Purposefully Accidental

Chapter Twenty-Four

"Too bad everything turned into shit," I reply in a joking tone, ignoring the faint sensation of my chest being sliced open with an invisible sword at the thought of how our epic romance ended. "You did tell me my genius plan to get his attention was idiotic. Maybe I should've listened when you told me not to do it," I say, not really meaning it.

"You don't mean that," she replies, and I imagine she's rolling her eyes at me right now. Gina knows me too well. "Okay, alright. Enough reminiscing. What actually happened, then?"

"It was pretty civil. No yelling or whatever. We just said hello. And we only talked for, like, three minutes. Then I gave him my number—I had to leave for an appointment with my doctor. In fact, I'm here now at the hospital."

Jonah completely forgotten, my friend's voice turns serious in an instant. "Everything okay? Why are you seeing your doctor?"

"Relax. Everything's fine. It's just a routine check-up. I'm actually supposed to see her next month but might as well do it while I'm here in New York right now." I reassure her, "But nothing's wrong, I think. She looks pleased with the physical exams results. And nothing showed up at the imaging tests. Now I'm just waiting for her to come back and explain the rest."

"I'm really glad to hear that, Hannah," she says softly.

"Yeah. Me too. I'm really lucky." I tell her. I don't tell her that this whole thing still scares the shit out of me, that every day I still wake up afraid that the cancer will come back. That I'll probably live with this fear for the rest of my life, and no matter how much therapy I'm getting, I don't think I'll ever truly feel alright about any of this.

She moves on, sensing my unease. "So, how is he? Did you know that he went viral on TikTok a while ago? I didn't tell you that, 'cause, you know, we don't really talk about him."

"Well, he looks good. You know I don't really keep up with him so I was really surprised to see he hasn't changed much." The past five years, I've tried to avoid seeing his name as much as possible. Which is a bit tricky, since he's become somewhat of an internet personality himself. "And yes, we talked a little bit about that TikTok thing. Were people actually like... thirsting over him getting his hand burnt? That's so weird. He was in pain!"

Gina laughs. "Oh, it was bad. It spilled over to Twitter, and people were making thirst tweets that got over, like, ten thousand likes. Maybe even more, I think. It was viral. Think of the filthiest kind of thirst tweet you could ever come up with, things that would make even Chris Evans blush in those Buzzfeed videos. It went on for days."

My nose scrunches up. Knowing this fact... makes me feel really terrible, actually. But, "At least he didn't go viral because of that finale kiss. Again."

Gina groans into the phone. "Yikes."

"Yikes is right," I match her tone. "Do you know if they're still dating? Or if they broke up again?" I hear her sigh at my question and roll my eyes. "Oh, c'mon. I know you follow him on Instagram."

"He doesn't really post personal stuff. I think he has a social media team that manages his accounts. He probably doesn't even have the app installed on his phone—everything he posts is very... impersonal. All about his restaurant and his cookbooks," she tells me. "But... I don't know. I haven't heard about them in a while. They might be over for real this time."

"Hmm," I mumble noncommittally.

"Last time he showed up on Renata's Instastory was probably as far back as last year. Or even more, I don't know. I don't actively keep up with him, you know. I'm only doing it for you. I can look it up if you want me to," she offers.