My phone rang from my bedside table, and I sprang up from my study desk, ignoring the rest of the chemistry equations I had to solve, and went to answer the call.
"Are you up for an ice cream date?" Jonah said before I could even say hello.
"Hmm, ice cream, you say? Interesting."
"Good. Get ready, I'll be there in ten."
"You're off work already?" I asked, already browsing through my closet. "Do I need to bring Daisy too?"
"Yes and yes," he said. "I'll see you soon."
"See you," I replied, and he hung up. I threw my phone onto my bed, and went to pick out clothes from the wardrobe.
I was ready in almost exactly ten minutes. I wore a coat over my long sleeved shirt and put on my knit cap, and then went over to Daisy to get her ready. I bundled her up in blankets, making sure that there were no gaps on the surface of her "skin". The doorbell rang shortly after, and I screamed at my mom not to open the door before running down the stairs.
"Mom, I'm going out."
"Where and with who?"
"Somewhere with Jonah," I replied, kissing her in the cheek as I passed by her lounged in the living room with a magazine on her lap.
She smiled slyly. "Are you guys dating?"
"Yes. I think so. I don't know, I like to think that we are but he never said so whatever," I said with a shrug, and then held up my left hand. "We're married anyway."
She laughed. "Alright. Go have fun and be back before dinner."
"Will do," I saluted her. "Bye!"
I opened the front door for Jonah, who stood there with a smile on his face. "Hi."
"Hi," I said, letting him take the doll from my arms. As he did so, he leaned down to plant a kiss on my cheek and I couldn't stop myself from blushing.
"I saw that!" Mom yelled from the living room, and Jonah nearly jumped six feet of the ground. His eyes were wide; he was definitely scared.
"MOM," I replied, my face reddening in embarrassment. "Shut up."
When he saw that Mom wasn't getting mad at him for kissing me, he peeked inside the house and called, "Good afternoon Mrs. Taylors."
"Hi Jonah!" she called out. "Have fun, you two!"
I closed the door behind me and we went into his car, situating Daisy at the backseat of his car. Before he started up the car, he reached to take his camcorder from the glove compartment, turned it on record and placed it on the dashboard. He tugged at my arm, drawing me closer so that both of us were in the shot.
"Hello," he said as we began to drive away. "We're going on an ice cream date with Daisy in the backseat."
I jerked my thumb backwards. "She's in a baby seat," I reassured Mr. Herberg who would be watching. "All bundled up and warm, perfectly safe and sound."
Jonah rolled his eyes. "And I'm recording this because apparently we've forgotten that we're supposed to make a home movie."
"You mean you've forgotten," I corrected him. "You obviously never noticed me filming you almost every day."
He raised an eyebrow at me. "And she calls me the creepy one."
I stuck out my tongue at him and reached out to turn on the radio. I browse through the stations, waiting until I found a song that I liked. I finally brightened when I found one that I liked, and I almost immediately began singing.
Jonah glanced at me as I sang along.
"Do you know this song?" I asked. He shrugged.
"Heard it a couple of times in the radio."
"Sing it with me!"
"I thought you said you hated singing."
"But I like singing this song. Come sing with me."
He scoffed. "No."
"Come on!"
"I don't like the song."
"How come you don't like this song?" I almost exclaimed. "I cannot accept it. Come sing with me. I am begging you."
"No."
"Jonah."
"No."
"Fine, then I'll sing as loud as I can."
"Go ahead."
I basically screamed, "'Cause you are the piece of me I wish I didn't need. Chasing relentlessly, still fight and I don't know why-y!"
Jonah was holding in a laugh as I sang loudly with my off-key voice.
"If our love is tragedy why are you my remedy? If our love's insanity why are you my clarity?"
He finally laughed at the crazy look on my face as I awkward-danced to the beat of the song, bobbing my head up and down as if I was the shit.
"Heeeey-ay, hey-ay-ay," I continued to sing/scream, doing a little dance in the car, mostly with my arms and my head just twitching around. "Come on, Jonah, sing it with me."
Through his laughter, he attempted to sing too.
I sang loudly, "Hey hey! If our love is tragedy, why are you my remedy?"
Unexpectedly, Jonah joined in with his own terrible voice. "If our love's insanity why are you my clarity?"
I burst out laughing, which only seemed to encourage him.
"Walk on through a red parade and refuse to make amends," Jonah continued, his voice barely matching the key of the song. "It cuts deep through our ground and makes us forget all common sense."
"Don't speak as I try to leave 'cause we both know what we'll choose," I sang along. "If you pull then I'll push too deep and I'll fall right back to you."
"'Cause you are the piece of me I wish I didn't need! Chasing relentlessly, still fight and I don't know why-y!" he blasted out, his voice definitely cracking at the end of the sentence.
We both sang. "If our love is tragedy, why are you my remedy? If our love's insanity, why are you my clarity?"
We continued to sing until our throats felt raw, because we were actually just screaming instead of singing. We were both still laughing so hard by the time we arrived at the small town square. In retrospect, screaming our throats raw before having freezing cold ice cream didn't really seem like the best idea, but at least we had fun.
We got out and made our way to ice cream shop, with Daisy inside the baby stroller that Jonah was pushing. His other hand was still holding his camera, and he was filming me as we walked.
He immediately ordered. "Double scoop of vanilla, in a cone."
The guy behind the counter nodded. "Anything else?"
Jonah turned to me.
"Double scoop of strawberry cheesecake, in a cone too," I said. "With extra strawberry syrup," I added.
Jonah insisted to pay even though he didn't have toâ"It's only fair after all these months of free meals at the diner!"âand we continued to walk along the fairly crowded street. We crossed the street to the town park in the middle of the square, the same park where we had our first "day out" with Daisy a few weeks ago.
It was pretty cold out, but the park wasn't deserted, though it wasn't as crowded as before. Jonah said that we should sit down as we finish our ice cream first, so we sat down on an empty wooden bench. Jonah turned off his camera and put it inside Lily's stroller.
"For your information," I said, still licking my ice cream, "I actually love ice cream so much I would actually marry it if it proposed to me, so I demand more ice cream dates in the future."
His face sort of lit up as he nodded. "In the future, yes, obviously definitely." He smiled. "I really like the sound of that."
"Me too," I replied softly.
"You and Iâwe're really together, right?" asked Jonah, peering at me from behind his boring vanilla ice cream.
I shot him a smirk. "Hmm. Lemme think about it for a second." Which had Jonah groaning, slightly nudging at my side with his elbow. I laughed at his distress, before answering with a faux sigh-of-exasperation, "Ugh. Fine. Yes. You and me. We are a thing."
"A thing." He was glowering at me, which made me giggle.
I nodded lightly. "Yes. A thing. A partnership. Between two not-single individuals. A relationship? A romantic affair. Whatever you wanna call it."
He was shaking his head in amusement as I was babbling, all while finishing off his ice cream cone. "What if I just wanna call you my girlfriend?"
Biting my lip to stop myself from grinning, I shrugged nonchalantly. "As long as I get to call you my boyfriend."
He was smiling at me, making an approving face and nodding. "Fine with me."
"Excellent." I looked away from him so I could let out a big smile, then attempted to hide it by nearly shoving the top of my ice cream all the way into my mouth.
Until I heard Jonah chuckle. "This is gonna sound cliché but you've got a little something over there," he said, pointing at the corner of his own lips, before gesturing at mine.
I looked up, playfully raising a brow. "Well I'm not wiping it up."
"Oh?" he hummed in amusement. "Alright, then. Let me."
He reached out his hand, but instead of brushing his thumb over the corner of my lips or something like that, he just grabbed the side of my face, and then he kissed the exact spot where the ice cream was smeared all over my cheek. The instinctive gasp of surprise that left my mouth immediately turned into a series of very embarrassing giggles, which made him grin.
"There. It's gone," he said after inspecting my face. He licked his own lips and grinned again, before making a face. "I don't like that flavor. Tastes weird."
I gasped. "Don't insult my taste in ice cream," I said, offended. "What about you? You're the lamest person ever. Your favorite flavor is vanilla and you have exactly nothing on it. You're so boring."
He rolled his eyes at me. "At least it's not something insane like strawberry cheesecake flavored ice cream with extra syrup."
I huffed and turned my body away, finishing my ice cream and ignoring him until I was done. From the corner of my eyes, I saw him roll his eyes again before calmly eating his own ice cream.
"Hey, Hannah?"
I ignored him as I ate the last piece of the cone.
"Hannah," he sang out my name, and I felt his hands reaching out to my waist to tickle me.
I instantly turned around to stop him, but then I was greeted with his lips on mine. I couldn't help but kiss back, slowly smiling into the kiss.
He rested his forehead on mine and I opened my eyes to see that he was already staring at me. He smiled. "I've decided that I really, really, really like kissing you."
"That's awesome because so do I," I said, still breathless, babbling to myself as he continued peppering kisses all over my lips. And cheeks. Temple. Forehead. Nose. And chin. The sides of my jaw... "I mean, kissing you. Not kissing myself. 'Cause how do you even do that? Also, I'm not that narcissistic."
He laughed softly, the rumbles of his laughter vibrating against his chest. "Iâ"
And then came the screeching sound of Daisy's cries, and we both sprang away from each other to immediately take her from the stroller.
"Sometimes I really hate her," I muttered.
"Sometimes?" Jonah scoffed. "I always hate her."
"Speaking of hate," I said. "When did you stop hating me?"
He smirked. "I never hated you. I just strongly disliked you."
"Same thing."
"No, it's different," he said. "Hate is when you wish death upon the person." I made a horrified face at him. "I just simply didn't like the fact that you existed there to annoy me."
"You're a horrible person but okayâhate, dislike, whatever, when did you stop?"
He shrugged. "I can't exactly pinpoint when," he told me. "I think you just slowly grow on me and whatever. Like a fungus."
"Come on," I whined. "There's gotta be that moment, that life-changing moment when you realized that you liked me."
He was quiet for a while as he seriously thought it over. As he did, Daisy's cries slowly stopped, but I still held her there. "Hm," he finally murmured. "Now that I think about it, I think I've started to kind of like you that day when you first came to the diner during my shift."
I was silent as I thought; that was a long time ago.
He was slightly smilingâand blushing. "I just saw you smile when you saw my drawing on the latte, and when you smiled again after you took a sip, I just thought, you know, 'She's kinda pretty'."
I made a disbelieving face at him.
"But you were just really annoying and it was irritating," he added and I rolled my eyes with a laugh. "So I guess it was just easier to think that I didn't like you at all rather than to admit that I was actually starting to. It was very confusing."
I chuckled and looked down at my lap to hide my reddened cheeks.
"And then when you got sick that day, after I was actually starting to enjoy doing the project with you, with the proposal and all that stuff," he said softly, "I was confused because I felt... scared. I was scared for you. You looked like you were hurting and all I wanted to do was to make you feel better."
"Oh, Jonah..."
"So, yeah," he said, his own face reddening as well. "The changing point, though? I think it was the vow."
I smiled and tightened the hold I had on the fake baby just slightly. "The cheesy ass vow."
He shook his head. "You really made it up on the spot, didn't you?" he asked with a slight chuckle.
I was laughing as well. "I did. I was so surprised by your vow because it was beautiful and I hated my own vow because I wrote it half-assedly the previous night, and, I don't know, it just kind of happened."
"Did you already like me at that point?" he asked quietly.
Well... I mean. "Yeah."
"Now it's your turn," he said. He took Daisy and put her inside the stroller. "Tell me, when did you start liking me?"
Despite the fact that I asked him the same question first, I hadn't expected it to be directed at me. My mind was racing, trying to come up with the best answer I could on the spot.
For obvious reasons, I didn't think he'd appreciate finding out that I deliberately schemed my way into his heart. And for the first time since the day I'd declared Operation Bite the Apple, I felt a jolt of fear shooting into my chest. Complete, shameful fear, of him finding out that his own attraction to me wasn't a hundred percent genuine. That it was all mostly fabricated.
By me.
At the end, I chose to answer, "I think it was when you made that latte, too," I told him. A little white lie wouldn't hurt, would it? "But my changing point? It was definitely the proposal."
He smiled at me.
That wasn't even a lie. Sure, I had been harboring a big crush on him forever, but the day of the proposal? That was when I realized that what I was feeling for him was a little bit more than just a silly crush.
"Have I already told you how much I liked the proposal?" I asked him with a grin, trying to move the conversation along. "Because I do. And I had already liked you by then so just imagine how much squealing I did after you left the garden."
Then Jonah slowly smirked. "I heard it."
The grin on my face dropped. "Heard what?"
"When you squealed after the proposal," he said humorously. "I actually heard it."
My face burned in embarrassment. Oh my fucking god. "Ummm. No. You didn't."
He nodded slowly. "Oh, I did." He was laughing as I tried to cover my face with my arms. So much for keeping my cool. "But I just thought maybe you were actually yelling at me for something or whatever so I just walked away and ignored it. I didn't think you were actually squealing over me."
"Oh, God, that's so embarrassing. I didn't think you would actually heard it."
"Well," he said, still laughing, "I think it was cute."
He peeled my arms off my face and gave me a smile. "What?" I asked.
"I feel very much appreciated," he said. He then took my right hand and brushed his finger over the ring he made me. "It makes me very happy, so you've got nothing to be embarrassed about."
"You're just saying that."
"I'm not," he said sincerely. And then he kissed me in the cheek. "You make me happy."
"Jonah, stop making me blush," I told him in annoyance, slapping both of my hands over my warm cheeks.
He laughed and stood up, taking my hand so he could pull me up. "Come on, let's do something else."
"Like what?"
He took his camera from next to Daisy inside the stroller and turned it on. "I don't know, what do you wanna do?" he asked, pointing the camera at me.
I took out my own phone from my jeans pocket and started filming him. "I wanna do everything."
"Okay," he said, smiling. "First things first, race you to the playground," he said, before immediately running away, leaving me and the baby stroller and laughing his butt off at the same time.
I laughed and yelled at him, "Jonah! Come back here!" I turned the camera to myself and shook my head. "He's such a pain in the butt." I turned to Daisy and started to push the stroller forward. "Come on, girl, let's go race your dad."
[]
We ended up going back to Jonah's house after spending another hour and a half playing in the playground like a pair of five year-olds. We brought Daisy as we played on the swing-setâshe ended up crying and we had to make her quiet againâas well as going on the slideâshe cried again when Jonah slid down with her in his armsâand basically everyone was staring at us as if we were crazy. We probably were, but I'd never had that much fun so I didn't care all that much.
Jonah's mom and Clara were home, and I did a little awkward wave in greeting when I went into their house. Clara immediately brightened when she saw me and we ended up chatting while Jonah went off somewhere to do something.
We were at the living room and Clara was basically pulling out all their childhood photo albums.
"I think it's my duty to show this all to you," she told me, smirking a little. "I wasn't there in most of Jonah's baby photos because I obviously wasn't born yet, but I like going through them to laugh at them. Look at this one."
I instantly laughed when I saw the picture she was showing.
"Apparently, this is from his first birthday," she said. "Dad has always been a huge Elvis fan so he decided to dress Jonah exactly like him."
"Oh my god." I wiped the tears from my eyes. Jonah, just a tiny little baby, was in a baby-sized classic Elvis Presley costume, pouting at the camera while his dad grinned from behind as he hold up both of Jonah's arms. "Look at the fake hair on his head. Oh my freaking god. This is the most beautiful thing ever."
"I know, right?" she said excitedly before showing me another picture. "This one is during his sixth birthday. I was that fat baby in my mom's arms, but it's irrelevant. Look. At. That. Kid," she laughed, pointing at a boy in a red Power Rangers costume in the middle of the picture, with a huge grin on his face as he pointed at the birthday cake in front of him.
"A Power Rangers' themed birthday party?" I gasped with laughter. "Is this even real life? This is so cool! I wish I was there!"
I looked at the picture, and there were some other different kids dressed in different-colored ranger costumes. "The other rangers?"
"Some of his old friends, I think," she told me. "I don't really remember."
It was kind of hard to believe that Jonah used to have a group of friends. "Any other ones?"
"Hmm," she hummed, choosing another one. "Oh! This one isâ"
"What the heck are you two doing?" Jonah interrupted us. His eyes widened when he saw me and Clara, with a bunch of photo albums sat in-between us. His face was red as freaking tomato as he hissed, "Clara!"
Clara stood up and laughed, running away to get into her bedroom and taking the photo album with her. They sort of played chase for a while, but the younger kid successfully locked herself in her bedroom, laughing as Jonah banged his fists on her door out of annoyance. He finally gave up and just glared at the poor door, before turning around to meet me with a very embarrassed look on his face.
"Can I maybe ask you to erase all of that from your mind?" he muttered as he pulled me up from the couch, dragging me towards his room.
"Nope," I said cheekily. "Stop pouting. You're not fun."
"Those pictures are not fun."
"Are too."
I paused to look around, nodding my head in approval. "Impressive."
He shrugged, blushing a little.
There was a single bed under the window, a medium-sized closet, and a neatly organized study desk with a small book case next to it. His room was quite small and simple, but he was so much neater than I was that it felt way much comfortable here than in my own room.
The walls were painted navy blue, and the floor was covered with thin black carpet. The sheet of his bed and pillow was plain black as well, and there was a folded white blanket at the end of the bed.
"Don't you, you know, play video games and stuff like most guys do?" I asked curiously because there was basically nothing else inside his room.
"We have a PS3 downstairs. I don't play video games much, so," he said with a shrug. "Come on, let's sit down."
We sat down on his bed, cross-legged, facing each other. I was the first time to crack, bursting out laughing after a couple seconds of us just staring at each other. He made a funny face at me, before joining in and chuckled.
Then I asked, "Twenty questions?"
"Sure."
"Promise to answer honestly?"
His eyes slightly narrowed as if he was wondering where I was going. But then he nodded. "Of course."
"What's holding you back, Jonah?" I asked. He was confused by the question, so I rephrased, "Before I literally barged into your life, it seemed like you have no other friend but your family."
He swallowed as if there was a lump in his throat. I moved closer to him, taking his hands in mine and intertwining our fingers together.
"I know, this might be insensitive of me to ask, but I just want to understand," I said softly, still caressing the top of his knuckles with my thumbs.
He stared at our joined hands as he thought the question over. It took a while before he spoke. "I just never really thought I would need anyone else," he finally said. "I don't have any exact reason for it. I didn't think I needed a friend. Didn't want to have one."
But I pushed, "You just didn't want to? There wasn't any other reason?"
"There's none."
"Jonah."
He stared back at me. He hesitantly shrugged. "Alright. Maybe I was just afraid of losing."
I squeezed his hands, silently encouraging him to go on.
"You know that we moved here a few years ago, right?" He paused as I nodded. "Well, when we were moving out from out old place, I had to leave a lot of people that I cared about. I had friends. Neighbors. A favorite mailman. We promised to keep in touch, but I was young and before I knew it, I just stopped talking to my old friends. Now imagine that happening over and over again, throughout my childhood. I know it sounds sappy, and maybe stupid, but it just never seemed like letting anyone else in again was worth it. Besides, I already hated the prospect of moving here in the first place so I instantly disliked everything and everyone I saw and it just stuck with me," he explained quietly. He looked up at me. "And then you came."
I gave him a sad smile, leaning in to give him a kiss on the cheek, "Thank you for telling me that. Your turn, now."
"Okay." He looked at me in confirmation. "Promise to be honest?" I nodded at him. "You never answered my question about how my songs sometimes make you sad."
I looked away, but he gently grabbed my chin.
"I'm just wondering why. Can you tell me?"
I slowly turned to look at him again. "You have an interesting taste in music," I simply said. "It reminds me of things that I both want to forget and remember, and sometimes I just turn nostalgic over it. I don't know."
He was silent, but he was listening.
"I never even realized that I get sad. I thought I just... drift off," I told him, laughing lightly. "My turn."
"Okay."
I smiled. "What is actually the color of your eyes?"
He chuckled. "I think it should be me who's asking you that."
"Just answer it."
"I say it's gray, but some people would say it's blue. Depends on how you look at them, and at which time of the day, I guess?"
"Alright," I said. "Your turn."
"What's your eye color?" he threw my question back at me, while brushing his thumb atop my eyebrows. "It changes every ti..." he trailed off suddenly, and my breath hitched when his fingers traced a little line of deep scar I had on my forehead, just half an inch away from my left eyebrow, that I always covered with hair. He frowned as he felt the scar, his eyes looking at mine questioningly.
I smiled despite the upcoming panic that crept up my throat. He was surely going to ask about it soon. "They're blue-green. You know what's funny? My hairdresser said my eyes were closer to green when I had my hair dyed red. But now that I'm blonde again, he said they're looking more blue."
He nodded, but his focus was obviously not on the color of my eyes anymore.
"My turn," I said, trying to find a question to ask, but my mind wasn't working right because his finger was still there, gently pressing against the scar I had tried so hard to forget. "Um." I swallowed. "Um," I tried again. "What is your hobby?" I finally asked lamely, unable to find a decent question.
"I play guitar."
"You do? I didn't know that."
"Yeah." He smiled a little, but he was still frowning at the same time. "My turn."
"Go on," I said shakily.
He paused to look at me in the eye, before brushing the hair on my forehead away, revealing the scar that wasn't so noticeable, but obviously was if you looked at it this closely. He traced his thumb over the scar once again, long and deep and ugly, and all I wanted to do was push his hands away from me, but I was too frozen to move. "Where did you get this scar?" he asked quietly.
I tried to look away, but I found myself unable to. Finally, I told him, "There was an accident." It was so quiet in his room, the only sounds audible were the sounds of my heavy breathing. Was he breathing as loud as I was? "Um, it was a long time ago. That's where I got this scar." I finally reached out to take his hand and drag it away. I shook my head a little so my hair would fall forward and covered the scar again. "It's ugly. I don't like you seeing it."
He swallowed, and I saw an undecipherable look in his eyes.
"Please don't look at it," I begged. I didn't need a reminder of that night, or the dash of insecurity that came with having a permanent, prominent scar on your faceânot when I was actually having a good time today.
"Okay, I won't," he promised softly. "Your turn."
I swallowed. "Uh. I think I ran out of question," I told him, pulling away a little. "Drive me home?"
"It's only four," he said. "I don't want you to go yet."
I sighed, still a bit shaken, but somehow I managed a smile. "Okay."
Another look crossed over his face. "But if you're feeling tired, then I think we can call it a day."
I could see the disappointment in his eyes as he said so, but I couldn't help that my energy had been zapped away in an instant. I didn't think I could stomach another hour or two of those sad eyes roaming around my face.
Or the questions that linger behind those gray eyes.
[]
I knew that my parents knew what was in my mind when I got into the dining room tonight.
Ever since I woke up, I had been completely distraught. Maybe it had to do with the fact that Jonah almost brought up one of my worst nightmares yesterday, but mostly because of the numbers that glared back at me when I checked my phone this morning.
Sunday, November the ninth. Which meant that I was getting nearer and nearer to the exact day that I never wanted to see on the calendar ever again.
And as usual, just like the previous years, my parents pretended not to notice the fact that I was noticeably upset about something. Even my brother noticed, but he was too young to understand.
So I ate the vegetable stir-fry in complete silence, with my head down and with my ears blocking out the chatters between Mom and Dad and sometimes Cole. They'd bring up things about Jonah once in a while to get me to talk, but I just smiled or gave short answers before going back to silence.
"Mom, can I go this year?" I blurted out, cutting off the conversation she was having with Dad. I didn't look at her eyes.
She frowned. "What are you talking about?"
I clamped my jaw and played with the chopped pieces of carrot on my plate. "I want to visit him this year."
Dad spoke up, "Hannahâ"
"No! I don't want to hear the same excuses every time," I snapped, finally looking at both of them in the eye. "What's so wrong about it? I just want to see him. He's been gone for four fucking yearsâ"
"Hannah! Please watch your words," Mom interjected, glancing sharply at my brother.
"Why can't I go?" I cried. "Why do you guys never let me talk about it? You all think I'm going to forget if you don't bring it up but I don't. It's in my mind every damn day. Sometimes I'm just gonna snap," I murmured the last part to myself, though I wouldn't be surprised if they could hear it. I pushed myself off the dining table and stood up. "I'm not hungry anymore."
"Hannahâ"
I went out of the dining room, but my dad stopped me just before I reached the stairs.
"Johanna Mary Taylors," he called out, and I froze in my tracks. He turned my body around but I refused to look at him, locking my gaze onto the ground. "Come back to the dining room right this instant."
I pulled away. "No." I felt tears building up in my eyes. "Not until you two actually let me bring up that night without steering off the conversation elsewhere. I'm not a child anymore, Dad."
His jaw was taut, and the hold he had on my shoulders was lessening. I knew that he wasn't going to talk about it, so I shook my head and turned around to leave to my room.
I locked my door and wiped the tears on my cheeks angrily. I threw myself onto my bed and just lay there for a while until the tears finally stopped, letting all the anger that I had slowly dissipate, leaving me with only hurt and sadness. I reached out to my bedside table and took my phone, dialing the number that I knew by heart.
"Hannah?"
"Hey," I said quietly. "Are you busy?"
There was a pause. "No." She sighed softly. "Tell me what it is."
Leann already knew what was wrong even before I told her about it. I suspected that Mom or Dad had actually called her as I was staring up into my ceiling a few minutes ago, but I told her everything anyway.
She was quiet as I spoke, but I knew that she was listening. She always listened.
"I can't help that I feel sad about it. And I hate that they won't let me be sad. They won't even talk to me about it."
"I wish I could be there with you right now," she told me softly. "I don't like knowing that you're feeling like this and all alone back home. You know I don't agree with them, but they won't listen to me either."
I laughed softly. "I really miss you, Leann."
"I know, I miss you too," she said. "I'm coming home in a few weeks. I'll be there during Thanksgiving, I promise."
"Okay." I let a smile appear on my face at the thought of her being home again. "I can't wait until you get home."
"Me too," she said. "But let's forget about the heavy things for a while, yeah?" I hummed in response. "A birdy told me that you've finally snagged yourself a boyfriend..."
I finally laughed. "Yeah," I told her, grinning now. "His name starts with Jonah and ends with Gibbs."
She gasped. "You did not!" I just laughed. "Tell me about everything right this instant."
So I told her everything, and I found myself slowly feeling better and happier as I told my sister everything that had happened between Jonah and me. Yeah, Jonah Gibbs had that effect on me, even though he wasn't even here with me.
[]
author's note: currently editing this story in 2023 and i can't believe taylor swift wrote "mastermind" about hannah and jonah lmaooo