Jack Johnson
"You should talk to her," Mallory suggests, parking in front of my house.
"Who?"
"Hannah, dumbass. Who else would I be talking about?"
After Mallory decided to jump out of the car and practically attack Hannah, we went to go see a movie, which turned into two, which turned into three, which turned into four and a half until we got caught and were thrown out of the movie theater and told to never come back.
I'm just glad we weren't arrested. Mallory, on the other hand, was furious with how things panned out.
"That's literally the only movie theater we have here!" She scolded me.
"Hey, it wasn't only my idea! You went along with it!"
"Only because I felt bad for you and didn't want to leave you by yourself!"
"Why'd you feel bad for me!?"
"Because you miss Hannah."
That's where the conversation turned deep and I ended it, but here we are now, saying goodbye, and she felt the need to resurface it.
"See you tomorrow," I state, swerving my body as I attempt to maneuver out of the car.
There's a sudden click and I realize she's locked the door. "Jack..."
"Mal...she doesn't want to talk."
"She doesn't want to talk? Or you don't want to talk?"
"Unlock the door," I plead, not wanting to have this conversation.
"Not until you unlock your feelings."
"That was the suckiest line ever," I laugh, falling back into my seat. Mallory's not going to crack anytime soon, I might as well get comfortable.
"It's accurate though," she defends, giving me a look.
"I get that you're trying to help me out and all, but really. I don't need it."
"That's a good one considering Hannah was the one who had to get you to reach out to me in the first place, because you didn't have the balls to do it yourself," Mallory argues.
I bite the inside of my cheek, not having a response for that one - it's the truth. I have a severe problem when it comes to communicating what's going on in my head. I lack in that department.
"I'm not good at this in case you haven't noticed," I remind her.
"Oh I've noticed," Mallory assures me. "I did date you for almost a year in case you've forgotten."
I sense a bit of venom in her tone and instantly feel guilty for everything I've put her through. "Of course I haven't forgotten. How could I?"
She frowns, pulling away as I reach up to touch her cheek. "I don't need your pity right now."
"Pity?" I echo, my eyebrows pulling together.
"Yes, pity," she hisses, adverting her eyes to the dashboard. "You always give me pity touches or pity kisses or pity sex whenever you feel bad about something. I'm just as bad as you are for accepting it for so long, but now I'm speaking up to say knock it off already. We both need to move on."
I'm taken back by her sudden anger, not knowing where it's coming from. Running my hands through my hair I stare out at the trees. It really is awful to admit it, but I can see exactly where she's coming from.
That is what I do. What I've been doing since the start of the summer. I can only count the amount of times we've gotten intimate since then on one hand, but that doesn't make it okay. We're not even together. I guess it just took her to snap at me about it to realize how it was effecting her, and how it could possibly be effecting me.
"I don't mean to..." is all I can manage to say. "I won't anymore."
"I understand that you're horrible at dealing with your emotions," Mallory explains. "You need to find a better coping mechanism - as do I...and I think reaching out to Hannah would only be the beginning for you. With me it's like you're trying to live in the past; I won't let you get away with it anymore."
I let her words seep in, trying to fully understand them. No one's ever been so straight forward with me and told me like it was. Not like this. Truthfully, I hadn't even noticed what I'd been doing. I'd just been doing it because it's what I'm used to. It's what works - or in this case worked.
"I'm glad that after everything that's happened we're still able to be friendly with one another," she continues, "but that's all I want. I don't want to rebuild our old relationship. I need closure, and you've been able to give it to me. I'm thankful for that, I only hope that I could do the same for you. You literally saved me, Jack. Twice now. I owe you, which is why I'm trying to get you to at least acknowledge Hannah. Please get that through your thick, stubborn skull."
"Aren't you a book full of words today?" I joke, almost coughing because of how dry my mouth has gotten.
"I'm sorry if I hurt your feelings. I just really needed to get that off my chest."
I shake my head, rolling my lips together. "No, no. I think I needed that just as much as you did. Thank you."
"I hope you get everything that you're looking for in life, you deserve to be happy," she muses, locking eyes with me. "I'll see you tomorrow?"
"Tomorrow," I agree, getting out of the car. I watch as she drives away and shoots me a quick wave before focusing all of her attention on the road ahead of her.
Taking a deep breath I walk through up my driveway and pull out my phone, hovering over Hannah's name in my contact list for only a minute before typing out a text to her, praying Mallory meant every word of what she said, and I'm not making a huge mistake.
Hannah
Hey
Hey. Out of all the words and sentences and phrases he could've strung together. He said: Hey. And still, even with those three little letters he was able to get my head spinning.
"What's your deal?" Kendal asks, noticing my sudden shift in emotion.
"I don't have a deal," I say, placing my phone back in my pocket in attempt to ignore the harsh pounding in my chest.
"You've had a deal since last night, sweet pea. Tell me what's going on."
"Why don't we ever talk about you?" I fret, cocking my head to the side.
"Hannah. Are you kidding. We're always talking about me."
"No. We're always talking about your sex life. There's a difference ya'know."
Kendal rolls her eyes, propping her feet up on the plastic chair beside her. We're at the town pool right now. It's late and empty and I'm pretty sure we're not supposed to be here, but the gate was open and the lights were on, so we took our chance.
This is only the second time I've been here. The first time being when I ran into Jack Gilinsky and he confronted me about the whole Johnson situation. Damn, that seemed like forever ago. I remember how pissed Nadia got about it; she ignored me for almost two days.
I remember how Sammy had given her a ride there, and how he ran off the second they pulled into the parking lot. Out of nowhere my stomach caves in, causing me to bend over and tears to prickle my eyes.
Fuck did I miss Sam. More than I thought I would, that's for sure.
I miss so much from the past.
I miss when my parents were way over protective of me during elementary school. I miss being in middle school and having the biggest crush on Johnson that never seemed to go away, I miss when Nadia's dad would take us for ice cream and pay us five dollars each to make sure we wouldn't tell her mom - even though he knew we wouldn't have either way. I miss pretending to hate Sam. I miss pretending to like Sam.
Why did everything have to change? I hate this new life. I hate this new routine. I don't want to go to Clarkson. I don't want to do anything but go back in time and act as if none of this ever happened. Act as if Nadia's dad never died, act as if Johnson didn't run away because of it, act as if we never encountered Justin and Nate, act as if Sam was never shot. Act as if I was never this sad.
Act as if everything was okay.
"Hannah? I'm worried about you," Kendal confesses, but I barely hear her.
"There's nothing to be worried about," I mutter, letting my eyes flutter closed to stop the tears from leaking out.
"Have you talked to anyone?" She asks. "Since prom?"
I take a sharp breath, cracking my neck. By anyone she means a therapist. The school psychologist suggested one, as did the police and doctors at the hospital, but it never became a priority. Before I can say "no", my phone buzzes again, and I almost drop it because of how swiftly I try to pull it out of my pocket.
Can we talk?
"Kendal, can you drive me somewhere?" I gush, jumping from the lawn chair.
"Yeah, of course. Where?"
"Jack's house."
Instead of wrinkling her nose and curling her lip like she normally does when I mention him, she wears an expression of relief while grabbing my arm and dragging me to her car.
I'll be right over, I text him. I've been needing this for way too long.
"Call me if you need anything," Kendal says as I start to make my way toward the front door.
I hum in response before offering her a slight smile to let her know it's okay to leave. She smiles in response, then backs out of the driveway, leaving me all to myself.
I kind of have no idea what to do now that I'm here. Should I ring the doorbell? But what if Jenn answers - I don't want her to see me like this. Should I just text him that I'm here? What if he tells me to come inside? Do I want to go inside? I mean, it's not freezing out here, but it's not exactly warm.
A part of me wants to just drop everything and call Kendal to come pick me up, she couldn't be too far away, she didn't leave to long ago - I'm sure she'd be close. But before I can successfully change my mind, the front door swings open and out walks Jack Johnson himself.
Seeing him almost knocks the wind out of me, his eyes glistening in the moonlight.
"I'm happy you're here," he expresses, still standing at his front steps. He's whisper-yelling, and it almost makes me laugh.
"I can't tell how I feel yet," I say.
"I don't blame you," he chuckles. He starts to walk toward me, shoving his hands in the pockets of his hoodie. I guess he figured that I wouldn't be moving from this spot anytime soon.
"Is there any particular reason you decided to reach out to me?" I question, not able to make eye contact with him.
He takes a few seconds to respond. "Mallory convinced me."
I inwardly cringe. He had to be convinced to talk to me? I try not to feel too bad about it, because then again I had to force him to talk to Mallory, and it's not like I had tried to contact him, but that doesn't make it any less painful.
"That sounds bad, I know," he says, shaking his head. "I would've done it sooner it's just...I didn't know what to say."
"You didn't have to say anything," I tell him. "It's not like I knew what to say."
We stand in silence for a moment. Him in his shorts and hoodie, me in my shorts and t-shirt. We both look tired, but I can say he looks way better than he did after Sam died. I can't tell if I look better or worse. I feel worse, so maybe I don't look too far off.
"Do you want to come inside?" He suggests, kicking at the ground. It makes him look like a kid again, and it's got my eyes filling with water.
"Sure," I croak.
"Mom made dinner - if you're hungry," he informs, waiting for me to catch up to him before he begins to head into the house.
"I'm starving," I confirm, thankful for Mallory Thompson.
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I feel like all my chapters are so SAD lmao, I'm sorry :/ I'm also sorry if the ending to this chapter seemed a little choppy, I wasn't sure how to wrap it up.
anywaayyyy, i hope you enjoyed it and thanks for reading! feel free to comment and vote if you'd like, and give me feedback on the chapter style I've chosen - the whole one chapter being Nadia and Gilinsky's POV then the next being Johnson and Hannah's POV thing.
chapter 7.2 will be up soon (but not soon soon, because these past few days I've been updating relatively fast and I don't want you guys to get used to that lol)
- gilinskyshigh