Chapter 9 #2
A sharp laugh cut through her chest, the kind that had edges and teeth. Her head spun with such a sudden lightness, such a relief. She was still laughing when a salad and a plate of fries appeared.
“Everyone avoids that word,” she finally said, his eyes wide with concern. “I love that you don’t.”
“You gotta fight fucked up with fucked up,” he said, reaching across the table and snagging a fry. Hanna slapped at his hand.
“I haven’t even had one yet!”
“Fine, fine,” he muttered, pulling his hand back. “But next time hit harder so I’ve got something to fantasize about later.”
Hanna scoffed, her cheeks turning pink, but Milo moved on, unfazed as ever.
“What are you doing tonight?”
“Hmm,” Hanna picked up a fry and pointed it at him. “Why? Chloe busy?”
“We’re going to a friend’s show, if you want to come.”
Hanna, unfortunately, had fallen into the trap that was Chloe. She was fun to be around, even if Hanna frequently had dreams that she was her.
“What kind of show?”
“Cover band. Mostly nineties grunge.”
She’d seen Sara fussing with a seating chart diagram on her laptop that morning. If she were at home, she’d likely get roped into the logistics of how to keep Logan as far away from her as possible, and that wasn't nearly as appealing.
“Yeah,” she said. “Okay.”
“I’ll come grab you at eight-ish? Wear my flannel, it’s very Cobain.”
Hanna giggled and pushed her plate of fries toward him, her veins still buzzing with the high of not having to talk around the pain in her chest.
* * *
Chloe looped her arm through Hanna’s as they waited in line for the bathroom.
The bar was beyond a dive, but in a charming way, or perhaps it was Chloe’s proximity that made it appear so.
The smoke scent clinging to the walls was as old as she was.
There were more people on the stage than watching the band cycle through their renditions of Seattle’s best, but they were having fun, so that was enough.
“They’re getting better,” Chloe said, nodding her head back toward the end of the bar where Milo stood guard over their table and drinks.
Hanna slipped into a warm smile, aided by the third Jack and Diet she’d ordered, much to Milo’s disappointment. “I like the nostalgia of it all.”
“I like that I have someone to wait in line with now,” Chloe said, squeezing Hanna’s elbow.
“Are you sure?” she asked. “I always worry I’m ruining date night for you guys.”
Chloe snorted. “Hardly. Milo and I are just friends.”
“Yeah, he’s, uh, explained it to me a few times.”
“It’s bullshit, to be frank,” she muttered, stepping forward as the bathroom door swung open. “But there’s no convincing him he’s going to live a long and miserable life.”
Hanna bit the inside of her cheek. “It’s hard. Once there’s a number on the table to outlive… the idea of making it longer than your parent did is horrifying.”
Chloe squeezed Hanna’s arm. “I hope you don’t mind that Milo told me about your mom. He wasn’t happy about the whole Love Story thing.”
“Oh,” Hanna said, holding the door as Chloe stepped in. “It’s okay. You didn’t know!”
Chloe motioned her forward. “Here, we can trauma bond while we pee.” Hanna stepped into the bathroom, locking the door behind her.
It was the most intimacy she’d shared with someone in a long time, and she couldn’t help but mentally rally against the fact that it was with Chloe and not the guy waiting for them.
“Milo and I met in group therapy as teenagers,” she said, peeling off her jeans.
Hanna traced phone numbers scribbled on the walls.
“My sister and I were in a car accident in high school. Bitch died on me.” She stood and washed her hands while Hanna took her turn.
“I’ve forgiven her now, but took a good ten years of hating her first.”
“That’s awful,” Hanna sighed. She always hated hearing it, but selfishly, it helped to know she wasn’t alone.
“We reconnected when I started working with him. It’s the only reason he hangs out with me—I already know his bullshit.” She moved out of the way to let Hanna wash her hands, watching her in the mirror. “We haven’t hooked up since you got here.”
Hanna looked up from the sink, her eyes connecting with Chloe’s.
“Really?”
“Just some trivia for you,” Chloe said, a smirk pulling at her lips.
“Sorry—”
“Oh, I’m not telling you because I care! I’ve got plenty of other situationships to take up my time. I just thought you’d want to know.” Chloe reached forward and smoothed Milo’s collar over her neck. “Cool shirt.”
Hanna laughed. “You didn’t get it for him, did you?”
“No,” she sighed, bumping the door with her hip and holding it for Hanna. “The flannels are all his dad’s.”
Chloe skipped toward the bar in the way she skipped toward everything, leaving Hanna to sweat under Milo’s stare as she crossed back to him. The band took to the stage again, diving into another set of late-nineties hits, this time with a twang.
Hanna’s heart beat as each chord plucked at memories within her.
Her mother’s permed hair bouncing in the kitchen as she did dishes and belted every word to every song that graced the country hits station, nowhere near the right key.
She swallowed as she tried to tell herself it was okay—that it wasn’t going to kill her to feel something, that it would pass.
“You good, Arizona?” Milo watched as she struggled to keep her lip from wobbling.
“Fine,” she said, ignoring his unimpressed frown. His hand pressed into the small of her back, the warmth giving her something else entirely to hold onto.
Something even worse than the memories of her mother—the memories she’d never make with Milo.
* * *
“You’re still having a hard day,” Milo said, the words slipping over her shoulders and poking at bruises as they stepped onto the elevator.
He hit floor four, and she shrugged, silently proving his observation true.
“You wanna come in for a bit? Talk about it?”
A heavy breath tumbled away from her. “It’s late.”
“I knew it,” he said, crossing his arms, his leather jacket squeaking against its own friction. The elevator opened and they stepped off. “You turn into a pumpkin at midnight.”
“Caught me,” she said.
His keys jingled as he fished them from his pocket and stopped at his door.
“You could come in and… not talk about it.”
“Milo—“
“I didn’t mean that! Unless—ow! Okay!” Hanna backed away, the satisfying swat of his arm too much contact for the tenor of the air. “But if you aren’t ready to be alone yet, I’m still up.”
“It was the song.”
She hadn’t planned on confessing it. She hadn’t actually consciously realized she had anything to confess. There was just something about him that drew the truth from her.
“Song?” Milo unlocked his door and held it open for her. She took her place on his couch, the same one she’d curled into the night before for movie night, but the room felt different somehow. He dropped a glass in her hand before she even gathered the words to form her thoughts.
“The country one. What’s her face?”
“Deana Carter?”
“Yes.” Hanna sank into the leather, trying not to think of how many women before her had been held by its warmth. “My mom loved that song.”
Milo leaned forward and poured her a decent gulp of one of his experimental bottles, the label only boasting numbers this time.
“My mom also went through a Strawberry Wine renaissance.” He glanced around his apartment, a twist on his lips that sparked something in her nerves.
“What are you doing?” Hanna groaned as he took her glass out of her hand and set it on the coffee table. “Milo!”
He pulled on her fingers, lifting her from the couch as he said over his shoulder, “Hey, Siri, play Strawberry Wine.”
“Milo, what the hell?” She dropped his hand, a knot forming in her stomach.
“It’s exposure therapy,” he said, swiping her hand once more. “We’re building a tolerance.”
The speakers jumped to life with the song's first twangs, the melancholy lilt pushing down on her shoulders.
She shook her head, her hair brushing against her shirt, every nerve on her neck alert.
“This is literal torture!”
He pulled her closer, wrapping a hand around her back and spinning her, his socks slipping over the concrete floor.
“You can handle it.”
Every muscle in her body resisted his sway, locked in an iron defiance, certain she could not, in fact, handle it. Her face flushed and her heart pumped with a white-hot rage.
Milo hummed the first verse while he pushed and pulled, rocking her back and forth, her head reluctantly lolling side to side with the motion. She swallowed, irritated that he’d managed to make something so painful seem even remotely approachable.
He twirled her slowly and she rolled her eyes but played along, her breath catching in her throat at the arrival of the chorus.
When it broke, Milo sang loudly—and poorly, which only added to the charm—bringing her in close to him.
It was the warmth of his chest that finally thawed her frigid heart, melting away the anger and pain that protected something so much more frightening to have exposed.
Love.
She loved the way her mom fucked up the lyrics, no matter how many times they listened to it. She loved the way she couldn’t pick a key. She loved watching her spin and twist in their kitchen, singing into a wooden spoon.
She loved that she could still hear her voice echoing in her mind, off-key and out of time.
“Don’t leave me singing all alone, Arizona,” Milo said between verses. The bridge approached—a big note her mother never even got close to leaving both their lips. Hanna broke. A laugh bubbled out of her, her forehead leaning on his shoulder, and he tightened his grip on her.
“There it is,” he murmured, spinning her out and back in again.
When he caught her, her laugh cut short. Exposure therapy to her memories of her mother was one thing—exposure to the way it felt to dance in a half-lit living room after a night out was another entirely.
Milo held her stare, frozen with her, his fingers weaving into the sleeves of his flannel slung over her hips.
Her stomach rolled in on itself, queasy at the heat in her chest.
How long had it been since she’d felt that little flicker of something? Anything?
“All good?” he whispered.
Hanna forced a half smile, searching for any semblance of a thought to latch onto.
“It’s just always so wild how it sneaks up on you. I heard the first few words and knew it was coming, told myself it was okay to let it kick me in the teeth, and then it took so long to crush me I thought maybe I’d—I don’t know.”
Milo listened, stroking the dark stubble on his neck as they stood, still entangled.
“Well, let me ask you a question. When did you stop loving your mom?”
Hanna’s mouth fell agape. Milo had a lot of nerve, but the notion that there was even an ounce less of love within her sent the heat in her chest straight to her shoulders, pulling back and away from his hold.
“What? I didn’t!”
He held up a hand and circled his fingers as he drank, urging her to follow the thought.
“I never will,” she whispered.
“Then why do you have it in your head that there’s this distant future someday when it won’t take you to your knees? They’re two sides of the same coin—the price of love is grief, Arizona.”
Hanna sighed. “Hate that,” she said, throat closing around the other words she wanted to use. “So I’m just supposed to live the rest of my life between breakdowns?”
“You can minimize the potential for them. That’s what I do,” Milo said. She was sure he thought he was being aloof, but she saw through the veneer of it.
Hanna laughed—and not with him.
“Coward.”
Milo stepped back, tilting his head. “Excuse me?”
Hanna leaned back on her hip, grounding herself as she folded her arms.
“You’re such a coward. I’m a fucking disaster, but at least I haven’t closed myself off to the possibility that one day I might not be.
You waltz around here like you’re so well adjusted…
but of course you are. You’ll never have anything new to hurt you,” Hanna said, shrugging her shoulders in an attempt to dispel some of the strain building in her muscles.
Milo flopped back into his chair and took a long sip of his drink.
“Goddamn, Hanna. I’m just over here trying to be a good little grief counselor—“
She flinched. “But I didn’t ask you to be. In fact, I’ve pretty much asked for the exact opposite—”
“Okay. See, this is exactly why…” Milo trailed off and set his glass on the coffee table.
She swallowed. “Why what?”
“Nothing.”
“I should go,” she mumbled. She brushed by him, seeing red when his hand caught hers once more. “Milo—”
“I’m sorry you had a hard night.” It was the sincerity that crushed her most. The unwavering devotion to forcing her into eye contact, into conversation, into feelings that had claws. “I’m sorry if I made it harder.”
She sighed. “I’ll see you tomorrow, okay?”
He squeezed her hand, releasing it.
She battled the voice in her head that wished he hadn’t the entire way back to her bed.