Chapter 25
Theo
I help Hannah lug her surfboard and cooler back to her house after the beach. When I rest the board next to her door and turn to leave, she clears her throat and says, “Do you want to come in?”
For a moment—like an idiot—I look around me, as if she’s talking to somebody else. “Oh—yeah, s-sure,” I stammer. “Why not?” “You can kick your shoes off anywhere,” she says, opening up and flicking on the lights.
I enter cautiously, trying to take it all in but also not look like I’m awed to be here in Hannah’s inner sanctum.
On the outside, the small bungalow is painted a faded sky blue, one of the marine colors I’ve come to associate with her.
There’s a palm tree in the front yard and limp landscaping that looks like someone put in a lot of effort about a year ago, but the neat rows of flowers have since died of neglect.
The inside is more surprising. I wouldn’t have pegged Hannah as an interior design kind of person, or even a neat person, judging by her hotel rooms on tour.
But her living room is tidy and soothing, with cream walls and a sandstone couch.
Green succulents drape over a bookshelf full of records, and oversize tour posters line the walls— Sleater-Kinney, Rilo Kiley, Sleigh Bells. It looks like something you’d
see in an Instagram ad for modern design on a budget.
“It’s peaceful,” I say. “I like it.”
Hannah kicks her sandals into a large pile of shoes by the door. “It’s all Ginny.”
I toe my shoes off, too, then carefully arrange them by hers.
She pads into the kitchen. “Want a beer?”
I peek down the hall, where it looks like the bedrooms are. “Uh, no thanks. But water would be great.”
“Feel free to snoop,” she calls from behind the open fridge door. “I’m sure you’re dying to.”
She’s not wrong. I wander down the hall, studying the photographs of beachscapes that line the wall.
They look personal, not like the kind you buy in big-box stores.
In one of them, I recognize the view from where we just were, Carmela Beach, with its high, white-capped waves and San Gabriel Mountains in the background.
The door to my left is open, so I peek inside.
It’s a bedroom, with an unmade bed pushed against one wall, the white comforter rolled down, blush sheets messy and slept-in.
There are framed pictures of grinning people everywhere, and a massive pink bookshelf overflowing with books, not records.
A crowded blond desk holds a slender white MacBook, floral-print notebooks open to scribbled pages, pink sticky notes in the corner, a half-full glass of water.
Despite the fact that it looks like whomever this room belongs to just stepped out and will be back in a second, it doesn’t feel like Hannah. This has to be Ginny’s room.
Without thinking, I enter.
I’m drawn to her open notebooks, rubbing my thumb over the pages to feel the indentations of her pen marks. Get Han notes on Give Up chorus—dragging she’d scribbled, followed by Pick up BC at Walgreens before date!!!, then Oat Milk, Cilantro.
Hanging above the desk is a wall calendar turned to June 2023, almost a year ago. The weekend of the seventeenth is circled, and in the same looped, slanted handwriting, it says, Weekend at Mom and Dad’s. Then, smaller and lower, D-Day. A combination of fascination and dread builds in my stomach.
There’s a MacBook on the desk, plugged into a charger.
I don’t know what compels me to run my finger over the touchpad, but I do, and the computer awakens.
A text inbox sits in the center of the screen, as if someone has left it up to reread.
I know I should look away, lock the screen—but the messages are from Hannah, and I can’t help myself. I scroll through them.
Sat, Jun 17 at 10:32 A.M. HANNAH: Jesus Christ, Ginny, answer your phone already. Don’t ignore me just because we had an argument, it’s annoying when you do that.
Tue, Jun 20 at 5:06 P.M. HANNAH: They’re telling me you’re gone but I don’t believe it. I’m waiting for you at our spot. Come find me.
Thu, Jul 27 at 11:27 P.M. HANNAH: Ginny, please. This isn’t real. I’m going to figure out a way to turn back time, I promise. I refuse to accept this.
Sun, Sep 10 at 10:01 A.M. HANNAH: Remember how you used to follow me everywhere when we were kids? I take it back, the teasing. Come be my shadow.
Sun, Dec 24 at 8:56 P.M. HANNAH: Christmas means nothing without you.
Wed, Apr 10 at 6:33 A.M. HANNAH: Happy birthday, Ginny. You’re 27 years old today. How should we celebrate?
“She was always a girly-girl,” says Hannah from behind me. “All this pink and flowers.” I jerk back from the computer, scrambling to close the screen. Han
nah stands in the doorway, holding a glass of water in one hand, a long-neck beer in the other. She doesn’t seem to have realized I was snooping, but my heart thunders anyway. I used to think nothing could get more intimate than reading Hannah’s lyrics. Now I know that was wrong.
“I’m sorry,” I say. “I shouldn’t have come in—”
Hannah waves away the apology. “Don’t. I love being in here.” She hands me the water. “Just try not to move anything, if you don’t mind. I’m trying to keep it in place.”
I look closer at the half-full glass of water sitting on the desk and notice the film of dust. “This is how Ginny left it?”
“Pretty much.” To my surprise, Hannah settles into Ginny’s unmade bed. “I like to fall asleep in here sometimes.”
“It’s kind of like a shrine. No offense.”
Hannah shrugs and takes a sip of beer. “The better for her to come back and haunt me.”
I turn to study the photos on the wall, willing my heart rate to return to normal.
In one photo, it’s nighttime on the beach, a large bonfire in the background.
In the foreground, a teenage Hannah stands with her arms slung over the shoulders of a shorter doppelg?nger who has to be Ginny, and a guy who looks like a teenage Tom DeLonge from the band Blink-182.
Kneeling in the sand are a brunette with cutoff shorts and a giant Bugs Bunny tattoo, and a tall, dark-skinned teenager in impossibly baggy jeans.
They’re all wearing megawatt grins. Hannah appears to be the only one soaking wet.
“Don’t tell me you dated Tom DeLonge in high school?”
Hannah follows my gaze, then laughs. “No. That’s Guppy.”
I turn. “A guppy? That might be weirder.”
She nods at the picture. “Well, his full name is Matt Gupperson. That was taken senior year of high school, the night we won Battle of the Bands. That’s Carlos Flores, Ginny, me, Guppy, and Keri Marisculo.
They threw this huge party for us that got broken up by the cops.
I’m wet because they poured Kool-Aid on me like I was a coach at a football game.
Dummies.” She smiles fondly. “We used to get in so much trouble.”
Hannah keeps sipping her beer, smiling to herself, and I scan the wall, looking for something else to prompt her nostalgia. “What—the—?” I sputter, pointing to a picture tucked innocently into a collage. “Is that Ginny kissing Ripper?”
Hannah arches a brow. “If you can believe it, Ginny had an ill-fated romance with Ripper the first weekend she came to visit me at Cal State. It’s actually how Rip joined the band.
I took her to a party at a friend’s house, and he happened to be Ripper’s boyfriend at the time.
Rip spent the whole party wailing on his guitar so loud no one could hear themselves speak.
So Ginny, being the gremlin that she is, bet him I could outplay him. She was always doing stuff like that.”
Hannah sets down her beer and curls up on the bed.
“So, of course, Ripper starts talking all this smack about how there’s no way I have even half his skills, he’s this absolute beast of a player.
We plugged in and I murdered him in front of everyone.
I think sometimes Rip is still stuck in that competition, to be honest. But as a consolation prize, he got to make out with Ginny. ”
“What about his boyfriend?”
She shrugs. “It was college.”
“Well, this sheds light on his obsession with playing lead.”
“Yep.” Hannah’s voice goes soft and she yawns. “I think he probably has PTSD.” She nuzzles her cheek deeper into Ginny’s pillow.
The hours in the sun and the last few weeks of touring are catching up to me too. I stifle a yawn and sink to the floor, my head against Ginny’s desk, legs stretched out.
“Did you ever wish you had a sibling?” Hannah asks.
I cross my arms and think of Kenny and Ripper. “It would’ve been nice to have brothers, I guess.”
“Mm.”
“My mom and I aren’t very close anymore.” In the calm silence, my mind wanders. “Not like we used to be.”
“Why not?” she murmurs.
I swallow a sigh. The truth is, I’ve been thinking about this ever since Liv resurfaced it at the Jimmy Kimmel taping.
“Junior year of college, my mom was supposed to help me move out of my dorm. We were going to turn the drive back to Virginia into a road trip. I was looking forward to it because it had been a while since she and I had spent time together. But she showed up with this guy named Bruce, and the next thing I knew, she’s telling me she and Bruce are in love and she’s so excited for me to spend the summer getting to know him.
” I scoff, a healthy dose of my past outrage still alive and kicking.
“I hadn’t even known she was dating anyone. ”
Hannah’s sound of protest is suspiciously close to a yawn.
My eyes shift to the open window above Ginny’s bed, glowing with pinkish, near-dusk light.
“I was angry. Or hurt, I guess. I had this ridiculous feeling that my mom was betraying my dad. I knew it was stupid. My dad is obviously never coming back, and my mom doesn’t deserve to be alone.
But knowing something doesn’t always change the way you feel about it.
” I blow out a breath. “I didn’t handle it well.
I freaked out and refused to drive back to Virginia with them.
Then I spent the summer hiding out at Liv’s house.
My mom and I have never had it out, but nothing’s been the same since.
We don’t talk the way we used to. Every time we do, I can tell there’s this thing between us.
The ghost of the family I can’t let go of, maybe. ”
The next second, my stupidity hits me and I surge to my knees. “Shit—I’m sorry. That was insensitive.”
But Hannah’s fast asleep, curled on Ginny’s bed.
I stare at her for a moment. Hannah at peace is almost as fascinating as Hannah in motion. Then I tug up the comforter, settling it around her shoulders, and see myself out.