Her Name In The Sky
Chapter 25 : Hannah swallows. "Yeah."Joanie studies her for a moment, and Hannah keeps her

Hannah swallows. "Yeah."

Joanie studies her for a moment, and Hannah keeps her head down, bracing for the question that might come. "Okay," Joanie says, and her voice sounds nervous all of a sudden. Hannah looks at her. There is something fearful and expectant in her eyes. "What is it?" she asks.

The question hangs between them for a second. Hannah searches Joanie's expression, looking for signs that Joanie already knows what she needs to say. Joanie stares back with her jaw set.

Hannah's face sears with heat. Her whole body revs up for danger, her primal instincts kicking into gear like those of a trapped animal. She can hear her heart pounding in her head.

"I have-feelings," Hannah says carefully, her voice shaking. "Feelings for-for-"

"For Clay?" Joanie suggests, her eyes too hopeful.

They look at each other for a long second. Hannah considers capitulating to the lie Joanie has handed her. Joanie looks scared, yet defiant.

"No," Hannah says finally, the word wrestling its way out of her throat. She takes a breath. "Not for Clay. For Baker."

Joanie stares hard at Hannah. She blinks once, twice. The entire moment feels surreal, like they're playacting the way they used to as children.

"Okay," Joanie says finally.

"Okay?"

"Yeah," Joanie nods. "That makes sense. I mean, I always wondered if maybe-" She nods her head again. "Okay. I'm glad you told me."

"You're not-it's not weird?"

"Why would it be weird?" Joanie says, and the question is so affectedly defiant-grounded in heartiness, like Joanie expected to be asked this question and rehea.r.s.ed this inauthentic answer to preempt any real a.n.a.lysis-that Hannah starts to cry. She opens her mouth and tries to respond, but her response turns into a sob, a sob as quick and surprising as a hiccup, and now Hannah is sobbing into her pillow, sobbing so loudly and physically that her body starts to feel like it isn't even hers, like it's functioning independently, casting out demons at the command of the Christ.

Then she feels Joanie's weight on her body, feels Joanie hugging her through the duvet cover, hears Joanie whispering to her that it's okay, it's okay, it's okay. She cries and shakes and thinks of Baker, drowning in toxic shame, fighting to exorcise it from inside of her, wondering to what depth it goes.

She cries for long minutes while Joanie holds her through the covers. "It's okay," Joanie says, her voice raspy, her weight still on Hannah's body. "It's okay."

When Hannah's last cry pours out, she breathes hard into the pillowcase, inhaling its laundry detergent scent, drawing comfort from the familiarity of it.

Then it's quiet, and Hannah listens to the hum of the air conditioning running through the house.

"Sit up," Joanie says. "I brought you some Sprite."

She feeds the gla.s.s into Hannah's hand, and Hannah gulps down the soda, imagining it flooding over her empty body and fizzing away all the bad things.

"Why didn't you tell me?" Joanie asks. Her eyes are large and pained and bluer than usual.

"How could I have?" Hannah says.

"Hannah, I'm your sister. You can tell me these things. You can tell me how you feel."

"I didn't know how."

Joanie picks at a snag on the comforter. "Um," she says. She raises her eyes carefully to Hannah's. "Do you like other girls, too? Or is it just Baker?"

Hannah drops her eyes to the floral pattern on her comforter. The question hangs between her sister and herself, delicate and important like the long threads they used to swing their stuffed animals on when they were younger.

"I think," Hannah says evenly, tasting the words, "that I like girls in general. I think I always have."

"How long have you known?"

"I don't know-I mean, it's like, how long have you known your own name?"

"Yeah." Joanie pauses. "Do you think Baker feels the same way?"

Hannah glances around her bedroom-at the clothes on the floor, at the hairbrush on the dresser. Her eyes settle on a picture of Baker and herself from last summer. They're sitting on the back porch at Wally's house-Hannah on Baker's lap, Baker's arms clasped around Hannah's waist-while Joanie and Luke photobomb the picture from behind. Baker's mouth is open mid-laugh, her eyes dark and happy, a piece of gum visible on her back teeth. They had all been drinking Bud Lights and eating Doritos on the porch that night, while Wally's mom was away with his two younger brothers, and it had started to rain, one of those light, humid rains that made the backyard feel like a sauna, and they had all stood up to go into the house until Baker had said, in a voice full of wonder, "Wait-why don't we just stay out here and experience it?" So they had stayed sitting on the porch, yelling at each other about how they were all dumba.s.ses, watching the rain drip down their wrists, feeling it slide down their noses, until they were all wearing the rainwater like another layer of clothing.

That was one of the stupidest things I've ever done, Hannah had laughed later.

Don't knock it, Clay had said.

She's not, Baker had said, her eyes lighting on Hannah. That's just Hannah-speak for loving something.

"What are you thinking, Han?" Joanie asks.

"Just remembering something."

"About Baker?"

"Yeah."

"What happened at the beach?"

"What?"

"The beach," Joanie says. "Everything was all fine and great while we were there, but then it went to s.h.i.+t when we came back. What happened?"

"I don't know, we just...."

"Did you tell her how you feel?" Joanie guesses. "Did you, like, confess to her?"

"In a way," Hannah says dazedly.

"What did she say? Did she feel the same way?"

Hannah hesitates. "It's hard to explain. I think-that even if she did, she wouldn't allow herself to let anything come of it."

"What do you mean?"

"Like, she has these ideas, you know, of how she's supposed to be. Of what it means to be the good girl."

Joanie sighs. "I cannot figure her out."

Hannah says nothing.

"Han?"

"Yeah?"

"What about Wally?"

Hannah's heart drops. "I love him, too," she says, her voice sad and wistful, "but it's not the same."

Joanie swallows. "I worry that he really loves you."

"I do, too."

"Han-I'm sorry that I didn't talk to you for so long. Especially when you were going through this."

"Don't be sorry. I deserved it."

"I didn't understand."

"I didn't know how to explain."

They lapse into silence, until Hannah starts to blow bubbles in her Sprite gla.s.s.

Hannah stares at her phone screen for a long time that afternoon, until her fingers can no longer stay still.

How are you feeling?

Baker doesn't reply.

School is better and worse on Monday. Better because Joanie is talking to Hannah again, worse because Baker is not.

"She could at least, like, acknowledge that you took care of her on Sat.u.r.day night," Joanie says at lunch. "A simple 'Hey Han, thanks for wiping all that vom off my face' would suffice."

Hannah, Joanie, and Wally gaze in the direction of Baker's lunch table. Baker sits in her usual place-right in the middle of the table-and Clay sits next to her, occasionally reaching out an arm to squeeze her protectively around the middle, his leather letterman's jacket creasing every time he does so. Baker looks thin and sallow; her hair looks unkempt and her eyes seem smaller on her face.

"Exactly how sick was she?" Wally asks.

Hannah shakes her head and looks to Joanie.

"Sick," Joanie answers. "Like, totally incapacitated. She was heaving her freaking guts out."

Wally looks sideways at Hannah. "And she let you take care of her?"

"I think she was too out of it to argue."

"That's not true," Joanie says. "It's more like, she was so out of it that she acted like her true self instead of this weird person she's been lately."

"I don't get her," Wally says. "I mean, I've never understood her the way you do, Han, but now I understand her even less."

"You and I are in agreement on that, Walton," Joanie says.

"Did Clay tell you anything more about what happened on Sat.u.r.day?" Hannah asks.

"Nothing that you haven't told me," Wally says.

"She looks so skinny," Joanie says. "And like she needs a really long nap."

Hannah watches Baker again, and the ache in her heart bleeds anew.

Hannah charges her way through her final exams, feeling grateful for the distraction of intense studying. She and Wally continue to meet at Garden District Coffee to trade notes and make outlines together, and now Joanie comes, too, and buys them all sugar cookies when they need a break. "You look like you're just drawing lines of gibberish," Joanie says as she watches them work through a calculus problem. "Why the h.e.l.l would you take AP Calc anyway?"

"Because now I won't have to take Calculus in college," Hannah answers distractedly. "I can just take all the English and humanities cla.s.ses I want."

"Yeah, and I can nerd out with even crazier math cla.s.ses," Wally says.

"That's why we love you, Wall," Joanie says. "But don't expect me to root for the Yellow Jackets."

"I would never lay that ridiculous expectation on you, J. But I might expect you to come visit."

"Are you kidding? f.u.c.king duh. I'll be there anyway to see Han. We can all hang out together."

"Yeah," Wally agrees, nudging Hannah's leg under the table. "It'll be awesome."

On Tuesday, after her Theology final, Hannah spots Luke standing alone at his locker. "Hey," she says, approaching him tentatively. "How'd you do?"

Luke turns around in a daze, like he wasn't prepared for her to speak to him. "Hey," he says after a moment. "I did okay. How about you? Did you blow it out of the water?"

"I think I did alright."

"I forgot a lot of that stuff about Vatican II."

"Yeah, there's a lot to remember."

"So then I just played dumb and wrote down that Vatican II was the sequel to a really bad sci-fi movie."

Hannah grins for the first time in a long while. "Did you really?"

"No," he laughs, and she sees that old familiar hitch in his smile, and for a second she forgets that anything ever came between herself and her friends.

But then Luke's grin shrinks into an expression of sadness, like he has just remembered himself. "Anyway, I better go," he says, swinging his booksack over his shoulder. "See you later, Han."

He walks away before she can think of anything else to say to him.

"I didn't think the end of high school would be like this," she tells Joanie when they're was.h.i.+ng dishes on Tuesday night.

"Like what?"

"Like-so messed up. So fragmented. I mean, just a few weeks ago we were all getting drunk together and talking about our future trips to Destin. And now our group's totally split up. I always imagined the end of high school would be bittersweet, not just bitter."

Joanie is silent as she towel dries a saucepan. "Yeah," she says finally.