"... and the last type of marriage is devitalized marriage, where once upon a time, the couple used to be strong, but is no longer so..."
Mr. Herberg's words flew past my ears, and minutes passed by as he talked about marriage while my head was not even here at all. I had no idea if this topic was even in the curriculum. In fact, I had no idea if anything we'd been doing for this class was actually in the curriculum at all.
At least we covered a little bit about taxes and money management last week. God knows I'd need that knowledge for my future.
I twirled the pen in my fingers before pretending to jot down words into my notebook, while really, I was drawing weird doodles that looked like an infant doll coming out of a horror movie.
I never said I was good at drawing.
"Miss Taylors," Mr. Herberg addressed me formally—which was weird since he usually just called me Hannah—and the pen I was holding immediately fell onto my desk as my head snapped up. "Are you here at all?" he asked, his eyes taking notes of the ugly drawing on my book.
Nope. I am not here at all. "Yeah. Of course. Sorry."
He looked like he was about to say something more, but instead, he just lifted his right shoulder and said, "Next time, Hannah, if you ever get bored in this class, draw my face instead of that weird looking giant worm on your notebook."
People chuckled and my cheeks burned. "It's not supposed to be a giant worm," I mumbled.
Mr. Herberg joined in the chuckle and he walked over to my desk to inspect the "giant worm" on my notebook closer. "Then what is this?" he asked curiously.
"Your face?" I tried, and he looked mildly amused as he put the notebook back down.
"Nice try. Pay attention, Hannah," he reminded once again, and I nodded at him as he walked back to the front of the classroom.
My eyes met Jonah's once Mr. Herberg was gone, and I found myself unable to look away, until he hesitantly turned his head away first, breaking the short-lived eye contact before I could even begin to feel anything.
But I felt his eyes on me again once I had kept my gaze fixed on the notebook on my desk. I felt it as if we were in a dark room and the only source of light was coming from his gray eyes, and it pointed only to me. It made me feel like I was the only one in the room and I had a thousand pair of eyes watching me.
It made me want to turn around to stare back at him. But I didn't.
Just as I started to think that the bell couldn't ring soon enough, it finally did. I shoved my notebook and everything on my desk into my bag and stood up, right at the same time Jonah got out of his own seat.
We both stopped, and for a while we were nearly chest-to-chest, his tall figure towering over me. Time seemed to pause for a while as his eyes flitted from my eyes down to my lips, but when he blinked, I took a step back.
And nearly fell onto the desk behind me, had he not caught me in the waist in time. He immediately retracted his hands, muttering, "Sorry."
I heard his voice and thought about the voicemails he left me, and I kept my head down so his eyes couldn't find mine anymore. "Yeah," I said, quickly turning to leave. I found Mr. Herberg watching me with curious eyes as I passed by his desk, and I gave him a quick smile.
I let out a breath once I got into the lunch room, finding my usual table still empty. I got my lunch and immediately sat down, already nibbling on my grapes as I waited for my friends to arrive. My mind was still whirring with emotions from the way Jonah looked at me, so I kept my head down and ate in silence, even when Gina and Bey finally arrived at our table.. Gina shot curious glances at me every once in a while—I hadn't talked to her about everything that had happened yet—but didn't ask anything.
It was Bey who finally realized that something, or rather someone, was missing.
"Where's Jonah?" she asked, before throwing me a sly glance. "You two are usually attached to the hip."
I forced a laugh. "Yeah," I said, not offering anything more.
Then she proceeded to talk for a while about how much of a great couple he and I were, and I was trying not to let her know how I was feeling like my heart was being torn apart little by little, but she eventually found another topic to talk about, and I sighed in relief.
I continued eating in silence, my mind drifting in and out of the conversation my friends were trying to pull me into.
And then I felt it again—the feeling as if a spotlight was being pointed at me. I fought myself not to turn around, but slowly, I felt my head slowly turning, and over my shoulder I saw a boy sitting by himself in the corner of the room, his earphones attached into each one of his ears, but he didn't even look like he was listening to the song at all.
This was the boy I'd been in love with for the past four years. And right now, this was the boy who made me feel everything and nothing at all.
[]
"So, I guess that's it," I told Gina, shrugging both of my shoulders a little bit. "And no, I never thought about running away for good. It just... it just happened. I was going to come back if I didn't find him anyway. Everyone was just being so dramatic about it."
My best friend looked like she was at a loss of words. I'd promised her earlier that I would tell her everything that had happened during the weekend. And here I was, sitting at an ice cream shop telling her everything.
But I lied to her. I wasn't telling her everything.
Not about Jonah's involvement in what happened four years ago.
I wasn't ready to talk about it yet. Hell, just thinking about it made my whole head spin, how was I supposed to find the right words to tell her?
"So now he's actually here—like, here, here? Back in town? Out of his hiding place?" Gina asked. "Oh my god. And all you had to do was break that goddamn picture frame, Hannah, he did tell you where he was going after all."
I groaned, feeling stupid now that I thought about it. I could've gone years ago if only I had known that he'd actually let that message to me. I could've avoided all the trouble and arguments with my parents over meeting him. "How was I supposed to know that? He could've simply left a piece of paper under my pillow, not inside a dusty photo frame."
She shook her head, still in shock about the news, but she was smiling at me. "How is he? Has he changed at all?"
"Yes and no. I don't know. It's still the same him, yet at the same time I know he must've changed. I mean, four years is a long time," I paused. "But I'm happy that he's here. I really, really am happy."
"Me too," she said with a smile. "Is he staying for good?"
I shrugged. "Probably not. He already has his own life. He's living with his girlfriend, imagine that. But now I know I can talk to him whenever I want."
"And you're parents are okay with this?" Gina's eyebrows knitted slightly. "I mean, they were always the ones who literally banned you from saying his name out loud. Isn't it weird that now suddenly they allow him in with open arms?"
"Technically, they never kicked Tony out," I told her. "He was the one who left willingly. He told our parents that he didn't want me asking about him. Something like that." I took a spoonful of my strawberry cheesecake ice cream.
"But I think your parents took it too far," she said with a frown.
"Maybe they were just trying to," I made imaginary quotation marks with my fingers, "protect me like they always did. I don't know. I need to talk to them about it but I'm scared that it'll turn into another argument."
"Well," she clapped her hands together, grinning brightly. "We don't need to dwell too much into the past. You've got your brother back and you've gotta make the most of it."
"Yeah. We have four whole years to catch up on," I smiled.
"How does Jonah think about it?" she asked curiously, and I bit my lip. "I mean, I bet you never told him you had an older brother before. Not when everyone in your house basically acted like he never existed."
I shrugged at her as I finished my ice cream. "I haven't told him."
"What? You haven't?" she asked. "He still doesn't know where you went yesterday, then?"
I shook my head, and then told her honestly, "We haven't even spoken since I left."
"Are you guys fighting?" she asked, and when I shrugged, she continued, "Come on! You're not even gonna tell me?"
I shook my head. "It's complicated and I kind of don't want to talk about it yet."
"I knew something was wrong when I saw you two not together," she said. "You two are completely attached at the hip."
"Well, I guess it's good that right now we're not because I feel like I've been abandoning you. This is what, the third time we go out together since I started dating?" I said quietly. "It's so weird."
"So now, what, you guys broke up? Why would the two of you even break up?" she asked rather incredulously. "I don't see how anything could go wrong between you guys!"
I shrugged again. A lot of things could go wrong between anyone. Most of the time, we just don't see it coming.
"Quit shrugging. It's starting to annoy me."
"Sorry," I said with a shrug. She rolled her eyes at me. "I mean, Operation Bite the Apple. Just think about it. Something was bound to go wrong."
"What, you guys aren't talking because he found out about it?" she asked incredulously, while I shrugged again. Yes. Among other things. "I mean, okay, boo-hoo. So you orchestrated something stupid to get his attention. It all worked out for the end, right? He should get over it."
I said nothing.
"And by the way, Hannah, I honestly don't mind if you hang out less with me because you're with Jonah. Remember the first few months when I started dating Bey? I didn't even answer your calls because I was busy making out with her."
I slapped a hand onto my face. "I didn't need to know that, Gina."
"You're in the 'honeymoon phase' with him and if that's the reason why this is only the third time we're on an ice cream date together since you started dating, then I'd understand," she told me.
"Well, I'm going to stop being a sucky friend," I said, trying to avoid getting further into this topic. I didn't want to tell her yet that I was possibly maybe probably perhaps sort of kind of going to be on a long break with Jonah. I didn't want to yet. I pulled my phone out of my pocket and looked at the time, and told her, "I need to get home soon. I have a six o'clock curfew starting today."
Gina scoffed as I stood up. "What are you, six years old?"
I scowled. "Shut up." We got out of the shop, and just as I was about to get into her car, my phone vibrated inside my pocket. I took it out and saw the screen lighting up with Jonah's name, but before I could even contemplate whether or not I should answer it, the call ended.
I frowned for a while, a weird feeling of relief for not having to pick up the call mixed with a strange disappointment of the call ending before I could pick it up filling the pit of my stomach.
I put my phone back into my pocket, and got into the car where Gina was waiting for me impatiently. But why did he call, and why did he end it, and why couldn't I stop thinking about it?
Maybe Jonah just made an accidental butt call. Yeah, maybe he did.
[]
When I got home, Tony had my little kitten, Little Ant, in his lap. Sleeping peacefully.
"Hey, you're finally home," Tony said when he saw me. "You're only barely five minutes away from having a group of police called on you. Her orders."
I rolled my eyes and sat down next to him on the couch. "How did he get here?"
"What? Oh, the cat?" I nodded. "Some guy just dropped him off a while ago. This is your cat, right?"
"Yeah, he's my cat. You saw a guy drop him off? What did he say?"
He shook his head. "He dropped him off in his cage at the door, rang the bell, and when I opened the door he turned around and walked back to his car."
"Oh." I picked Ant up and put him down on my own lap. He groaned a little bit as his peaceful sleep was being disturbed.
"He's a really cute cat," Tony commented. "What's his name?"
I looked up at him and slightly made a face. "Little Ant."
"Whaaat?" Tony chuckled in amusement. "You named him Anthony? You named a cat after me?"
"I didn't," I told him. "Your given name is Tony, not Anthony. So no, I didn't name a cat after you."
"Tony, Anthony, potatayto, potahto," he waved off. "How did you even get the permission to keep him?"
"Magic?" I offered. Even until today, I still didn't know what Jonah had said to convince mom, no-Hannah-I-don't-want-you-growing-up-as-a-cat-lady mom, to keep Ant. The kitten stirred in his sleep, and his eyes slowly opened. He looked up at me, still blinking sleepily, and let out a cute yawn. I smiled.
"You adopted him yourself?" Tony asked. I looked up and shook my head.
"No." I paused, before deciding to tell him anyway. "No, it was a birthday present."
His face lit up with a wide grin. "Oh, talking about birthdays, did you get my birthday present?"
"I did." I reached out and smacked him in the shoulder as hard as I could. "You made me cry so hard. What the hell was that? A Paramore album with a short note but no phone call? Asshole."
His goofy grin only got wider. "Sorry. I really did promise to give you one of my CDs for your seventeenth birthday."
I smiled a little anyway. "Yeah, but you really should've just called." My smile sort of dropped. "It made me sad instead to listen to the album because you weren't there. Okay, no, Wait, I'll stop being dramatic. Please continue." I shook my head and let out a small chuckle.
He smiled apologetically, and then said again more quietly, "Sorry."
"Nah, it's fine. I love the album, by the way."
"You do?" he asked excitedly. "Which song is your favorite?"
"The one called Emergency. It nearly busts my eardrums every time I listen to it, but I like it."
"Oh yeah, it only means that you're finally ready for me to introduce you to my amazing collection of music." We both paused to look at the kitten on my lap when he finally woke up, stretched and yawned at the same time, and then blinked repeatedly before jumping out of my lap and running somewhere toward the backyard. "Who got you the cat?"
"A friend," I answered vaguely.
He made an impressed face "What a good friend she is. I mean, you've always been a cat obsessed freak. I can't even imagine how excited you must've been when you got him."
I held in a laugh. "Yeah, she is."
"Wait, you're still friends with Gina, right? How is she, anyway?"
"We're still tight as ever."
"What about all those other girlfriends you were friends with? Do they still go to the same school with you? Do you guys still hang out together?" Tony asked as he reached out to get an opened can of soda from the coffee table.
"Huh, no." I shook my head. "Actually, the only friends I have right now are Gina and her girlfriend."
Soda sprayed out of Tony's mouth and he coughed out, "Girlfriend? You mean, girlfriend?"
"What, you have a problem with that?" I asked, my eyes narrowing as I turned into defense-mode.
He shook his head, still coughing. "No, no, it's not that. It's just," he paused to cough out the remaining soda some more, and then cleared his throat. "I always thought she had a, um, a thing for me, is all. So, yeah. Uh, apparently she never did?" He made a face. "Oh, wow, I just realized how self-absorbed I sounded."
My eyes softened and I couldn't keep the laugh from bursting out of my lips. "She did have a little crush on you. And then she realized that she didn't like you anymore."
He laughed. "Right. That's a relief..." he drifted off with a sigh, the smile on his face melting away into something more neutral.
I flicked him in the forehead once he started to seem like his mind had gone elsewhere, his eyes staring blankly into space for a while as his fist clenched and unclenched in his lap in a seemingly unconscious movement.
"Tony?" I called his name and snapped my finger in front of his face. It didn't even look like he saw it. "Dude, hey."
Then out of nowhere, he blinked rapidly and shook his head. He casted his eyes downwards for a while as he ran a hand through his dark brown hair.
"Tony?" I called again. "You okay?" I asked quietly, my voice turning worried when I realized that he was avoiding my eyes.
"What? Oh, yeah. I'm fine," he said, frowning a little. "Hey, Hannah, I think I'mma lay down for a while. Just knock on my door if Je—I mean, if Mom and Leann get home."
I watched him stand up and leave the room without another word. He kept on running his fingers through his hair as he walked—a habit of his that I knew only happened when he was frustrated over something—and I wondered if this sudden strange act should have me worried.
When I knocked on his door later to call him for dinner, he didn't answer.
He probably was already sleeping.
[]
The next day after Mr. Herberg's class, Jonah stopped me by the door.
He opened his mouth and closed it, and he let me retract my hand from his grip. I waited for him to speak first, because my mind was already as jumbled as it was to even think of a word to say.
Finally, he spoke. "Hannah," he simply said. "How are—how are you?"
I did a combination of nodding my head and shrugging my shoulders. "I'm good."
"Good." He rubbed the back of his neck. "That's good to know."
"Yeah, good," I echoed.
"Listen—" he stopped to bit his lower lip for a while. "I'm—I—" He sighed and looked at me in the eye. "Is this how we're gonna be now?"
I bit the insides of my cheeks and felt a coppery taste in my mouth not long after. I opted not to answer.
He took a deep breath and let it out before asking, "Are we breaking up?"
I answered honestly, "I don't know."
He paused for a bit, his jaw clenching and unclenching. "Do you want us to be?" he asked, his face filled with a pained look.
"I don't know, Jonah," I told him softly. "I can't—I don't know. I can't think about it right now." Not when I just got my brother back. Not when there were still a lot of things to resolve with my parents. Not with the strange behavior Tony had last night and how it was making me feel paranoid. Not with the way everything Jonah was doing was reminding me of everything I didn't want to be reminded of. "I need to be okay with—with everything first. I don't—"
He nodded at me. "I get it. I understand—"
"No you don't," I interrupted. "I like you, Jonah, I still do, but I can't think about it right now after everything—and I need to make sure I'm okay with it first. And right now, I'm not," I told him honestly. "I don't know when I'm ever going to be."
"Alright," he said after a while. "Alright. Yeah. Of course."
"Okay," I said quietly, ready to turn around and leave.
But then he said, even more quietly, "I'm so sorry, Hannah."
I fought the sudden tightness I felt in my chest and said softly, "I know." Because I really did. He was sorry, but I didn't know if that was ever gonna make everything okay.
"I'll wait," he told me. "Until you're ready—until you're ready to pick up where we left off. If you want to. I'll wait until you forgive me."
I didn't say anything, but I avoided his pleading eyes.
"And I'd do anything. You can just tell me—whatever I can do to make you forgive me. I really hope you can forgive me," he finished. I closed my eyes and turned around.
"I hope so too," I said, and then I walked away.
[]
The following few days were spent in mostly silence between Jonah and I, and it was starting to look obvious now that things between us were not okay.
I mean, it was not just silence between us. Every interaction between us—if you could even call it that—were painfully strained. I couldn't look at him in the eye for more than five seconds without seeing his face behind the wheel of the car that struck mine, yet at the same time nearly everything in me begged to catch a glance of him. It was agonizing to have your heart and mind split in two.
I tried everything I could to avoid crossing paths with him. The only classes we had together were Chemistry and Life Skills, and the only time we had to sit next to each other was in Life Skills class. But somehow, it was hard enough.
It was obviously obvious enough that Mr. Herberg had to call me out on it.
"Everything's fine," I convinced him. "Really. The project's doing great and, and we're gonna be giving our best for the presentation next week."
He shook his head. "I'm not talking about the project, Hannah," he said. "I'm asking how things are going between the two of you."
"Well, we're fine as we could ever be," I told him with a forced grin. "Yeah. We are."
"You know," he started, "the sole purpose of pairing the two of you together was to get you to get along. Principal's orders."
I couldn't help but chuckle. "Yeah. I remember."
"I initially doubted you and Jonah would ever get along because the two of you were really different, but somehow you did get along while Spencer found his own happy ending with Tracey. So, it all worked out in the end, as did most of the other pairs in this class."
My jaw dropped onto the floor. "Mr. Herberg, are you a matchmaker? Cupid? Where the hell are your bow and arrows? Are you wearing a diaper down there?" I wasn't even sure if I was kidding or not.
But the older man only laughed as if I was the world's most hilarious comedienne on the planet. "Oh, Hannah. Maybe I am, after all, Cupid's right hand. We'll never know."
"Okay, so I get it—you're a secret matchmaker sent from heaven. What does it have anything to do with me?"
His face turned a bit more serious. "I know something is wrong when I see it. And you guys are obvious. It was like you can't even look at each other. What happened? I thought you guys were getting along." He tilted his head to the side and his eyebrows knitted. "Does the effect of Cupid's arrow ever wear out? Maybe it does now."
"Mr. Herberg," I interrupted his monologue. "The point."
"Okay, so it's gonna sound completely childish, but I hate it when I see something I've been working out on failing." He pointed a finger at me. "So you, and Jonah, please do whatever to fix this little fight you have. You two were great together and now you're a bunch of sad, mellow little kids barely tolerating each other's existence in the same room, which only means that we've gone back to square one when Principal Collin first brought you two in her room. And I do not like to see that."
I ran a hand down my face tiredly. "See, the thing is, Mr. Herberg, you don't just magically fix a broken train overnight."
"Ah, so you admit that something is wrong between you two."
I groaned. "Even if it was, what does it even have to do with you? I mean, it is kinda personal."
"Maybe nothing. Maybe everything. I don't know," he drawled out. "And you're right about that hypothetical broken train and the fact that it doesn't get fixed overnight. That's exactly the point. A broken train doesn't fix itself. People work together to fix it, as a team. It might be exhausting. It might take a lot of work until the train can run again. But wouldn't it be satisfying for them in the end to see it running as fast as it did before?"
He reached down under his desk and pulled something out of his drawer. It was a folder full of papers—it wasn't too thick, but it sure contained more than ten sheets of papers. He set the folder down on his desk and slid it toward me.
"What's this?"
"Every paper assignments you and Jonah have completed so far," he said. "I'm done taking notes and scoring them, and I think instead of throwing those papers away to waste, why don't I just give them to you?"
I narrowed my eyes and picked up the folder. "And why are you giving this to me?"
He shrugged. "Have a read for when you're bored."
I tore my suspicious gaze away from him and began scanning the front of the folder. I decided not to open it here, since I had a feeling that I shouldn't be reading all this stuff in front of Mr. Herberg. After a few seconds, I looked up and said, "Mr. Herberg?"
"Yeah?"
I bit my lip. "What would you do if you found out that someone had been keeping a secret from you? Would you be angry? Would you hate them?"
He frowned. "Did they lie to me about it? I mean, deliberately tell me lies to keep that secret, leading me away from the truth?"
I thought about it for a while, and then shook my head. "No, I guess not."
"Were the intentions of keeping the secret from me meant to harm me in any way?"
I slowly shook my head.
"Would the truth hurt me once I found out?"
I nodded.
"Then yeah, of course I would get angry. It's a normal reaction. But hate them?" He pulled a pack of gum out of his pocket. "I don't know about you, but why would I, if they were only trying to do what they thought was best for me?" He began chewing and offered the pack to me. "Want one?"
I shook my head. "Thanks though."
He shrugged. "Okay, you can go now. I believe lunch period is gonna be over in less than ten minutes. Have a great day ahead, Hannah."
I smiled and gave him a thumb up. "Sure, Mr. Herberg." I started to turn around to leave, but then I stopped myself. "Oh, and Mr. Herberg?"
"Hm?"
My forehead knitted. "Why are you so interested in... in whatever that's going on with the two of us? Other than your matchmaking business, I mean."
He gave me a small smile. "I just want to make sure that five years from now, you won't be singing about that boy you let get away."
My breath hitched as his words hit home, but I slowly nodded. "Alright."
I was at the door when he called out, "Good luck fixing the broken train!"
I shook my head with a wry smile. Yeah. Good luck with that, Hannah.
Author's Note:
Hi guys! Just here to remind you guys to be kind.
When I wrote this part of the story, I was trying to make Hannah's reaction as realistic as possible. She's just a young girl who experienced something traumatic and of course she's going to be emotional as she tries to deal with it--she's gonna make mistakes, she's gonna say the wrong things, and she's gonna hurt people trying to make herself feel better.
No, that doesn't mean what she's doing is right, but I also wasn't trying to make her a perfect character who does everything perfectly. Haven't you ever made mistakes in your life? Haven't you chosen the wrong decision? Haven't you heart someone when you don't mean to?
That's even the point of the story: that misunderstandings happen, main character makes a mistake and tries to fix it, and learn to be a better person. After all, if everything goes smoothly, if Hannah had the "perfect" emotional reaction, what's going to be the conflict of the story? What is the lesson that she's going to learn? What will make this story interesting without this conflict?
Remember: what happened to Hannah (and Jonah) was very traumatic. They both dealt differently with it: Hannah's mind distorted the event that happened, while Jonah's brain blocked it out completely. Is Hannah stupid for thinking that Jonah was at fault, when neither of them had the perfect recollection of that night? When Jonah himself believed he was at fault?
We--as the reader--know exactly what happened that night. But I deliberately wrote it so that the characters in the story only have snippets of the truth, and they're going to slowly learn all the puzzle pieces as the story goes.
My characters are not perfect, but that doesn't mean I enjoy reading the insults directed to them! I know it's not an insult to me directly, but it still kind of hurts, you know, to read how you call her a "stupid bitch" (yes, I've seen these comments!). It really doesn't make me feel good.
Please just remember to be kind. This is just a fictional story, but a real human being wrote it (not an AI! lol). I get that you guys get emotional too, but try to keep the insults at a minimum? I'd really appreciate it :)