I got into the car quietly, still rubbing my aching temples as I leaned back into the passenger seat. I didn't have to look at my dad to know that he was frowning at me as he started up the car.
My dad was quiet, so I didn't say anything either. He was the one who made me let him drive me to schoolâthough I agreed anywayâso if anyone was to speak first, it wouldn't be me. My logic was highly immature, but I didn't care. I even folded my arms in front of my chest like I'd always done when Mom banned me from consuming another candy due to my "unstoppable energy".
What made my mood worse was the fact that another nightmare had kept me up all night. I'd refrained from calling Jonah in the middle of the night like I always didâI'd finally realized that I was too selfish that I robbed him of his much needed sleep almost every night nowâso I spent the whole night trying not to fall asleep and trying to calm myself down when I did fall asleep and have another nightmare.
"Are you alright?" Dad finally murmured once we were halfway through the ride.
"Yeah," I muttered back.
From the corner of my eye, I saw him swallow. "Hannah, your mom and I are sorry. It's not that we don't see that you're hurting."
"It's fine. I understand," I said blankly. It was not fine and I still didn't understand, but I had a feeling that talking about this with Dad would only end up going in circles, like it always did. I didn't even want to bother trying anymore.
"Do you really?" he asked, glancing at me for a while.
"What's there to talk about, right?" I retorted, using the sentence that he had always used whenever I tried to bring it up. "You don't even have to worry anymore. I'm not gonna talk about it."
"I know you're mad at me."
"I am," I said. "I just need someone to blame. I'm sorry. I'll get over it once this is all over. You know I always do."
He pleaded, "Just come back to dinner with us, alright?"
I shrugged. "It's kind of hard to look at you two during these days, but I'll try."
Dad sighed, "Hannah, we were trying to tell you thatâ"
"No," I cut him off, all the fight in me finally dying out. "It's alright. You guys don't wanna talk about it., so I won't," I finally said, my voice slightly coming out like a sneer. "I'm never bringing it up anymore, if that makes you guys happy."
"Hannahâ"
"It's what you've wanted for years, isn't it? For me to finally shut up?" I said quietly.
"You really don't want to hear what I have to say?" he tried, and I shook my head no. He slowly pulled up in front of the school building. He closed his eyes for a while, and I unbuckled my seatbelt.
"Dad?" He opened his eyes to look at me with sad eyes. "What did he ever do to you and mom?"
His eyes crinkled with grief, the one I hadn't seen in so long, the one he had always covered with happy smiles and joyful laughter, and I felt tears slowly building up in my own eyes. He shook his head. "He didn't do anything wrong."
"Then whyâ" I cut myself off with a sigh and slowly got out of the car. "Thanks for the ride."
As I closed the door, he softly called out, "I love you, honey."
I gave him a tired smile. "Yeah."
I thought that my mood would slightly get better once I got into school and saw Jonah, but instead, I found him standing in front of my locker with a look on his face that I couldn't decipher. It wasn't a good one, though, and I had a hunch that his mood was no better than mine.
"What is it, Jonah?" I asked tiredly, not in the mood to deal with his sudden grumpy cat mode. It'd been so long since I'd met this side of him, but unfortunately, I wasn't in the mood to deal with it.
"Is there anything you're not telling me?" he asked quietly, and my fingers froze on the lock. What was it that he was talking about?
After a pause that dragged out too long, I asked, "What do you mean?"
His jaw clenched and unclenched, as if he wasn't too sure how to approach the subject. Then, he sighed. "Someone put this inside my locker this morning," he finally said, and I peered over to look at what he was holding. I couldn't help but roll my eyes once I saw the picture in his hand, inwardly slapping myself silly for thinking about the worst. That I could deal.
"And?" I said calmly.
He gave me a frown. "I just... what's going on, Hannah?"
I laughed bitterly, "Well, I'm definitely not a porn star, if that's what you're wondering."
Jonah's jaw ticked; he was irritated by my flippant tone. But when I looked up at his eyes, I saw a mix of sadness and anger. "Hannah."
"Geez, this is too early for this kind of shit," I muttered to myself and banged my fist on my aching forehead. It only made the pain doubled up, but whatever.
"Hannah," Jonah sighed and tried to stop me from bruising my own forehead. "Everyone's talking about it. I'm not the only one who got the picture. I just... what do I do?"
I stopped and finally opened my locker wide, my teeth gritting when I saw something flying out onto the floor. "Stupid fucking asshole," I cursed, slamming my locker shut and turning around. "You picked the worst day to piss me off."
Daniel's locker wasn't too far away from mine, so it wasn't too long until I spotted his dumb head. He didn't seem fazed when he saw me approaching, with Jonah hot on my heels, but it was about to change. I swung my fist into his jaw, feeling my own knuckles crying out in pain. I didn't know if the punch actually hurt him or not, but he looked like he was stunned in silence.
My hand hurt like a fucking bitch, though. Fucking ow.
Once I had done that, all the anger I'd felt for him instantly evaporated. "God, you don't know how long I've wanted to do that," I sighed in relief.
"Hannah!" Jonah put a hand on my shoulder and spun me around. "What the fuck?"
He carefully took my hand and examined my slowly bruising knuckle. "It hurts," I whined, trying to move my fingers but ended up wincing in pain.
"It should be," he murmured before looking up. The anger in his eyes had intensified, and he looked like he wanted to kill someone he was so scary. "Did he do it? The pictures? Did he take them?"
I turned and saw Daniel rubbing his jaw with a grimace on his face. A part of me was highly satisfied by the fact that I really did hurt his face.
I pulled away from Jonah and slowly walked toward Daniel, who took a step backward, only to bump into the locker behind him. "I know exactly what you're trying to do," I started, pointing my good finger at his chest. "And guess what, asshole? I'm not gonna take the bait."
Daniel let go of his jaw to glare at me, but I held his gaze firmly. Unafraid. I wasn't scared of him, or what he could do to me. Because the truth was, he got nothing on me. I was the one who had the upper hand, the one who was holding the cards. And I knew he wanted me to become the asshole who spilled his secret, so he could put all the blame on me while he got away as the victim of my crimes.
But I wasn't gonna do it.
I leaned close so he could hear me words clearly, "You can bother me all you want, Daniel, but I'm not going to 'accidentally'Â out you to the world. You're the one who should do it. For yourself." I patted his jaw, and smiled sweetly as he hissed in pain. "Have a good life, Daniel, and please stay as far away as you can from mine."
I waved goodbye at him before turning around and leaving the crowd that had started to form around us.
Before I could leave, though, I saw Jonah taking a step closer to Daniel with a dark look on his face, so I immediately put my hand on his chest to stop him and grabbed his arm, dragging him along with me.
"Is he the one who printed out those pictures, Hannah?" he growled as we speed-walked away from Daniel. "Did he take those pictures of you? When was it? We need to report this to theâ"
"It's photoshopped," I said flatly.
"Okay, wait. Stop," he ordered and so we stopped in our tracks. "Explain everything to me."
I sighed and closed my eyes, groaning out loud. I pulled his arm and dragged him to the nearest janitor's closet, slamming the door shut and trying to fit both of our bodies inside the small space. I reached out to feel the walls around until I finally found the light switch.
Once the lights were on, I found Jonah's face less than an inch away from mine, and I held myself back from leaning up to kiss him.
"Where do I even start?" I sighed to myself.
"Explain. Please. Everything that just happened today." He sighed exasperatedly. "Starting from that guy."
"His name is Daniel and yes, he's the one who printed out all of these pictures."
His eyes flashed in anger.
"He's just a loser who wants attention, so you shouldn't give it to him."
"Why would he do that?"
I shrugged. "He's a loser."
And for the first time today, his eyes were flashing angrily at me. "Can't you answer a bit more seriously?"
"I don't even fucking know, Jonah. Okay? I've never done anything to me. He's just a stupid asshole."
His breath was heavy and rapid and so hot on my face. "Is heâis it because of me? Is he angry because we're dating? Is he jealous?"
I snorted.
He pleaded, "Hannah. Please."
"I don'tâ" I sighed. "It's not my place to tell. I promised him."
"Tell what?" he growled in confusion. "And you're keeping whatever promise this is, after the shit he's done to you?"
I looked away and bit my lips. I didn't want to be an asshole, which was exactly what Daniel expected from me. But Jonah deserved an explanation.
Jonah gently put a hand over my jaw. "I won't tell anyone. I promise."
"He's jealous of me for dating you, alright?" I finally blurted out.
At first, his brows scrunched in confusion, and then his eyes widened in surprise. He seemed to be at loss of words, mouth opening and closing without words.
I continued, "Maybe he's just angry because out of all people, I'm the only one who knows about it, and he wants to punish me for it. I don't even know. This is not the first time it happened. He printed out the same fucking pictures two years ago right after I broke up with him. I was a social pariah because of the whole 'scandal' for the rest of the year, Jonah, and I didn't have anyone else but Gina. People eventually forgot about it as other gossips came and went, obviously, until today."
"He's your ex-boyfriend," he stated quietly.
I nodded curtly.
His eyes narrowed at me. "Why didn't you tell me about this?"
"I thought it wouldn't matter," I said. "Why? Are you ashamed of it? It bothers you, doesn't it, to be dating a girl who had her nudes leaked? Even though those pictures aren't even real. Everyone's gonna be talking about it all over again and now you're gonna be dragged along with all of this bullshit."
"What are you even talking about?"
My face warmed. In shame, or anger, who the hell knows. "It's not too late to walk away now," I told him, moving around to open the door. "I'm sorry, Jonah, I'm not having the best morning today and I don't want to deal with this right now. I'll talk to you later when I'm not in a shitty mood."
I rubbed my aching forehead as I made my way out, leaving Jonah glued on his feet. I half-ran to get to my class, already ten minutes too late, with one thought in my mind.
Would Jonah really walk away?
[]
I felt bad that I had left Jonah with Daisy today even though he had work, but after the whole outburst in the janitor's closet, I actually felt embarrassed to look at him. So I did the most logical thing a girl would ever do: ignore him at all cost.
A part of me felt scared that he would actually walk away. God, how I wanted to bash Daniel's face in. Try harder, just one more time. I wasn't even all that bothered to have strangers' eyes stare at me the whole day at schoolâit was just the irritation that I felt toward him for playing such a cheap game that I never wanted to play anyway.
I guess only heaven knew how it worked in his head. I knew that he was only doing all of this to make me feel angry enough to let his secret out as revengeâso he wouldn't have the burden to actually be the one to confess his sexuality. Then he could go on and make me the bad guy for outing him. His twisted logic was beyond meâand frankly, I didn't want to be a part of any of his plans. If he wanted to pretend to be straight for the rest of his life, then he should go ahead because I couldn't give less shit than I already gave now. He just needed to leave me the fuck alone.
I probably was just as much of a coward as he was, though, because what I did was run away from Jonah like a child. But I was just so embarrassed and I didn't want Jonah to look at me like I was crazy again. Or worse, I didn't want to be there to witness him saying that he didn't want to deal with me and all the bullshit that came with it.
Stupid Hannah, stupid Hannah, stupid Hannah. Why was I letting a crazy ex-boyfriend ruin what was possibly the best thing that ever happened in my whole life?
I stared at the clock that said ten o'clock, and forced myself to sleep even though I didn't want to. My phone was turned off in case Jonah called, and it sat quietly on my bedside table. It wasn't hard to fall asleep as I was exhausted anyway, and soon I was out like light.
Only to got blown up in a car into bits. I gasped as I jolted awake from my nightmare, the heat of the explosion still hot all over my skin, and ran a hand down my face. I stole a glance at the clock, seeing that it was a little over midnight, and got out of my bed to get to my study desk. I opened the laptop that was sitting there and turned it on, patiently waiting as it started up.
I needed to talk to someone, but I still didn't want to turn on my phone. Jonah was probably still awake at this time, and though I was itching to dial his number, I kind of didn't want to.
I smiled when I saw that Leann was online on Skype, but before I could give her a video call, she was already calling me first.
Her face appeared on my laptop screen, a tired smile on her face. "Hi, happy birthday, Hannah. It's a good thing you're online out of the blue because I've been trying to reach your phone but it's apparently dead."
I gave her a sheepish smile. "Sorry." She shrugged at me. "And thank you. It sucks that you're not here though."
She sighed. "I know. I wish I could've planned a grand birthday surprise for you but I'm about two thousand miles away and it sucks. And I'm tired as hell I'm sorry if I end up rambling like a mess."
I laughed. "It's okay, Leann. It still means a lot to me that you're staying up just to call me. You probably should go to sleep though, you look like you need it."
"And pass up a chance to wish my baby sister a happy birthday? Naaah," she said with a smile. "Since I couldn't send you a birthday cake, I already prepared this." She pulled out a little cupcake, stabbed a small candle on it, and lit it. "Hopefully it works. So, make a wish and let me know when you're done. I'll blow out the candle for you. Sound good?"
I grinned at her. "Okay. I'm ready."
"Alright. Close your eyes." I closed my eyes. "Make a wish."
I thought of the one thing that I could think of to wish for, but I heard that the wish wouldn't actually come true if you said it out loud, so I'm not telling. I just took a deep breath, my lips pulled up into a hopeful smile as I thought of my wish, and then I opened my eyes with a nod. "Done."
Leann smiled. "Let's blow out the candle with me. One... two..." Pffft. I pretended to blow out air through my mouth, giggling as Leann lightly coughed at the smoke from the candle. "Alright, how does it feel, being seventeen and all?"
I shrugged. "It feels awesome so far." That was a lie, but she didn't need to know.
She grinned. "You're actually growing up. You're no longer my little toddler baby sister running around half naked with her diaper on. I want to tear up so much."
I rolled my eyes good-naturedly. "You're only two years older, get over yourself."
"But seriously, though, my seventeenth birthday was the best. Did you remember thatâ"
"You had the hottest sweet seventeen birthday party the whole town has ever known, and hooked up with the hottest guy from school, yeah, yeah, I've heard it only about a hundred times," I told her. "Tough luck for me, though, I'm not throwing a party anyway."
She winked. "At least you know your boyfriend's planning something exciting for you." She frowned when she noticed the look on my face. "Trouble in paradise?"
I shrugged. "I'm currently avoiding him right now."
"What happened? Did he do something?"
"No," I reassured her. "He's perfect. I think he's the best boyfriend anyone could ever wish for."
There was a gentle smile on her face. "So maybe you're the problem?"
I rolled my eyes at her teasing tone. "Maybe I'm the problem."
"Well, if he's really as amazing as you've been telling me, then you shouldn't let him get away, Hannah," she said.
"Noted," I told her with a nod.
Leann took a deep breath. "I'm sorry that I'm turning this conversation depressing, but I really miss how we all used to stay up past midnight on our birthdays and eat forbidden candies and sometimes watch all the PG-13 movies Mom was banning us from seeing."
I gave her a sad smile. "It's okay, I'm actually thinking about it anyway."
"I miss you guys. I miss him."
"Me too," I said. "A lot."
"How are you doing, Hannah?"
"Bad." I shrugged. "Don't tell Mom and Dad, but I'm having nightmares again."
"Guess that's why you're awake right now." I shrugged. "You should tell them, Hannah."
I scoffed. "They wouldn't even tell me anything. It's like they don't want me to think about it at all."
"Oh, baby," she sighed. "I really want to hug you so bad right now."
"Me too, Leann. Me too," I told her. "Wish you guys were here."
She nodded, her eyes turning sad as well. "What do you think he would do for your birthday surprise right now?"
I let out a laugh. "I don't know. He'd probably literally surprise me by barging down into my room and jump on my bed until I scream bloody murder."
She laughed. "He actually did that, didn't he?"
"Oh, yes, tenth birthday. How could I forget?"
"Don't forget the present he gave you that year."
"A dead frog split in two, a product of his biology project." God, the smell. I shook my head in nostalgic amusement. "He would probably give me one of his old mixtape CDs as a present now."
Leann smiled. "I remember him saying that he would pass the legacy of his mixtapes to you once you turn seventeen."
"Which would be this year," I hummed. "I hated his music."
"Ugh, he had the worst taste," Leann lied through her teeth. She actually loved those songs.
"Well, maybe not the worst, but you know it gets annoying whenever he replayed the same song fifteen times straight just because he liked it." Leann nodded in agreement. "Though, I wouldn't mind him giving me one of his mixtapes right now."
"Yeah, me too," she said. "I would probably listen to it all day."
"And then throw it out the window after the second day," I added with a laugh. I blinked, feeling my eyes starting to get wet.
She smiled at me and lifted the cupcake in front of her. "Well, since you're not here anyway, I'm gonna go eat this."
After talking to Leann for another few hours, we finally ended the call, and I let myself get another two hours of rest. That was, until something jumped onto my bed and tickled me in the chin, making me moan and giggle at the same time as I started to wake up. I slowly opened my eyes, gasping in surprise when I finally made out a small, gray-coated kitten sitting on my chest, staring up at me with curious eyes.
"Holy shit," I breathed as I scooped the little thing into my hands. "Where did you even come from? Oh my god you're so pretty," I rambled on and on to the kitten as it snuggled its head against my skin. I finally lifted my gaze away from the kitten, spotting an all-too-familiar unsure smile on the guy I couldn't stop thinking about all night against my doorframe with his hands stuffed into his pockets.
"Hi," he said slowly. "Happy birthday, Hannah."