between them.
When Hanna had counted to one hundred in her head, she widened her bullshit smile and chirped, “I need to freshen up my drink!”
She turned, ready to dart back toward the bar, and patted herself on the back for surviving the first rip of the proverbial band-aid.
“I’ll come with you,” Logan said.
She groaned. So close. “No need!”
“We need drinks, anyway,” he said.
We.
“Okay,” she sighed. Logan walked silently beside her, the heat of Matty’s stare lingering on her back as she busied herself with ice and liquors she wasn’t actually interested in.
“How are you?”
She fought the urge to laugh. How was she?
Well-rehearsed. That’s how she was.
“Fine. You?”
“Hanna,” he snorted. He lowered his eyes to hers, a stinging within them she tried not to choke on. “How are you, really?”
She took a deep breath and a long sip of whatever strange cocktail she’d thrown together. It was not good. It did not matter.
“I’m surviving,” she finally said.
Logan reached for two red Solo cups. “You haven’t returned a single one of my calls.”
“Correct.”
“I’ve been worried about you.”
Hanna rolled her eyes. “Don’t do this, please. I don’t need a white knight to worry about me.”
Logan stepped closer. “You know what I mean. I knew Lisa for ten years—”
“Don’t,” she snapped. It was instant, the burning at the back of her neck. The tears threatened to make a spectacle if she didn’t get him the fuck away from her. “You don’t get to do that.”
“Hanna,” he started, but she held up a hand.
“I can’t do this here. It’s not fair to Sara or your brother.”
Logan blocked her path as she attempted to circumvent him.
“Then when? Can we meet up later? I’m here through the weekend.”
She wanted to tell him absolutely not. She wanted to tell him to get fucked. But his eyes dropped into that boyish puppy-dog expression she knew so well.
“I don’t know. I’ll… I’ll think about it.”
“That’s all I’m asking.”
Hanna sighed again, the prickling in her spine crawling into a suffocating heat.
“That’s not all you’re asking,” she said.
She moved as quickly as she could to get inside without alarming the guests and headed toward the safety of Sara's childhood bedroom. Each step pushed her farther from the breakdown she felt coming, giving her the air she needed to stuff it all back down. She fell onto Sara’s perfectly made bed, counting the boy band posters they’d stuck to the walls with putty in high school.
Everything buzzing against her lips drifted back into the quiet hum she’d gotten used to, the white noise of her grief nearly comforting.
“Hanna?”
For a moment, she thought it was Sara’s voice coming from the hallway, but it wasn’t quite familiar.
Oh.
Sloane poked her head through the door and, for a brief second, Hanna considered how hard it would be to break the window to her right.
“Is it okay if I come in?”
“Uhhh, sure?” she replied, annoyed at her own betrayal. Sloane perched on the edge of Sara’s desk and Hanna waited for her to speak.
She waited for a while.
Sloane’s lips finally parted after a silence so painful she thought they both might implode.
“I just wanted to say that I’m sorry. About everything.”
Hanna couldn’t have stopped the bitter snort if she wanted to.
“Everything, huh? You invent glioblastomas, Sloane?”
Sloane twisted her lips and fumbled with the phone in her hand.
“I just, I feel bad. About the timing of it all. Logan is such a great guy—”
“Yeah. Super.”
“He never wanted to hurt you. We were so careful about not letting anything happen between us.”
Hanna pinched the bridge of her nose. “Very noble.”
“And I guess I just wanted to clear the air between us. Since we’re going to be spending quite a bit of time together this year. Logan was so heartbroken when your mom—”
All of the buzzing in Hanna’s ears condensed with so much force that it ignited a fire at the base of her skull.
“Oh my fucking god, no.”
Sloane shut up.
Hanna tried to breathe through the rising firestorm in her chest, but it was too late. Her anger was driving a bus heading for a cliff, and Sloane had just cut the brakes.
“Listen, Sloane. It’s one thing to feel the need to defend Logan.
I get it. He’s a good guy. He didn’t cheat on me.
Yay!” Hanna slapped her thighs, rising from the bed and knotting her fists against her hem.
“But what we’re not going to do is talk about the literal worst thing that’s ever happened to me with the close second.
We are strangers. Actually? We’re worse than strangers.
We’re before and after. I fully understand that there are many, many painful nights ahead for us, and I will be civil.
I’m a grown woman. But you don’t get to come in here and try to force me to feel bad for not including Logan in my mother’s death. ”
Sloane’s eyes widened, the implications of her comment registering. She held up her hands. “I didn’t mean to—”
“No one ever does.” Hanna was sick of comforting people who offended her.
“Just please, please drop this. Logan is welcome to grieve my mother however he needs to, but he has to do it without me. He gave up that right when he dumped me and he has to live with that. I will not be taking on his guilt.”
“Hanna—”
“That was a dismissal,” Hanna hissed. Sloane shook her perfect fucking hair and slipped out of the door, her cheeks red.
Hanna pushed against her chest, the box of bad feelings she harbored there cracking open and leaking all over her lungs.
Fuck Sloane. Fuck Logan. Fuck brain cancer. Fuck weddings.
It became a mantra as her breathing spiraled out of control, her lips quivering as she tried to quell the misery crashing against her.
“What the hell,” she whispered to herself, her head swimming. It was bad enough having to see them, but a coordinated attack? Diabolical.
She sat back on the edge of the bed, her knees giving out as the panic fully took over, a year’s worth of rage spilling into her veins and rushing from head to toe.
Her nails dug into her palms. Sometimes she just needed to feel something to bring herself back to reality, but even the sting in her flesh didn’t cut above the noise in her head.
Somewhere in her lizard brain, she registered the door opening, but she was beyond seeing through the static. Two bags of ice hit the floor on either side of her as a hand pressed against her chest.
“What are you—”
“Relax,” Milo said. “I’m not making a move. Just trying to help. Count to ten for me.”
Hanna attempted to grasp the number one, but it was just out of reach. Her hands came up, pushing away from him, but he kneeled on the carpet and leaned into her.
“Milo—”
“Don’t waste breath being stubborn. Breathe into your stomach, not your throat.” Milo pressed harder on her chest, applying a steady pressure. The touch grounded her as she inhaled, a wobble in the breath threatening to undo any progress it made.
“Another,” he said, his voice soft.
Hanna held the next one at the peak, counting to five before letting it slip back out.
“One more.”
The third breath was easier, releasing something in her head. She could hear dishes clinking together in the kitchen, the laughter of Cami and her sisters as they poured more wine. She could smell the beer on Milo’s breath, mixed with a smoky amber cologne warmed by his pulse.
“Better?”
She nodded, the panic now replaced with a white-hot shame.
“You have a lot of panic attacks?” he asked, rocking back onto his heels. The air conditioning kicked on, rushing a cool breeze over her.
“Uh. No. Yeah. Sometimes,” she said.
“It’s normal to have them after a significant loss. Or two,” he added.
Hanna avoided his gaze. The concern was too much. She could hear the echo in his voice on the phone eight months ago as she screamed for Sara.
“Thanks,” she mumbled.
“Don’t be embarrassed.” His tone was so gentle that it somehow hurt more than if he had pointed and laughed.
“I’m not.”
“Liar,” Milo laughed. “After my dad died, I’d have panic attacks in the middle of class. It was brutal. Teenagers aren’t very understanding.”
Hanna fought back tears as her emotions circled one another, but they weren’t on her behalf.
“High school?”
“Yeah,” Milo said. He folded his arms as he stood and leaned against the desk, taking Sloane’s place. “I was fifteen.”
“Jesus,” Hanna murmured. “At least I was through puberty. I’m so sorry.”
She could see it, all that pain still sitting right under the surface of his skin, even fifteen years later. The realization unsettled her.
It never went away then.
Milo shrugged. “It gets easier.”
“Does it?”
He sighed as his shoulders dropped. “I hate that I just said that. It used to piss me off. Because the truth is, it doesn’t. It… changes. Gets more predictable, I guess.”
Hanna stood, crossing the space and pulling his forearm between them, the clock resting between her fingers.
“Time of death?”
Milo smirked. “Yeah, not that you’d ever ask.”
Hanna ran her thumb over the face of the clock, the ink rippling beneath her touch. She dropped his arm and pushed the puff sleeve resting above her elbow back, revealing the black and gray wings of the butterfly tattoo she’d gotten just before the holidays.
“My mom had a butterfly tattoo. Felt appropriate.”
Milo reached for the back of her elbow, bringing the artwork closer as he examined it.
“It’s pretty.”
Hanna pulled her sleeve down and reached for one of the bags of ice.
“Shitty club, huh?”
“The fucking worst.” He cracked a smile and grabbed the other bag. “The t-shirts are kinda cool, though.”
Hanna gasped. “You got a shirt! Did mine get lost in the mail?”
Milo nudged her as they left Sara’s room. “I’ll alert the council.”
The ice chilled her hand, a welcome feeling after the hot flush of her panic attack.
“You coming out with us tonight?”
Hanna chewed on her bottom lip. “I don’t know if I have round two of the Logan and Sloane show in me.”
He shrugged, hauling the ice over his shoulder and sliding the glass door open. She trailed him into the backyard and made a concerted effort not to look for Logan while Milo opened the cooler and unwrapped his bag of ice.
“You’re missing out. The hotel has Hibiki on tap.
It’s been a while since my initiation, but I believe…
” Milo grunted as he snagged the second bag of ice from her and turned it over into the cooler, continuing, “That it’s customary for a tenured Dead Parent Society member to buy new recruits a drink. ”
Hanna giggled, despite herself. Her eyes flickered between his and Sloane, who laughed obnoxiously at something Matty said.
“Rain check?” she asked.
“Of course.” Milo opened a can of soda. “That’s the worst part about the Dead Parent Society. Membership never expires.”