I felt my body being carried, and I tried to open my eyes but they remained closed. I inhaled air through my nose and swallowed my dry throat. "I—" My voice broke and I coughed a little, trying to get rid of the itch I was feeling in my throat.
I opened my mouth to try again, but then I heard someone say, "Ssh, it's okay. Just go back to sleep." Then I felt a hand on my forehead, gently pressing against my skin, and I heard them murmur, "Shit, you're really warm. Why didn't you stay home and rest if you're feeling sick?"
My eyelids lifted, but all I could see was blurry images and colors fading into one another, so I shut my eyes again and tried to relax into the arms that were holding me.
"It's alright, Hannah," the voice said, echoing in my ears like a dream. I was falling asleep again. "You're alright."
I snuggled into them, trying to find as much comfort I could get. They said words into my ears, but now words sounded like a lyric-less song to me, so I let them carry my body to someplace where I could sleep. Maybe I should be feeling scared to find myself being carried away by someone I didn't know, but all I felt was safety.
And darkness consumed me again. But this time, I gave it permission to temporarily shield me away from reality.
[]
I think I had woken up long before my eyes decided to flutter open.
I was alert, but I didn't feel like going up yet. Faintly, I heard a rustle, a door creaking open, and voices. The voices stopped and I felt a presence coming near, and a somehow familiar scent teased my nostrils as they slightly leaned down.
Fingers. Running along my cheek, brushing the hair on my face over to the side of my head. Touching my forehead. Holding my hand briefly before letting go. I heard a sigh, and I fought my eyes to open.
When they did, I found out that I was alone in the nurse room. I wondered if I had only imagined it all.
I felt a lot better than I had before. I still felt like my whole body consisted of half-set jelly, but the headache had lessened to the point where it was almost nonexistent. I slowly sat up straight, looking around and wondering where the school nurse was.
My eyes fell upon the table next to the bed I was laying on. A glass of water and pills. It was only then that I realized how thirsty I was, so I reached out to take the glass.
I sighed in relief when the warmth of the water soothed my sore throat. I grabbed the medicine and gulped them down with the rest of the water in the glass.
The door opened and a woman, the school nurse, walked in, smiling when she spotted me sitting up on the bed.
"You're awake," she said. "How are you feeling?"
I smiled back. "Much better. I think I just needed sleep."
"Yes, you definitely needed rest. You still do." She went up to me and laid the back of her hand on my forehead. "You were running a high fever. I put a cold compress for a little why and now your temp's gone down, but I suggest you go home and rest more."
I sighed and nodded.
"I already called your guardian. I believe your sister is on her way to pick you up," she said to me. "Go lie down and wait until she arrives. I'll wake you up in case you fall asleep."
"Okay," I said and obliged. She helped me lie down and I smiled at her in gratitude. Before I closed my eyes, though, I asked her, "Um, do you know who brought me here?"
"Oh, there was this boy..." she trailed off, slightly frowning. "I'm sorry, dear. I don't think I remember his name."
"That's okay. I was just curious." I bit my lower lip. I remembered that I had woken up for a moment as I was being carried here, and I knew I was being hopeful when I tried to remember the person who carried me. "Did he say anything?"
"He didn't say much," she told me. "He was very concerned, though, and the only times he spoke to me, he only asked about you and whether you'd be fine." She smiled. "Of course I told him that you would."
"Thank you," I told her again, and then decided to close my eyes.
I knew I recognized the voice that I heard. I knew I had smelled the same cologne before. I knew the touch was familiar.
But was it really him?
If it was, then why?
Wasn't he trying to avoid me the way Tracey was avoiding Spencer anyway?
I groaned inwardly and turned to my side. Thinking about it was making my head hurt again, so I decided to sleep as I waited for Leann to pick me up.
[]
By the time I had arrived home, I wasn't feeling all that sleepy or exhausted anymore. Sure, I still felt like my nose could blow up with snot at any second and my head exploding like a bomb, but I didn't really feel the need to sleep again.
Leann was cooking some soup in the kitchen for me, even though I told her that she didn't need to. She told me to stay in my room, and so I went upstairs with Tony hot on my heels.
I felt like a baby and my siblings were babysitting me.
Tony was worried because I had fainted twice in just one week, and that was why he was feeling the need to watch over me every second of the day. Probably the same way I had felt when I found out that he had epilepsy—I didn't want to let him off my guard even for a nanosecond, in fear that I couldn't be there when he needed me.
It annoyed me how much he was fussing over my well-being, but truthfully, I was glad at the same time to know that the bond that we had was as strong as the one we had four years ago. While those four years and everything that had happened during those years seemingly had changed everything, in truth, it had changed nothing between us.
"Leann's going back to Los Angeles next week," I blurted out. Tony raised his eyebrows at me and nodded slowly. "When are you—when are you going back to your girlfriend's place?"
He looked at me understandingly. "Probably a few days after Leann leaves," he said. "Kate will pick me up."
"So that means I'm going to meet your girlfriend soon?"
"Yeah," he said with a smile. "I've been calling her and she said she couldn't wait to meet the family."
I smiled back, but it quickly turned into a frown. "Tony?"
He frowned back. "Yeah?"
"You're going to visit us, right?" I asked quietly. "Once every few weeks... or whatever. Whenever you can."
"Of course I am!" he said. "You can visit us too, whenever you want. I promise, I won't disappear again." I nodded and he pulled me into a hug. "I'm done being stupid."
I chuckled into his chest.
"Kate had always been the one who told me to come back home, you know," he said. "But I was too much of a coward and I was never ready to come home. Sometimes we would fight over it."
"Do you guys fight a lot?"
"Oh, hell yeah," he answered with a chuckle. "Over the stupidest things. She's a bit of perfectionist, and I'm a mess. We clash and complement each other at the same time."
"Have you ever had a really huge fight with her?"
"The one where we end up not talking to each other for weeks? Yes. Rarely, but we have those moments."
"What makes you guys forgive each other in the end?" I asked curiously.
"We just get over our big egos," he said after a while. "Realize where we're wrong. Remember how much we mean to each other. I ask myself every time, if this misunderstanding is really worth losing her."
I smiled a little bit. "And what do you do when she doesn't want to forgive you?"
"Remind her how much I mean to her, obviously," he replied in a duh tone. I chuckled. "I try to make her fall in love with me all over again as if it was the first day. Oh yikes, now I sound so corny."
I laughed. "No, it actually sounds really cute."
"Exactly." He sighed. "It's almost three years and I'm still as whipped as I was when I first met her."
"Well, that's a good thing, isn't it?" I said. "You guys are one of the lucky ones. Three years is a long time."
"It doesn't feel like it's been that long, you know?" he said, and then grinned to himself. "Sometimes, I think she still blushes whenever I brought her flowers."
I cooed, "You really love her, don't you?"
He shrugged. "I want her to still blush when I brought her flowers fifty years from now," he drawled out. "I think that's what love is. Do you think it is, too?"
"Yeah, I do," I hummed with a smile.
He smiled, and then asked, "Why are you asking me about this?"
"I'm just curious."
He turned to look at me. "Is it about you and your boyfriend?"
I exhaled heavily. "I don't know what's going to happen between us now."
"Weren't you going to talk to him today?"
I shrugged. "He's avoiding me."
"Well, try harder!" he said encouragingly, but I shrugged again.
"I don't know if he wants me to." I pinched the bridge of my nose. "I think I screwed up big time."
"These," he tapped the side of my head with his finger, "negative thoughts you have in your head. Get rid of them. Remember what I did to win Kate back every time we fight? Make him fall in love with you all over again."
"I don't know how to do that."
He didn't reply, and when I looked at him, he was frowning, deep in thought. "You know what, Hannah? Maybe you don't have to do anything."
My forehead creased, "What do you mean?"
"Well, I mean, he's the guy. He has to be the one to fight for you, you know? That's what I do."
I scoffed. "And if he doesn't want to fight for me?"
"Then go get another guy who's worth your time! Why would you wait around for someone who doesn't even care about you?" he exclaimed as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.
I made a face at him. "I don't want another guy. And he does care about me. I just fucked things up and now he's not talking to me."
He groaned at me. "Girls are so confusing."
"No, we're not," I said defensively. "It's simple. I just want him to forgive me but I don't know if he wants me back."
"You know, Hannah," he said gently. "You're still young. You're not going to lose your whole world if you lose him."
I closed my eyes. "But—"
"I'm not saying that it's wrong to like him. I'm not saying that you shouldn't. I just want you to know that it's normal to lose things, especially when you're still young like this."
I groaned. "I don't want to lose him."
"No one wants to lose anything, but life doesn't work like that, does it?"
"So what are you saying?"
"I'm just saying that if you do lose him—and for your sake I hope you won't—it shouldn't ruin the rest of your world. Maybe it just means that you deserve so much better."
I slowly nodded. I got what he was saying, I really did, but I didn't want what he said to be true. I didn't want to see Jonah continue his life without me. I didn't want to have to see him hold some other girl in his arms and told her that he loved her.
And on top of it all, I didn't want to love somebody else.
Maybe it sounded stupid. I really was still too young to say forever. But I couldn't lie and say that I would be alright if I really had to lose him for good.
"Hey, lose that frown on your face," Tony said, his fingers pulling the corners of my mouth to form a smile. "Everything will be fine in the end." He gave me a smile and I tried to return it. "Now get some rest, you're still sick. I'll wake you up when Leann's done with your favorite soup."
"Okay." I lay down on my bed and he pulled up the blanket over my body.
As I closed my eyes to sleep, he leaned down and kissed me on the forehead before messing the hair that was on top of my head.
"Get well soon, Hannah."
[]
At midnight, I woke up from the nightmare.
Strangely enough, this wasn't the kind of nightmare I had been having since the accident. Yet, I woke up with damp cheeks, tears still falling down freely like a waterfall.
I couldn't even remember what I was dreaming about. All I knew was that I was there, Jonah was there, and somehow I kept losing him a hundred different times. I watched him walk away from me over and over again. I saw him living a life without me in it. I felt my heart breaking over and over again and I was not okay.
I sat up on my bed and hung my head as I tried to stop myself from crying. I didn't know that it would hurt this bad just to imagine losing him like that. I wiped my face with my hands, and out of habit, I touched my ring finger, hoping to find the ring Jonah had made for me there, but I felt nothing but my own skin and I froze.
Where was my ring?
I held up my shaking hands and turned them around. The ring wasn't there.
How long had I gone without wearing it? How the hell didn't I realize that I had lost it?
I was panicking. That ring was something I didn't want to lose. Jonah gave it for me—hell, he made it for me. If I really had to lose Jonah like I did in the dream I just had, then I didn't want to have to lose this ring too. It was a reminder of the good times that we had, even though he had made it for me long before he even liked me. It was a part of him that I could hold with me and if I had to lose it too, then I had next to nothing more than the memories in my head.
I searched through all the drawers in my room, my study desk, my closet, everything. I dug into my pants pockets, hoping to find the little ring hiding inside. I threw everything inside my bedroom upside down but I couldn't find it.
Where did I put it? Where was the last time I had felt it on my finger? Why hadn't I noticed sooner that it was gone?
No, no, no. I had to find it. I put my palm against my burning, sweaty forehead, and then ran it down my face. I had to find it. I need to find it.
I couldn't find it.
Frustrated, I pulled my blanket from my bed and threw it to the floor. I pressed against the mattress, but I didn't feel a ring hiding inside. I didn't know how long I was turning my room into a chaotic mess in search for a small ring, but it left me exhausted as hell.
I couldn't find it.
I sat on the floor, my back leaning against the bed behind me. My hand reached out to take my phone from my bedside table, and I felt my fingers tapping against the screen in a furious motion, and then I put the phone against my ear and I heard the dialing tone whispering into my ear.
I didn't know what else to do.
The call was picked up, but there was a moment of hesitating silence before a voice said, "Hannah?"
How was it possible that just one word could calm me down so quickly? I closed my eyes, but then I saw a piece of what happened in the dream and another tear slowly fell down from my eye. "I lost it," I murmured into the phone.
"Hey," he said gently, even though I could feel that hesitation in his voice. "What's wrong?"
"The ring you made me." I swallowed. "I lost it. I'm sorry. I'm sorry I lost it, I didn't mean to." I put my hand over my mouth so he couldn't hear how I was sobbing. "I really didn't mean to. I always had it on my hand but then I didn't. I don't know where it is I'm sorry I couldn't take better care of it I'm so sorry."
"I—" he said and then cut himself off. "Hannah, it's okay. You don't have to apologize for losing it."
I shook my head. "No. No, it's not okay," I said, my voice turning to pleading. "If I lose the ring, then it means that I lose you too. I don't want to lose you too, Jonah. I don't want to lose it. But now it's gone and I—" a hiccup made me pause. I bit my lip so hard I could taste my own blood. "I'm so, so sorry. I swear I always had it on me but then I don't anymore and I don't know where it is. I can't find it," I whimpered into the phone, staring at the empty finger and cursing myself for being so careless.
I must've taken it off somewhere and forgot to pick it up. How could I have been so reckless?
I kept repeating my apology, as if it could help bring the ring back. But now my words were slurred with tears and I suddenly couldn't breathe because my nose was all clogged up.
And the ring was still gone.
"Hey, hey, shh, calm down, it's just a ring, Hannah," he said softly.
"But you made it for me and I lost it," I replied in a small voice.
"It's just a ring," he repeated. "It doesn't matter. I can make a thousand more for you."
"You can?"
"Of course I can. And I will if you want," he said reassuringly. "You don't need to feel bad about it. I'm not mad at you for losing it, alright?"
I took a few calming breaths and slowly nodded. "Alright."
"Are you good now?"
"Yeah." I closed my eyes. "I really didn't mean to lose it, Jonah."
"Hey, didn't I tell you that it's cool?" he said gently. "Don't stress over it, okay? It's two a.m. You need to sleep, Hannah. You were sick yesterday."
I wiped my eyes and sniffled. "I'm not sick anymore. I'm fine."
"You still need to rest," he murmured softly. "I don't want to see you like that again."
"Huh?" I hummed. "Like what?"
He paused for a while, and then said. "I'm going to hang up so you can sleep, alright?"
I shook my head repeatedly. "No, don't. I don't want you to hang up. I want to hear your voice."
"I—Hannah—"
"I miss you," I said quietly, and he didn't say anything for a while.
"You'll see me tomorrow," he told me softly.
I closed my eyes. "Okay."
I thought he was going to hang up, but I could still hear the faint sound of the breaths that he took, sounding like a whisper. Somehow, it calmed me down even more to know that he was still there, and so I felt my whole body slowly relaxing, and then I fell into a dreamless sleep on the floor, with the phone pressed against my ear.
[]
Memories of what happened last night immediately rushed into me as soon as I woke up the on the floor next morning and realizing that my whole room was a mess.
I checked my hand and found no ring.
Last night really happened.
"Shit." I groaned out loud and face-palmed myself. Shit, shit, shit.
It meant that I really did call Jonah, in a delirious state of mind, saying things that my brain hadn't bothered to think about twice before blurting them out. I couldn't even remember what I had said to him. All I knew that I had called him in the middle of the night and I was endlessly apologizing to him about the ring. I probably had embarrassed myself along the way.
Oh my god, why did I do that? Why did I call him? Stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid. I sort of knocked myself on the forehead with my closed fists, cringing as I thought about what I had possibly said to him.
It was still early in the morning, so I got up from the floor and started cleaning up my room. I was really sad that I had lost it and I was still hoping that I could find it, but I knew I had totally overreacted last night.
If I could turn back time...
I didn't even want to imagine what Jonah must've thought when I had called him that night. I probably had annoyed him, maybe disturbed his sleep, even. Or even if he was awake because of his insomnia, he probably didn't want to deal with me calling him out of the blue like that.
Once I was done cleaning up my room, I picked up the phone that I'd left on the floor and sat at my study desk.
No messages. No missed calls.
But then I looked at the date and I froze as if I had just taken the ice bucket challenge.
Today was Jonah's birthday.
How could I have forgotten about it? I didn't get any presents ready for him—I didn't even know if I should get any presents ready. After all, I wasn't even his girlfriend anymore. Would he have wanted a present from me? I don't know.
What was I supposed to do?
It seemed unfair, though, if I did nothing for him today. I thought about the amazing date we had and the little kitten sleeping in Cole's room that Jonah had given me. It wouldn't feel right if I gave him nothing. But I didn't know what to do, I didn't know what to get him. I should've thought about this, but these past few days had distracted me and I hated myself for forgetting his birthday.
I felt like the worst person ever.
It was still two hours before I had to go to school, so I turned on my laptop and played the home video that I finally managed to finish last night. I already prepared all the materials for the presentation—I decided that I wouldn't be doing it too long so it wouldn't bore people to death.
But this video... I wasn't sure if showing it to the whole class was the right thing to do. It felt too personal. It was more about the relationship between us rather than us doing our project—but that was what happened during the project. We did our project by developing the relationship that we had. And this is all I could show with this video.
Maybe this video could be a birthday present for Jonah.
What the hell was I even doing? Of course I couldn't give this as a present. Compared to the amazing day that I had last month, this video totally paled.
I should've remembered his birthday.
I was the worst.person.ever.
I shook my head quickly got ready for school. Mom still doubted that I was well enough to go to school today, but truthfully, I didn't feel all that sick anymore. My temperature had gone down to normal, my headaches were gone, and I didn't feel like I had been run down by a speeding truck anymore. Sure, I was still coughing and sneezing a little, but I thought I didn't have to call in sick.
So I ate my breakfast, took my medicine, and waited for Gina to pick me up. My mind was still running with thoughts about how it had been so stupid of me to call Jonah last night, the damned presentation, and how today was his birthday and I had nothing prepared for him, but there was nothing else that I could do.
I tried not to think about it and got out of the car once we'd arrived. It was a weirdly sunny day today, considering how it had been raining heavily in the past few days. Still, I brought my thick coat with me, because I didn't want to fall sick again because of the weather.
The day passed by so quickly, but that was maybe just because I was panicking about the presentation I had to give today. I didn't know what to expect from Jonah's presentation either. Added to the list of things that made my head spin, I saw him in chemistry, and I wanted to talk to him and wish him a happy birthday but I was too embarrassed by last night, so I didn't.
And then suddenly, I was standing outside of Mr. Herberg's classroom, shifting the weight of my body from my left leg to my right leg and staring at the door.
I wasn't ready yet.
"Are you going to come in or not?"
I gasped in surprise and turned around. "Spencer! You scared me."
He smiled sheepishly. "Sorry. But you really are blocking the way."
I sighed and stepped aside. "I'm just not ready to do this presentation."
"At least you're doing it separately," he said, blowing air through his mouth in frustration. "I'm doing it with Tracey. We haven't even talked in days."
I smiled apologetically. "Hopefully, it'll go well for both of us."
He nodded. "Absolutely," he said. "Shall we come in?"
"Of course," I said, and opened the door so we both could walk in. Jonah was already there and I paused in my steps for a while, but then I took a deep breath and walked toward my desk and sat down.
He was staring ahead, his earphones on, not sparing me a glance. I kept my eyes focused on what was in front of me too, clenching and unclenching my fists in order to calm myself down.
I wasn't paying much attention to what was happening. I saw girls and boys coming up to the front of the class in pairs, happily talking about the project they'd done. Then I heard Spencer and Tracey's name, and I saw him exhale heavily through his nose before standing up to meet his ex-girlfriend in front of the room.
They both seemed obviously nervous.
But I caught Spencer glancing at Tracey when she wasn't looking, and her glancing at him when he wasn't looking. I smiled when they incidentally spoke together at the same time, and awkwardly paused as they waited for the other to speak first. And then Spencer played the video, and they both watched it with the rest of us.
I bet Spencer was the one who made it, because Tracey really looked intrigued herself and she was watching it intently, slightly smiling a few times. Spencer was watching her expression the whole time, and when she slowly looked up at him, he gave her a small time, which she shyly returned.
I bet they still had a chance to go back to the way they used to.
Too soon, their presentation ended, and Mr. Herberg called my name and Jonah's.
"Right, I forgot you two are doing it separately," Mr. Herberg corrected himself. "Alright, so who wants to go first?"
I forced myself not to look at Jonah, and after internally debating with myself for a few seconds, I said, "I'll go first."
I took a deep breath and connected my flash drive to Mr. Herberg's laptop. I started my presentation with giving a short explanation about what this project was and what we had to do. Like I had planned, I didn't go into much detail about the project. I made it short and simple, because I just wanted to get over it as quickly as possible.
And then finally, "Here's the home video that I made," I said with a nervous smile. "Um, I had a really great time with my partner and the fake baby we had to take care of."
It started with the one that I took at the diner. Jonah was working behind the counter, not realizing that I was secretly recording him and talking about him. It cut to the part where we had our "first date" for the first time, doing twenty questions because Mr. Herberg wanted us to know each other better. He was laughing for the very first time in the video—not a laugh laugh, but a small chuckle that was barely noticeable.
Since I didn't have any footage of the engagement, I skipped that part and went straight to me explaining about our imaginary wedding and honeymoon. A small, humble wedding in the backyard of his family's home, guests limited to our closest family and friends. A honeymoon "all over the world", and I showed the pictures of places that we would go to during the trip.
Then, the "birth" of Daisy. The day we got that fake baby for the first time. I showed a video that I took in the middle of the night, when she woke me up with her loud crying. I was obviously tired and half-asleep when I showed the crying doll. From there, I added a lot of parts of videos that I had taken when we went out for a walk with Daisy.
Once the video ended, I looked nervously at Jonah, who was still staring at the blank, projected screen behind me.
I said, "As you see, we had a really great time doing this project." I chuckled a little. "It was tough at first, because we didn't really get along with each other, but we sort of got over it eventually."
I looked away from Jonah. "What I've learned from this project is that... I need to be a responsible adult," I recited from the small paper that I held. "Being in a relationship, getting married, having kids... to do that, I have to know and be ready for all the risks. Having a baby isn't easy. I stayed up every night listening to that doll crying and sometimes I felt like I couldn't take it anymore. But I do know that I want to have kids in the future, and I want to be ready for it. This project gave me a little insight of what it's gonna be, and it helped a lot. I know I won't be ready for a baby at this age, but I think I will be when I get older.
"And same goes with relationships." I took a deep breath, and continued, "I learned that it's not easy to love someone. I'm still too young to know how hard it's gonna be to be in love as an adult, but I could imagine a little bit. Marriage is a huge commitment also, so I have to be ready for that. And I would like to be someday.
"Yeah... I don't know what I'm saying right now or what else to say," I said with a nervous chuckle. "I'm just... gonna end this," I muttered to myself and turned around to retrieve my flash drive. "Thanks for listening."
Mr. Herberg nodded at me with a smile and I went back to my seat, biting my lip nervously. He called Jonah's name, and I saw him stand up next to me, and my eyes trailed his figure and couldn't look away.
He gave us a short smile as he started the presentation. Like everyone else, he started with a short explanation about the project, and then he said, "I was assigned with Hannah Taylors." He looked at me briefly before looking away again. "I wasn't supposed to be, but something happened and we had to switch partners and then I was stuck with her."
I bit my tongue. Spencer turned around from where he was sitting to give me a look. I shrugged nervously at him.
"We were given a fake identity of who we're supposedly going to be as an adult. Hannah was an English teacher. I was a famous actor. Which is ironic because she's the one who wants to be an actress, not me." Jonah rubbed the back of his neck. He wasn't very comfortable talking in front of people. "We made up a story about how we met. We met through a dating site."
A series of chuckles erupted, and I nervously smiled.
Jonah turned around to play the video. It starts with me playing with my food at my lunch table, sitting in front of Gina and Bey. Jonah had shot this from his usual table at the lunch room.
"That's Hannah," he said, and people turned to look at me for a few seconds before turning back to watch the video. It switched to me at the diner, sitting alone at a lone table in the corner, wearing my ugly glasses and my hair up in a messy, half-assed ponytail as I was concentrating on my chemistry homework. It was shot from Jonah's usual place behind the counter. It wasn't the only video. There was another one when I was reading a book, when I was slouched back, listening to music with my eyes closed, when I was falling asleep, my arms folded on the table and my head resting on them.
I never knew he had recorded all that.
And then I saw myself, crouching down as I took a paper cup from the ground. And then I was walking through a path, a furry, gray cat leading my way in front of me.
The proposal.
Jonah was a few steps behind me, hiding, as Grace, his cat, led me the way to the garden, and I didn't know how I could have missed that. We all watched as I picked up small notes he had left me, took my favorite flower, and looked around wondering where Jonah was.
He put the camera somewhere and now we could see him walking a few steps toward me as I picked up another note, and then I turned around. I could hear us talk for a while, and I hadn't realized until this moment that I had been blushing so hard at that time that my whole face was red.
I was turning away from him to search for the ring, and he was right behind me before I turned around. He kneeled down, and the whole room chuckled a little, and I was smiling on the screen as Jonah put the ring on my finger.
I looked down at my own finger and sighed when I didn't see the ring.
After that was the wedding vow. Jonah apparently got someone to record it for him, and so we watched as I awkwardly made up my vow on the spot, and then Jonah reciting his quietly.
By the time he finished his vow, I think I had tears in my eyes waiting to fall down, but I held them in. Jonah's cheeks were red when this part of the video was being played.
"That's our fake baby," he said when Daisy appeared. "We named her Daisy because it's Hannah's favorite flower."
I blushed and avoided everyone's eyes. I was not mentally prepared for this.
"It's a very ugly doll, though," he muttered to himself. "I hope when we have a baby, it won't look like that."
I blushed even more, and the heart inside my chest was pumping so hard.
Jonah cleared his throat. "I mean—uh. Nevermind."
The video continued, and I saw myself swinging on a swing set. Jonah recorded me as I climbed the tree to get to the tree house, and when I was laughing because of something that he said. There was one when I was bottle-feeding Daisy, my expression annoyed from how hard she had been crying. There was also that one time when we went to the mall and pretended that we were shopping baby clothes for Daisy, and when we pretended that she was an actual baby who just said her first word, and we both had a fake-surprised look on our faces as if we were actual proud parents.
It was stupid, but that last part made me laugh to myself and a tear finally fell down. I quickly wiped it before anyone noticed.
"I think we would be a great family," Jonah said, the video still playing behind him. He looked at me and said, "At times, she really acted as if Daisy was an actual baby. She would be a great mother one day."
He said, "I learned the same things Hannah has learned from this project. Having a kid is a big responsibility, and a teenager is not supposed to hold that responsibility. And we all know that's what this baby project is all about. But, um," he paused for a while. "I think I learned more from Hannah, rather than from this project."
My eyebrows furrowed in confusion, but he looked away from me.
"She taught me a lot of things, gave me what I never knew I needed or wanted. There's no one else I would've wanted to do this project with, so I'm really glad that I had her. I was lucky that I got to be paired with her."
He looked down at the floor, hiding his reddened cheeks.
"I hope she feels the same way too, even though I wasn't the easiest person to talk to. I'm glad she did anyway—I'm glad she pushed her way through and never backed down trying to pull me out of my hiding place." I saw Mr. Herberg smiling as Jonah spoke. "I'd like to thank her for that."
Mr. Herberg cut in, "Well, Jonah, you should tell her that yourself, don't you think?"
Jonah nodded and smiled a little. "Of course."
I think I died a little.
The video ended with me smiling at the camera, holding up Daisy's stiff arm and waved it as if we were saying goodbye, and then the screen turned black. Jonah walked back to his seat, but he didn't look at me, even though the small smile he had on his face hadn't disappeared yet.
I couldn't concentrate. The rest of the period passed by like a blur. I didn't listen to the presentations, I didn't watch the videos on the screen. All I could think about was Jonah and what he had said about me.
Were things between us alright again?
We didn't speak at all until the end of the period. He left the classroom before I did, and it got me wondering whether I was just putting my hopes too high that he had forgiven me.
I told Gina—and Bey as well—about what had happened, and they rightfully started squealing in excitement, convinced that everything was going to be alright between me and Jonah.
"There's still one thing that I don't understand, though," I told Gina as we walked in the hallway, toward my locker. "About that night, during the accident."
"You're still thinking about that?" she asked exasperatedly. "I thought we're already past that. You know he never did anything wrong, right?"
"Of course I know that, but that's exactly what I'm wondering about," I said. "He never did anything wrong. So why did he blame himself and think that he did?"
Her eyebrows furrowed, and she thought about it. "Hm. My theory is," she started slowly, "maybe he was sort of traumatized after seeing the accident with his own eyes? So his brain made up this scenario that he was the one who caused it... stuff like that."
"Like how I have nightmares about that night?"
She nodded. "Exactly. You were traumatized by the accident, and you couldn't remember anything from that night. Then your brain fed you lies with the nightmares you have, and none of those dreams actually ever explained what fully happened that night. But him, maybe he does remember what happened, but his brain keeps twisting it and so he believes that he was involved in it."
"That's really strange."
"But not impossible to happen," she said with a shrug. "Also, maybe he felt guilty because he only called the ambulance and couldn't do anything else? Like, I don't know, maybe he felt like he could've done something more to help you but he didn't. And he felt so bad about it that he felt like he had hurt you himself."
I sighed. "I wish I could talk to him about it."
"Well, technically, you can," she pointed out.
"But—" I let out a groan. "It's not that easy, Gina."
"No, really, it is that easy. All you have to do is come up to him and talk!" she said matter-of-factly.
I sighed in frustration. "You won't understand." We stopped by my locker for a while so I could put away my books.
"You're the one who always complicates things, Hannah," she told me. "And you've turned into this... this overthinking pessimist. You should just chill out and stop thinking about the worst. It's all going to be fine."
I opened my locker and put away my books, but before I could close it, a piece of paper fell down and my eyebrows were furrowed in confusion.
I crouched down to take it and realized that it was a note.
"What is it?" Gina asked curiously, peeking over my shoulder to read what was written.
At first I was staring at the note in disbelief. Quickly, it changed to a mix of happiness, confusion, excitement, and anxiety.
And maybe a thousand different feelings I couldn't put into words as well.
"Gina," I said slowly. "Can you give me a ride?"
She nodded her head excitedly behind me. "Of course, of course! Wait, let me get Bey real soon. Don't go anywhere!"
I slowly nodded, my eyes still focused at the piece of paper in my hand. A slow smile started to appear on my face, but I tried to hold in a full blown grin as I re-read the sentence a hundred times.
Where I took you on your birthday date. I'll see you there.
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