I knew it would take time before Jonah started to trust and open himself up again to people, especially in a place where everybody already pegged him as that kid you should never come closer than a five-mile radius. But knowing that he'd already opened up to me and my best friends was more than enough.
Seeing the hidden goofy side of Jonah completely caught Gina and Bey off-guard—they just went into complete silence while I giggled, both because of the small joke Jonah made and also the stupefied expression on the girls' faces.
The small grin on Jonah's face dimmed a little bit when he saw that Gina and Bey were staring at him wordlessly. "Did I say something wrong?"
"No," I answered with a chuckle.
His lips pursed in dismay. "Is my joke really that bad?" he asked in a mumble. I reached out and patted him on the shoulder reassuringly, while still giggling to myself.
"It's actually really funny," I said honestly. "They just, um, didn't expect you to be funny. No offense.."
My boyfriend nodded in understanding. "None taken. But can you please tell them to drop it? It's kind of starting to creep me out."
I turned my attention to my friends and rolled my eyes. I waved my hands in front of their faces and snapped my fingers. "Dude. I know my boyfriend's hot, but stop ogling at him," I said. "I thought you guys bat for the other team."
They both blinked and finally snapped out of it. "Sorry," Gina said. "I just didn't see that one coming."
"Me either," Bey echoed.
Jonah shrugged to himself and decided that it would be a good thing if he didn't throw another joke again, so he focused on eating the cold pizza from his lunch tray. It looked absolutely disgusting but Jonah chewed on it anyway while I was fully ignoring it, choosing to bite into my apple instead.
"So, how's it going with your baby project?" Bey asked me. She had already returned the fake baby back to our teacher this Monday because her class started the project nearly a week earlier.
"Just a few more days to freedom," Gina said. "From the looks of it, I think I'm already convinced I'm never having kids."
Bey pouted. "But I want to have kids."
"Ask me again in like, a full decade," Gina waved her off, and I chuckled at the couple.
"Your doll still cries a lot even until now?" I asked, and she nodded. "Weird, because Daisy rarely ever cries anymore."
"Really?" she asked disbelievingly. "You mean you don't have to wake up at two a.m. to rock a doll in your hands for the next thirty minutes for nothing?"
I shrugged. "She cries at night sometimes, but it usually stops after five minutes now."
She whistled. "Maybe you guys do take care of her well."
"Don't you?"
She snorted. "I accidentally left it in my car for a whole day a few days ago and didn't even remember. I thought it was at Aaron's."
I tsked. "You're practically flushing your own report card down the toilet right now."
She rolled her eyes, but then smirked. "Well, at least you two have proven to be a decent parent. Just don't get pregnant before you graduate."
I picked up my uneaten pizza and threw it at her face. It missed by an inch, but thankfully it didn't hit anyone else or start a food fight. I didn't feel too bad about it because the pizza tasted like cardboard. "Shut up," I said. From the corner of my eyes, I saw Jonah's face turning red I was afraid he was about to burst into flames.
"Have you guys done it before?" she asked again suggestively while Bey tried not to choke on her soda. Jonah attempted to hide his reddened face by gulping down his water and I just hung my head low and groaned out loud. "I know Hannah here is a damn prude, but maybe you, Jonah, maybe you have a secret wild side you've been hiding from us?"
Water sprayed all over from Jonah's mouth. "Gina," he choked, but it was the only thing he could say before he went into a coughing fit.
"Please just shut up," I said, rubbing Jonah's back until he stopped coughing. "You're really killing him."
"Well, just don't forget to use protection," my best friend hummed, ignoring our matching death glares, "just because you've exchanged rings in Life Skills class doesn't mean you can have real babies straight away."
I buried my face in my hands. "We're not doing the do," I muttered. "We're not having real babies anytime soon."
"What she said," Jonah murmured back. "I just—" he coughed, "we're too young."
"I know you are," Gina fake-sighed. "But—"
"Please don't start with the talk," I begged. "I just had one yesterday. Please just don't do it."
I really hoped Gina would shut up soon, because this certain topic was making me want to think of things that should be really inappropriate to think of in the middle of a lunch room.
"Your parents finally give you the talk?" Gina asked before bursting into laughter. "Who brought it up? The Mr. or the Mrs?"
"My dad," I said. "He brought it up. We all were red on the face so please don't make me think of it again, okay?"
"Alright, alright, I'll shut up," she finally said. "But really, if you two finally do it—"
We cut her off with a glare, and she finally raised her hands in surrender.
The rest of the day went normally dull—surprise quiz from Ms. Bishop, nearly broke my leg in gym, just the usual—except for the fact that when I walked out of gym, Jonah was standing there with daisies in his hands.
I don't even want to know how it got there.
The assumption Clara and I had made about Jonah being a closeted hopeless romantic was probably true. Maybe it was just because he had been keeping most of his feelings inside, so once he decided to be affectionate, he really did release all of that pent-up affection he had in his chest. Or maybe he was just trying something new, because I was his first girlfriend and he probably had figured out that boyfriends were supposed to surprise their girlfriends with flowers. Either way, it still made me want to tear up how cute Jonah was being right now.
It shouldn't be this surprising to me to see him being cute and all since it wasn't the first time he had turned mushy on me, but it still did anyway. Apparently, everyone was caught off-guard too, as they simply stared at us, the possibly unlikeliest couple in Northside High standing in front of each other, with a bunch of lilies as the barrier between us.
We'd really only known each other for a short while, but it already felt like we had wholly known each other for a lifetime. Yet, as I was staring up at that small sheepish smile on his face, I was feeling the same old giddiness I had felt before when I saw him biting into his red apple all those years ago. The feelings were the same and they were only getting stronger—at least for me. I couldn't imagine anyone else but Jonah being the one who was standing there holding my favorite flowers.
Jonah's cheeks started to turn pink when he realized that he was forming a crowd around us. Guess he didn't really calculate the possibility of catching people's attention, but honestly, none of that mattered to me. I took steps forward and gave him a kiss on his cheek before taking the flowers from his hands.
"What's this for?" I asked teasingly.
He smiled and shrugged. "Just felt like giving you these."
"Well," I drawled out, "you sure know how to win a girl's heart."
"No," he disagreed. "I know how to win your heart."
I full on giggled where everyone could hear. "That's true."
Jonah kept his eyes on me for a while before he finally leaned down abruptly and kissed me hard. The grip I had on the flowers nearly loosened as I was caught off-guard, but thankfully they didn't fall as I raked my arms around his neck. Wolf-whistles rang out but Jonah didn't seem to care—I probably should care since I hated PDA, but then again who the fuck cares about hating PDA in this state of mind? Jonah's wood-y and minty scent blurred my thoughts and all I could think about was to never let go.
"Okay," I asked breathlessly after we pulled away. "What was that for?"
"Just felt like kissing you," he replied just as breathlessly. "You know I can't get enough of it."
"Me neither," I said. "But, really, Jonah? In the middle of the hallway? What if a teacher caught us?" He only chuckled in response. "We're such a cliché couple."
His hands on my waist tightened. "How so?"
"The funny, outspoken, hot girl," I started, pointing at myself, "ending up with the school's loner. It's practically a movie plot."
Jonah laughed and I grinned. "I've been told that the cliché couples are the best kind."
"Clara?" He nodded against my forehead. "Okay. Then I don't mind cliché."
"Neither do I," he said softly. He leaned down to kiss me on the tip of my nose. "I like how we are."
"Me too," I said, and he smiled so wide. "We are good. We are great."
Jonah and I opened our mouths at the same time to say something, but neither of us got the chance to say what we had in mind as Principal Collin's voice suddenly boomed through the speakers on the walls, calling for some kids who escaped detention and whatever.
So I ended up smiling up at him, my chest rising up and down in quick motion, both from the heat of the kiss we had and from the fact that I had almost done it again.
I swallowed thickly, reminding myself not to act so rashly. Take it slow, Hannah, I chanted. You don't want to scare him off. You like him too much to let him run like that.
I sealed my lips shut, and opted just to give him a peck on the cheek. I should take things slow before it crashed and burned. I couldn't ruin this.
[]
Jonah picked up the call before the second ring.
He greeted with a quiet, "Hello?" and when I didn't answer, he just kept repeating my name over and over again. It only made me want to not say anything, because I just loved the sound of my name in his slightly scratchy, sleepy voice.
I should be feeling guilty that I had probably woken him up when he just fell asleep. His voice was clear so I knew he wasn't in his hideaway place by the river, but it was low and deep with a tinge of exhaustion so I knew he had been probably asleep or trying to sleep.
"Hey." He sighed after a long time of silence on my side. "Talk to me."
"Hi," I finally whispered back. "I'm so sorry for waking you up."
"It's okay," he said softly, but he didn't deny. I did wake him up. I felt really terrible about it. "Wanna talk about it?"
"It's the same," I mumbled, burying half of my face into my pillow that was wet with tears and sweat. "I crashed into something this time. I didn't know what it was. Maybe it was a truck? Everything was so blurry."
There was a pause. "Hannah?"
"Yeah?"
"What do you remember from that night?" he asked quietly, almost hesitatingly. "If you don't want to answer it, then don't. You don't have to."
I didn't have to, but a part of me felt like telling him everything would help. Maybe it was selfish of me to want to dump out the burden I had in my hands to Jonah, but I felt like I had to do this before I exploded. "Can you maybe come over?"
He already moved before I could even hear him say it. "What about your parents?"
"They're gone with Cole this weekend, to visit my grandma's and pick up Leann," I said. "I'm—I'm home alone."
"I'm already in my car," he said soothingly. "Hold on for a few minutes, okay? I'll be there soon."
"Okay." I wiped my face with my palm. "Just let yourself in. There's a spare key under the ashtray. I don't think I can get up."
"Alright," he said. "I'm hanging up now, but I'll be there before you know it."
"Alright."
The call ended and I put my phone down on my bedside table. I felt like crying again, because this dream was different. Instead of a stranger's face, it was a very familiar face that I saw on the passenger's seat. I saw the blood on my hands after the crash just before I jolted awake, and I didn't get to find out if the blood was mine or theirs. But there was blood—so much blood, too much blood, and I just hated blood so much I wanted to vomit. Just remembering about it made chills run down my spine, and I was on the verge of breaking down again.
Little Ant, the cat, jumped onto the bed as if he sensed that I was upset. He'd been doing that lately—waking up along with me when I had nightmares and snuggling under my chin as I tried to fall back asleep. The kitten stared at me with his curious eyes, his paws pushing against my thigh slowly. I scratched his head and he meowed, leaning into my hand before falling into my lap.
"I'm okay," I told him once he opened his eyes again. "Don't worry about me."
He meowed and closed his eyes, brushing the top of his head against my stomach over and over again. I lay back on my bed and he settled himself down on my chest, and I was just about to fall back asleep when I heard noises outside the house. I sat back up and waited until my door finally opened.
Jonah didn't waste a second until he pulled me into his arms. His tired eyes didn't go unnoticed, but I was too selfish to bring it up as I immediately sobbed into his chest.
"It's okay," he soothed, but it wasn't. "It didn't happen. You're here, you're safe. It didn't happen."
But did it really? I never knew—nearly everything was gone from my memories except for the bizarre nightmares and no one bothered enough to answer my questions, not even my parents. They had talked to the police, they must've known what had really happened but they always said I was too young to know so they left me alone with my fucking nightmares and I couldn't take it anymore.
I mumbled a name that had become foreign on my tongue into Jonah's chest, and I wondered if he caught it too. But he kept caressing the back of my head and slowly rocking my body back and forth, and his lips were pressed into my ear as he tried to calm me down with his voice while I kept repeating the name over and over again.
He wiped the tears from my cheeks before pressing his own lips there. "Please stop crying," he murmured, his face pained. "I hate seeing you cry."
"I'm sorry," I murmured back, my body still shaking from the sobs.
"Don't apologize, sweetheart," he whispered. "It's not your fault."
I nodded weakly, and I felt him slowly lowering my body down on my bed.
"Just go to sleep, okay?" he told me. "I'll be here if anything happens. I'm not going anywhere. I'm never going anywhere," he promised.
I nodded and felt the exhaustion from the crying slowly pulling me under. "Thank you, Jonah."
He smiled at me a bit sadly, his fingers running down my hair. "You're a strong girl, Hannah," he murmured. "I know you are, but I know it gets tiring sometimes." My eyelids slowly drooped. He noticed it too, because he started to stand up, only to be stopped when I caught his wrist weakly.
"Where are you going?" I asked, almost scared. Ant, who still stayed on my bed despite my loud sobbing and my violent shaking, nudged my hands a little bit.
"Nowhere," he immediately said. "I'm just going to sleep down here."
"But the floor's too cold," I argued. "Come here, please."
He smiled. "You're bed's not wide enough. I don't want to crowd you."
I sighed and nodded. "But you'll stay, right?"
He nodded and leaned down to kiss me on the forehead. He pulled the blanket up over me and kissed me again one last time, before lowering himself down on the floor. I gave him one pillow and he took it gratefully, and he stared up at me from the floor for a while.
"Don't be scared to sleep," he told me softly. "The nightmares won't hurt you. They can't do anything to you except mess with your head."
I nodded at him. Even though I was still dead scared to let myself fall asleep again, the promise that Jonah would be here when I woke up put me at ease. The nightmares weren't gonna hurt me, but Jonah would still be here. I took a deep breath and closed my eyes.
Faintly, I heard him murmur the same name I had said into his chest a few minutes ago. I remembered feeling scared, but I was too far gone into the darkness to do anything about it.
So I fell asleep, with the sound of Jonah's steady breaths and my own and Ant's soft purring being the only sounds I could hear. The only thing that I knew was that I had never felt safer right now, even though Jonah's chest wasn't pressed against my back, even though his arms were still too far out of reach. But he was here, and he promised to stay, and that was good enough for me.
That was enough to make me feel secure.