"Did you have another nightmare last night?" Jonah asked as he picked me up for school, kissing the side of my head right before opening the passenger door for me.
I smiled at the gesture that had started to become a habit of his whenever he saw me. "Yeah. It's nothing as bad, though. Managed a couple hours of sleep."
He frowned as he started driving, keeping his eyes at the road ahead. "Did you always have those nightmares every night?"
"No," I said. "I don't have those as often anymore. But it always gets bad during this time of year."
"This time of year?" he asked curiously.
I bit my lip as he sent me a quick glance. "Yeah." I paused. "The accident happened around this time four years ago."
Jonah didn't say anything, but when I looked at him, he was looking at the road in front of him intensely, with his eyebrows drawn tightly together as if he was deep in thought. The frown on his face only got deeper as he reached out to take my hand in his. I squeezed back, silently telling him that I was okay. "Tell me if there's anything I can do to make it better, alright?"
I smiled and nodded at him. "Of course, Jonah."
He smiled back at me, but there was something off with the smile on his face. He dropped it a few seconds after to say, "I'm guessing this has something to do with the fact that you don't drive?"
"Mm-hm." I nodded. "I mean, I can driveâI've taken lessons and I do have my drivers license but I just don't drive." I shrugged, trying to loosen the tightness that had wrapped around my throat. "I don't think I can afford to put someone's life in my hands when I drive. If something happens again, it'll be my responsibility."
Jonah was silent as he took in my words, but before he could reply, I cut in with a chuckle.
"I hate talking about things like this. Why don't we just go back to being the weird and fun couple we had been before I told you my sob story?" I asked lightly as I turned on the radio.
"Sorry," he said, cracking a smile. "You're right. Let's talk about something else."
"Like what?" I prompted, my lips pulling up into a grin.
"Like, I don't know, the fact that we're gonna be free of fake babies in less than two weeks?" he said, clearly overjoyed by it.
I laughed. "Don't say that. I bet you're gonna miss her once she's gone,"
He scoffed, "Believe me, I won't."
"Don't say I didn't tell you!"
"At least she won't be there to interrupt us," he said with a slight scowl, probably remembering our numerous almost-kisses that Daisy intervened with her fake tears. "It's almost as if she knows exactly when to start crying."
"She probably does," I mused, and then let out a dramatic gasp. "Wait. What if Mr. Herberg has a secret camera installed on her and he actually controls when she cries?"
Jonah made a displeased face. "God, I hope he doesn't. What a creep."
"Well, he seems to like us, though," I told him.
"He probably ships us," he agreed, making me turn to him in surprise.
"You actually know what a ship is?" I asked in disbelief, trying not to laugh at the same time.
He glowered at me. "You seem to always forget that I live with a thirteen year-old fangirl in the house."
I finally let out the laugh I'd been holding. It sounded pretty entertaining knowing that Jonah actually was educated in the whole current teenage trends right now. "Right. Of course, how could I forget?" I said. "What do you think our ship name would be?"
He looked at me a bit weirdly. "You're actually wondering about that?"
"Why not?" I asked. "So, what should our ship name be? Jannah? Honah?"
"Yikes, no." He made a clearly disgusted face. "I don't like those."
"Those are the only ways our names could blend together!"
"How about Jonanah?" he said, tilting his head to the side as he made a turn. "Pronounced slightly like bananas, but with a J."
I burst out laughing at the self-satisfied look on his face. "Wait, that's so silly that I actually love it. Jonanah. That's it. That's our official ship name."
He chuckled at me before reaching out and ruffled my hair. "Whatever you say, Hannah."
"We should probably get a matching bracelet that says Jonanah," I enthused, making him shake his head amusedly at me. "Maybe even make a bunch of them and pass them around! Gina definitely ships us. She deserves one."
He hummed. "I think I would ship us too."
"Good, that's good," I whispered back. "Because Jonanah is my OTP."
He turned and frowned in confusion. "What's an OTP?"
[]
"You should probably go see your therapist again, Hannah," Gina whispered to me as we walked out of the locker room. People were already standing in lines in the middle of the gym, waiting for our coach to appear. "Isn't seeing one supposed to help with these kinds of shit? I don't know. My mom won't let me see one. Says she doesn't believe in it."
I merely shrugged at her. "I can deal with it."
"Barely," my best friend pointed out. When I turned to look at her, she had a concerned look on her face. "Your parents don't even know, do they?"
I shrugged. "It's just some nightmares. It'll be over by the end of the year like it always does."
"But it's visibly stressing you out." She paused to tie her hair up in a ponytail, before reaching out and grabbed my face in both of her hands, squeezing my cheeks until I pouted at her. "I don't want to see you having another breakdown like last year. It was hard for me to watch and I couldn't even begin to imagine how it feels for you."
I bit my lip. "I won't have a mental breakdown," I said, but even I wasn't convinced by it. "I'll try not to have a mental breakdown," I clarified after she gave me a look.
"Did you at least tell Jonah about it?"
"Only partially."
She gave me another look.
"What? He doesn't need to know everything, does he?" I defended. "It's in the past anyway. I don't want to keep dwelling on it even more than I already am. Besides, it has nothing to do with him."
"I think he should know."
"Not everything."
"What if you have a breakdown in front of him?" she challenged.
"I won't."
The look on her face was grim. "The date's coming in a few days."
I didn't say anything.
"You're going to freak him out when it happens," she continued quietly.
"On the contrary, he could probably help me with it," I said positively. "He's helped me with my nightmares. He knows what to do to calm me down. He makes me feel calm."
She sighed. "Alright, Hannah. Whatever makes you happy." She then lightly punched me in the arm. "You know I'm always here for you."
"I know." I grinned. "Thanks for that."
"And, Hannah?" she asked quietly, with a sad smile on her face, "I miss him too. Summers haven't been the same without his stupid pranks."
I returned the smile and gave her a nod. "I know."
"Yo, girlies!" Our conversation was cut short as a basketball was shot toward us. Gina barely made it in time to catch it before it kissed her pretty face. We turned to see Spencer grinning at us. "Done with the gossip?"
"What do you want, Abbott?"
"Coach said a basketball game. Girls versus guys."
"Are you kidding me?" I groaned in annoyance. "I'll be off to the bench."
"No, you are not." Gina caught my arm before I could leave, dragging me toward the group of girls who were already plotting against the guys. Because we obviously needed a good strategy to take down those brats. "We're gonna kick ass today."
[]
"Hmm, was it your..." I paused, tilting my head to the side. "Grandma?
He snorted. "No. The hag died last year."
I gasped. "Jonah! That's awful!"
"Sorry. She was a trouble to grow up with. I loved her, rest in peace, et cetera," he said airily. "Take another guess."
'You are such a horrible person," I tsked.
"Believe me, I meant that word in the most loving way possible," he deadpanned.
It was midnight, and we were having another phone call that basically consisted of us talking about one topic to another and never stopping until one of us fell asleep first. We had this tendency to stray our conversations from A to Z without realizing, but I guess it was the best part of midnight conversations anyway.
I shifted the phone in my ear before saying, "Hmm... probably an ex-girlfriend?"
He made a sound of amusement. "You're my first girlfriend."
"Right." I actually giggled. This was so disgusting of me. "Okay, who is it? I ran out of guesses."
"It was actually this boy I knew back in California," he said. "We were like ten or something, and he had a crush on this girl he met in this summer camp who coincidentally turned out to be my next door neighbor."
"Mmhm."
He continued, "So he was telling me some advices about how to pick up girlsâ"I snorted "âand I was just nodding at him because I was ten and I was curious, you know? So he went to my house because it was easier to creep on his crush there, and then he just asked for some wires. Obviously, I gave him some and then he just started to twist the thing around my mom's lipstick that he found in the bathroom."
I laughed.
"He said, 'All that a girl wants is a ring!' and told me to watch. His handmade ring turned out really wonky 'cause it wasn't the right type of wires, and it was twice the size of his crush's finger, but I instantly thought of it the moment Herberg said fake engagement rings."
"Did he win her heart in the end?"
He snorted out loud. "Not at all."
I laughed. "Well, if you ever do meet him again, tell him that I thank him the stars for it, because I actually love the ring that you made for me," I said as I stared down at my finger.
I heard him chuckling lightly over the phone. "The ring that I ended up giving you was probably the twentieth try. I don't have the world's craftiest hands."
My heart warmed at that, though I quite disagree seeing how beautiful and effortless his latte arts were. "It's nice to know that you gave a lot of effort into it."
"Well, yeah," he chuckled bashfully, "I wanted to make it as nice as possible."
"If you hadn't thought about that do-it-yourself ring, what kind of ring would you probably have gotten me?"
"I'd probably buy you a ring pop just for the hell of it," he said.
I laughed. "Well, I wouldn't be disappointed. I love ring pops."
"Brings out childhood memories, doesn't it?"
"Yeah," I said. "Speaking of childhood... what was it like living in California?"
"Hot and hot every day," he said. "I don't remember much about living there since my family used to move a lot until we got here, though."
"Can you tell me more about it?"
"Yeah. I guess it was fun to experience living in different places, but it sucked, too," he said quietly. "Nothing was ever consistent. I stopped trying out the friends thing after the fifth move."
My jaw slightly dropped. "Just how many times have you moved places?"
"I actually can't remember," he said. "Just about all over the country. Oh, and there was that time when we stayed in Japan and France and some other different countries during summer breaks. I was too young and we stayed too short to pick up the languages, though."
"Oh my god, you never told me about that."
"Yeah, it kind of slipped my mind," he said with a light chuckle. "Dad's job could be very demanding, but Mom didn't like having the family separated, so we always moved to wherever he was assigned next. Even though it's made it harder for us both to make friends." He said the last part quietly. "That's pretty much about my childhood. What about yours?"
"Well, my childhood is pretty dull and boring," I started. "I've lived here since I was born. I think we used to live somewhere else before I was born though, but I don't know. My childhood basically consisted of my brother trying to turn me into a little brother instead of sister and my sister trying to inject as much Hollywood obsession of hers as she could into my veins. And then Cole happened and it's just a riot at home everyday."
He chuckled. "Sounds like fun to me." Then he paused. "Wait, you never told me you have an older brother."
I paused and bit my lip for a while. "Yeah." I swallowed and changed the topic. "Leann was instantly into all the celebrity glam since the first day she understood how to read fashion magazines, I think. Then she started to get so obsessed with old Hollywood movies. And, of course, she started to attempt to get me into it, too."
"Did she succeed?" he asked with a chuckle.
"Pretty much, yeah," I said. "I mean, I'm not nearly as obsessed as she is, but yeah. You know she's the reason why I want to be an actress."
"Yeah, I know that." I heard him shift a little. "Are you actually going to try it out in Hollywood, like she's doing right now?"
"I don't know." I shrugged to myself. "The more that I think about it, I'm not a good actress anyway. Not like Leann. She nearly ticks all the boxes and she's barely making it out there. Mom was probably right about realistic dreams and all that jazz."
"Well, you shouldn't give up on it if that's what you really want," he told me.
"I know, I'm just looking for other options." Then I asked, "What about you? Have you found what you want to do after you graduate?"
He hummed lightly. "Not sure yet. I'm going to college, that's for sure, but I still don't know what I want to study."
"Well, you're a pretty bright student, Jonah. I think you can be anything you want."
He was probably grinning as he said, "It would be nice if we go to the same university, though."
I smiled, loving that he was thinking forward about our relationship. "Yeah. Definitely."
"We could even rent an apartment together," he hummed.
"And have you cook breakfast for me everyday. Mmmmm. And your coffee..."
"I'm starting to think that you like my coffee more than you like me."
I grinned. "I probably do, Jonah. It's a tough competition."
"Eh, you still can't date my coffee anyway," he said. "Do you think we could do that, though? Live together after we graduate?"
"Why not?" I said with a smile.
He hesitantly asked, "Do you think it's too soon for us to talk about stuff like this?"
"No," I said. "I think it's nice to talk about the future. Plan out what we want to do. Nothing too crazy, I mean, we are graduating soon."
He laughed. "I think we should really consider it, Hannah. We're graduating in just a few months."
"What if I choose to follow my sister to Hollywood?"
"Then I might just start considering universities in California soon."
I smiled. "When do you want to start looking for universities with me?"
"As soon as possible," he said. "Maybe you could help me pick out which major I should take."
"And you could help with mine."
Silence settled between us for a few while as we thought it over. Truthfully, it was starting to make me feel insanely giddy to think about a future with him. Months ago, I wouldn't even dream about coming face-to-face with him without wanting to piss my pants, but now here we were, actually considering a life together. To everyone else, it would seem too soon for us to start thinking about living together when we'd only just started dating, but it honestly didn't seem that to me. Maybe it was just because we were already married with a kid, though. Nothing else seemed too fast-paced than that.
When I finally broke into a yawn, Jonah finally said, "It's two a.m. I think you should go to sleep now."
I sighed. "Don't wanna."
"I know you don't, but you do need it."
I pursed my lips in disagreement.
"Come on, Hannah," he tried to persuade. "Just call me when the nightmare comes. You need your sleep."
I was still trying to stop him from making me sleep when I heard Daisy crying in the background. Jonah groaned a little before saying, "Wait a sec."
I heard him put the phone down, as well as the soft sound of the creaking of the bed as he stood up. Faintly, I heard the familiar sound of his singing, slowly drowning out Daisy's cries. It was a foreign song to me, but it still made me smile to hear him murmur it to her.
Eventually, Jonah's lullaby to Daisy started to make my eyelids droop, too. I finally let the sleep take over, trusting Jonah to always make me better in case I got woken up by another nightmare.
I said something into the phone just before I fell asleep, but I couldn't remember it. But I didn't mind, because the soft sound of his voice was the last thing I heard before I fell into deep sleep, and it was honestly the best way to ever fall asleep.