Chapter 46: Chapter Forty-Five

"So you give up every chance you get

Just to feel new again

I think we have an emergency

I think we have an emergency..."

My eyes slowly slid open, but I stayed where I was lying. I took a glance at my alarm clock to see that it was five a.m., and the song kept blasting in full volume. I was surprised Daisy hadn't cried yet all night—or maybe she did, but her cries got drowned in the songs I'd been playing. Only hell knew.

"And you do your best to show me love

But you don't know what love is..."

I sighed, not trying to get myself off the bed. I should be getting ready for school—it was Monday which meant that it was the first day of school since Daniel re-spread the fake nudes, and I had a lot of mental preparation to do.

But I just couldn't give a shit.

"So are you listening?

So are you watching me?"

A soft sound of purring right next to my hip made me sit up slowly. The kitten meowed a little in his sleep as I shifted, and I smiled when he slowly opened up his small eyes, blinking for a while as his eyes adjusted the morning light. When he spotted me, he meowed and yawned at the same time, and I chuckled.

"Good morning, Little Ant," I greeted the little kitten with the name I'd given him yesterday, rubbing his forehead as he purred again, slowly falling back to sleep.

"Well I can't pretend that I don't see this

It's really not your fault

That no one cares to talk about it..."

I finally willed myself to get up, rubbing my temples as I made my way toward the CD player on my desk. I sat down on the chair and propped my elbows on the table, putting the weight of my head on my palms as I let the loud, rock song wake me up.

"'Cause I've seen love die

Way too many times

When it deserved to be alive

I've seen you cry

Way too many times

When you deserve to be alive..."

I reached out and turned off the music after taking a deep breath and throwing my head backwards for a while. The CD case on my desk was glaring at me once I sat up straight, and I glared right back until the same, painful jolt in my chest that I'd been feeling for two days now made all the fight in me die.

I shook my head and stood up to get ready for school. I took my time in the shower, letting the warm, heated water wash the sleep away. I picked out thick, warm clothes since the weather was slowly getting worse, and quickly dressed Daisy up as well. I sniffled a bit as I felt snot clogging up my nose, wishing for the constant throbbing in my head to go away.

The cold that I had was slowly going away, thankfully. I literally had spent the last two days coughing and sneezing and groaning as I rolled around in my bed. Jonah got sick too, but apparently he had a better immune system than I did that he only sneezed once or twice a day while I was wheezing like I was on my death bed. But like I said, I was feeling much better today.

I let the door open slightly in case Ant woke up and wanted to run downstairs, and walked out in lazy, dragged-out steps with Daisy in my arms. I put her down in her baby chair and plopped myself into one of the dining chairs, immediately holding my heavy head in my hands. My dad and little brother were just walking out of the dining room when I got in, already finished with their breakfast while I just started with mine, accompanied by Mom who was still halfway through her meal.

I slowly munched on my grilled peanut butter and jelly sandwich, feeling the food stale on my tongue. Everything I ate since yesterday felt stale on my tongue anyway, so I kept eating because I knew the fault was not in my mom's cooking.

"So," Mom started. "Last night was, uh," she paused as I looked up, "loud."

I wanted to snicker at the hidden innuendo she didn't realize she was making. "Sorry," I said with a small, apologetic smile.

"Well, the baby cries louder anyway, and we're getting used to it," she waved it off with a chuckle, before adding with a soft smile, "I just haven't heard those rock songs from upstairs in years."

I let out a soft laugh. "Yeah."

She took a deep breath and shook her head. "Anyways, go finish up your breakfast and drink your medicine before Jonah gets here." She lifted up her empty plate and went to wash the dishes.

"Mom?" I called out softly. She looked at me over her shoulder. "I'm sorry."

A gentle smile played on her lips. She replied, "I'm sorry too."

I nodded and continued eating my sandwich before taking the medicine and gulping it down with water. I waited for a while in silence, alone in the dining room as my parents and little brother all sat on the couch watching the TV to pass the time. Absentmindedly, I played with Jonah's ring on my finger, feeling the little bump on it brushing against my skin. The medicine finally kicked in a few minutes later and I felt the weight in my head slowly fading away, so I stood up and picked Daisy up right as a car honked from outside.

"Guys, I'm leaving," I said as I passed by my family in the living room. "Bye."

They all said bye and I slipped through the front door, half-jogging to get to my boyfriend's car. He gave me a peck once I was inside and immediately drove away.

I was silent during the whole ride, and Jonah didn't pry. He probably thought I just had another nightmare last night—which was true—and gave me the space I needed like he always did nearly every morning. He did give me a gentle smile, though, so I smiled back.

Once we pulled up in the parking lot, I didn't immediately get out. It wasn't that I was scared of going into the building—like I said, I didn't give a shit about the rumors anymore—but I just wasn't sure if Jonah could handle it, in case it really was bad.

"Jonah," I said. He turned to me. "People are gonna talk. About what happened Friday."

"I know."

"I don't know how bad it will be."

"I don't either." He smiled reassuringly. "Are you ready?"

I finally nodded. "I guess."

We walked through the school entrance, hand-in-hand, with Daisy in my arms. To my surprise, most of the students didn't even spare us a glance. Some of the big gossipers did, of course, and they immediately started whispering in "discreet" and giving us weird looks. Jonah's grip on my hand tightened as he gave me a questioning look. "Alright?" he asked.

I smiled and nodded. "It's no big deal," I breathed. It really was no big deal.

He smiled back. "Not at all."

I passed by Daniel and gave him a stare. He narrowed his eyes at me but did nothing, and I held in my smirk as I spotted the bruise that hadn't faded away on his jaw. My business with him was finished, and he could do whatever else he wanted but the truth was, Jonah was still mine anyway.

I told Jonah that I would be fine by myself, so he offered to take Daisy to Mr. Herberg and left after giving me a hug.

Once I was done doing my business, I turned around, ready to get to my first class. But then Clumsy Hannah decided to make a sudden appearance—I immediately crashed into someone, making all the stuff we both were holding fall to the floor.

"Oh my gosh, I'm so sorry," a girl gasped as we both kneeled down to collect our fallen books. "I'm sorry, I wasn't looking."

"It's fine," I told her. "I'm sorry too."

We both looked up at the same time, and her eyes widened slightly. Her face warmed as she muttered, "I keep bumping into you, sorry."

I chuckled once I recognized her. "Right—the soda in the lunch room and in the hallway about a week ago or so, right?"

"Yeah." She sent me an apologetic smile. I stood up and offered her a hand like I did when she bumped into Jonah last week, and she gratefully took it. "Thanks."

"No prob," I replied. I glanced down at the floor and saw a picture with my face on it, slapped onto a random porn star's body. I snickered to myself. The picture looked really goofy, if you really look at it. "I think you dropped something."

"Huh?" She looked down at what I was staring at and kind of sighed. When she looked up at me, she was giving me a sympathetic look. "Oh, yeah, I found another one in my locker today. I was just about to dump it into the trash."

"Just leave it there, never mind," I said. "So you don't believe the rumors?"

"Are you kidding?" she scoffed. "Daniel Butcher is a grade-A asshole, of course I don't believe anything he says."

I grinned. "Well, I have a feeling that we're gonna be great friends. I'm Hannah."

"I know, I'm Britney," she said with a friendly smile. "You were in one of my classes last year."

"Really?" I asked. "Sorry that I don't remember you. I started blocking out most people since Daniel first started the rumor."

"It's fine, I understand," she said reassuringly. "Most of them don't believe the rumors anymore, especially those of us who already heard about it two years ago."

"Oh." I sighed in relief. "That's why not many people are making such a big deal about it."

She nodded. "Yeah. It's kind of old news. Besides, it's kind of obvious now that it's edited. We're not stupid. Your head really looks disproportionate to the rest of your body," she said with a laugh, which I joined in. "Now the table's kind of turned." We both looked at Daniel who sullenly stood by his locker.

"Right?" I half-exclaimed. "I don't get why people didn't believe me back then. But whatever, don't even care now."

She laughed a little bit. "People believe what they want to believe, I guess."

"I guess you're right," I said. "Alright, I better get to class now. Sorry again for bumping into you and, um, thanks," I added, "for not believing the rumor."

She smiled kindly. "It's no biggie." She grinned, "By the way, your punch was kickass."

I laughed. "See you later, Britney," I said as I walked away to my class, feeling a new sense of happiness and satisfaction brewing inside my chest. The world was finally on my side.

[]

"You need help with her?" Clara asked me. I looked at her over my shoulder and shook my head.

"Nah, it's fine," I said as I tightened the diaper around Daisy. "She'll stop crying in three... two..." I drawled out slowly until Daisy's cries finally stopped. "There ya go."

She peered over curiously at the doll, who was laid down on the couch. "She's been crying less frequently lately," she commented.

"Yeah, our teacher said that she'd cry less eventually," I told her. "Have you ever held her or anything?"

She shrugged. "When she cries at midnight and Jonah's off somewhere, sometimes I rock her to sleep."

"He leaves her in the house?" I asked in shock. "Alone? He lets that baby wake the whole neighborhood up just like that?"

"Yeah," she said. "Not so often, though."

"Oh my god, he's horrible." Clara just laughed at me. "Does it bother you guys when she cries?"

"At first, yeah," she told me. "And then it was just a frequent thing. Think of it like an alarm clock."

"What does your brother usually do when she cries?" I asked curiously.

She tilted her head to the side as she thought about it. "Well, aside from changing her diaper or feeding her, he usually just sings to her," she answered, and then she smiled. "He almost looks like my dad when he's holding our baby cousins. Gentle and careful—and it just looks like he's holding an actual baby. It's so cute. If that were me, I would just drop the doll on its head until it breaks or something."

I nodded with a laugh. "He pretends he's hard and tough but he's a total softie inside."

Clara chuckled before her lips suddenly turned into a frown. "Do you think that of him, though? That he's, I don't know, a tough and mysterious bad boy?"

I shrugged. "Sometimes I'm convinced that he is. Why do you ask?"

The young girl petted the cat that just jumped onto her lap on the couch. "He's the furthest thing from a bad boy, you know."

"Of course, I know that."

"Yeah, but I mean," she shifted her legs on the couch so Grace could lie down comfortably, "he really is just the sweetest thing ever. I know it's hard to believe because he rarely ever shows it but he really is. He's been like that since we were little."

I didn't say anything to that, but I reached out to pet Grace on the back of her neck.

"But ever since we started moving a lot, he started to smile less," she said a little sadly. "I knew he was still the same Jonah who would sing me to sleep when there was a huge stormy rain outside, but it was just a bit different with him."

"Did something happen when you guys moved?" I asked softly, curiously, because there was a part of me that was still searching for another reason why he was the way he was.

She shook her head. "I don't know. He never really tells me anything." She looked down and stared at Grace, cooing a little when the cat purred in her sleep. I frowned as the silence let the thoughts in my head spin, trying to figure out the half-solved puzzle that was Jonah Gibbs.

"Clara?" I asked after a while. "How is he when he's at home, with your family?"

"Almost like any other guy his age that I know," she told me, and my forehead knitted in confusion and a little bit of surprise. "But only almost. I mean, my best friend has an older brother and Jonah's just like him, except Jonah doesn't go out a lot and doesn't have friends. He plays video games and watch Tangled with me without complaining—at least, until the end of the movie—and we would have sibling fights occasionally like when he makes goofy comments about my new haircut or my music taste or whatever. He's actually a really funny guy. But you probably won't believe me."

I couldn't help but raise my eyebrows at everything she had just told me. I mean, now that I'd known Jonah better, I knew that he was capable of being a normal-ish seventeen year-old guy, but hearing the facts from his sister still kind of surprised me. "Does he, like, make actual jokes?"

She shrugged. "Sometimes he does." She paused to frown. "But then there's those days when he's just silent and all locked up in his room without any reason. And sadly, those bad days last way longer than the days when he's actually in a good mood."

"Does he fight with you or your parents?"

She shook her head vigorously. "I mean, we bicker a lot but he loves me, I know it. I don't think he ever fights with my parents either."

"You know what," I sighed, "he's really confusing. You know he doesn't have friends in school—hell, he never socialize at all—right?" She nodded, rolling her eyes a little bit. "I just don't understand why, when he's a mostly normal guy at home. Plus, he's shown me that he's capable of being a sweet guy, so why does he even hide that side of him to most people?"

"I know. I don't understand it either." She then gave me a shrug. "Maybe the people at your school just suck? No offense."

I chuckled, then sighed myself. "I just can't seem to figure him out and it's driving me crazy."

"Do you like him, Hannah?" Clara asked, interrupting my train of rant.

Without missing a beat, I answered, "I do."

"Do you, you know..." she trailed off, "love him?"

I paused for a while, my eyes immediately casting downwards as if I was avoiding looking at her as I thought the question over. "I don't know, Clara," I finally answered quietly. "I probably do. But don't tell him that," I added hastily. "I don't want to scare him off because it's too soon."

Clara smiled so wide I wondered if it hurt her face. "I won't tell him, I promise," she vowed. "But, Hannah?"

"Yeah?"

"Remember when I told you that he'd started to smile less and have bad days when he locked himself in his room?" I nodded. "Well, he's kind of changed again since he first started talking about you."

A smile fought its way to appear on my face, and warmth spread all over my cheeks. I remembered their mother telling me the same thing, and hearing it from Clara was making me feel this weird kind of happiness that just made me want to hug everything and everyone and jumped all the way up to cloud nine. "Really? He talks to you about me?"

She bobbed her head up and down. "Really. He doesn't usually talk about anything—he just mostly listens to me babbling at the dinner table or whatever—but that one day he suddenly was telling us about this red-haired girl whose father owned the diner he was starting to work at and how she was making him add, and I quote, 'freaking whipped cream and cinnamon all over her damn girly overly sweetened coffee', and my mom was so surprised that he actually talked about a girl that she made the rest of us shut up as Jonah ranted over and over again. That was, like, the funniest dinner we've had in a while."

"Oh my god," I groaned, burying my face into my hands as Clara started to laugh as she recalled the event. "Did he really say all that to the whole family? It's so embarrassing!"

"Was it true, though?" she asked with a grin.

"Yeah," I admitted with a sigh. "We didn't really start off on the right foot. What else did he say about me back then?"

She hummed, "He never talked about you again after that night until he brought the doll home—he was probably embarrassed that he blurted it all out—then suddenly he asked me about what girls usually like from a guy and I was like, is he doing drugs or something? But then he said he was doing a project where he had to propose to a girl. I asked who it was and he was quiet and all red in the face and somehow I just figured out it was that same girl he told us about."

"So he did ask your advice for the whole proposal and the vow and everything else," I concluded to myself with a smirk, but then Clara frowned.

"What vow?"

I frowned along with her. "The wedding vow he had to recite as we both got fake-married?"

Her eyebrows rose. "He never said anything about wedding vows."

"Really?" I exclaimed in disbelief.

She nodded. "I did help him with the whole background story of how you two met and I gave him some ideas of what a girl might like when a guy is professing his love to her, but I didn't even know you guys had to actually get fake-married like that."

I held up both of my hands, showing her the engagement ring and the wedding band with a smile on my face.

"Oh!" she exclaimed, taking my right hand. "He used to make these rings a lot for me. I thought he just proposed to you with a plastic ring from a toy store or something." She paused, and then gushed, "That's so sweet!"

"He gave this before we started dating, so." I tried to shrug it off even though inside here, I was still squealing over the fact that he had really written his vows all by himself.

"Okay, but I'm really curious about this whole wedding vow thing. What was his vow like?"

I held in the squeal that jumped into my throat. "It was amazing," I said with a dreamy sigh. "Even our teacher got a bit tearful after hearing it. Jonah said something about promising to be my best friend and husband and life partner and protecting me from harm and all that sweet stuff and oh my god," I gushed, "he really did write it himself."

"I think he's actually a closeted hopeless romantic," Clara commented. She then squealed loud enough for both of us, and it made Grace jolt in her sleep before jumping out of Clara's lap and running out of the living room. "Please tell me you guys recorded it or something."

"Mr. Herberg probably did," I wondered. "But I don't know. I wish I had recorded it, too."

We kind of stared at each other for a while until we both squealed in unison. Then she said, "I know little sisters are supposed to be disgusted by their brother's love life, but honestly, I really love this for you guys."

I smiled bashfully. "Thanks, I guess."

"Seriously, Hannah," Clara said with a soft smile on her face. "You've really changed him a lot. He's had less bad days since you came and he's starting to open up himself. He trusts you. He likes you a lot, I'm sure of it."

I looked down on my lap, hiding the wide, uncontrollable smile on my face. "I hope he does."

"I'm glad to know that he has you," she told me softly. "I'm so happy that you're willing to stick around long enough and tried hard enough until he let you in. I know he's not the easiest person so I'm very thankful that you're with him."

I smiled back at the young girl Jonah had claimed to be the "most annoying teenage girl ever", but at the same time, I felt like I was forcing it as I thought about how it all actually had started with Operation Bite the Apple. I knew that, while I was in no way faking what I was feeling for him right now, it was kind of unfair that he never knew that once upon a time he'd actually been a subject of my personal quest. What would he, as well as Clara, think when they found out that the soda accident when we first talked to each other was never an accident at all?

All I could say to Clara was, "I know. I'm happy that he's let me in, too."

"You guys seem to be in a deep conversation," a voice chimed in from the doorway, and both Clara and I snapped our heads up toward the voice. Jonah stood there with a smile as he took off his jacket. All the thoughts that were starting to cloud my mind started to fade away as he smiled at me, so I smiled back.

"We kinda are," his sister remarked, standing up from the couch and sending me a subtle wink at the same time. "I'll be in my room until Mom calls in for dinner. It was nice talking to you, Hannah."

I smiled at her. "Ditto."

Once Clara was gone, Jonah kissed me on the cheek and sat down on the empty space on the couch. "You didn't tell me you were coming. I could've gotten off work sooner."

"That's fine," I waved him off. "I was just bored at home. Clara was a good company."

"What were you two talking about?" he asked suspiciously, before scowling. "Did she show you my baby pictures again?"

I laughed. "She didn't. You hid all of your photo albums!"

He shrugged. "It was for the best."

"But I want to see those cute baby cheeks," I cooed, reaching out to pinch his cheeks. He let me squeeze the life out of his cheeks, but didn't look too happy about it. Which only made me squeeze his cheeks harder.

"Stop that before I tickle you," he warned, and I immediately pried my hands off of his skin.

"But really, I just want to know you better," I told him a bit seriously, recalling everything that I had just talked with Clara about. "You don't really tell me much about yourself."

Jonah's face softened, and he scooted closer to me. "I'm sorry about that?" he offered. "I'm not really that interesting. What do you wanna know about me?"

I shrugged. "Everything I haven't known."

"I honestly think you've already known most things about me."

"Then you have a very, very sad life, Jonah Gibbs," I teased. "I mean, who are you, Jonah?"

He paused in contemplation. "I'm Jonathan Flynn Gibbs, seventeen years old turning eighteen next month."

"That's it? That's all you have about yourself?"

He sighed. "There's not much going in my life."

"But there's gotta be something... something I haven't known that I have to," I said.

"What did you really talk to Clara about?" he asked me instead.

"You, obviously," I said. "And how you talked about that annoying red-haired girl who asked for more "whipped cream and cinnamon all over her girly coffee" or something along that line."

He rolled his eyes. "Should've known Clara would speak of it."

"Also, how you're mostly a normal teenage boy when you're not outside of your house, in contrast to your dead social life," I continued, and Jonah shut up. "What really happened when your family moved around?"

He shook his head. "Nothing," he told me quietly. "I don't have a reason why I'm the way that I am. I just am. I don't really like people much. Except you, obviously." He was slowly starting to look uncertain. He shrugged. "I'm just weird and unsociable and I have no desire to depend on someone temporary, someone I'm gonna leave behind in the end anyway."

I paused, and my body instinctively leaned away from the heat of his body. I felt a pinch inside my chest, but I tried to push it away. "Do you think that way about me, Jonah?" I asked quietly.

His forehead knitted, and the way his eyes immediately widened told me that he had just realized what he had just implied. He didn't say anything to that.

"Do you think I am a temporary thing in your life?" I asked again.

He closed his eyes for a moment. "Everything before you has always been temporary," he said slowly, carefully picking out the words to say. "But you—" He looked up and stared at me in the eye. "You're different."

I stared back and let him play with my fingers absentmindedly.

"I don't know what I'm doing, Hannah, and I'm scared that I'm gonna fuck it all up if you find out something messed up about me," he told me. "I don't even know who I am and it might scare you off because you'll never gonna expect it if I turn out to be someone different—hell, I won't even expect it."

"Well, that's just dramatic," I answered as I slipped my fingers through his. "But that's what I wanted to know about you. The good, the bad. I wouldn't need to ask Clara if you can tell me yourself. I just want to know you, Jonah," I told him softly. "We can start off with your fears?"

He hesitated, but then slowly nodded, and then took a deep breath. "Fear number one: losing something. Anything, anyone—and I guess losing you counts too."

I felt my heart slowly melting at the sight of the vulnerable side of Jonah, and I folded my hand on one of his cheeks, letting him lean into my palm.

"Fear number two: not knowing who I am," he continued quietly. "And as you can see, I'm currently living in my fear number two because I have no idea who I am as a person."

Jonah put his own hand on top of mine.

"Each time we moved into a new place, I tried to build a new version of myself," he opened up. "I tried looking for a way to be a normal kid without having to lose anything when I moved away again in the end, but everything failed. In the end, I had to experience my fear number one all over again.

"I think that was how I lost who I really was, because I was never the same person. The only thing that I knew for sure was to be a good son and a nice brother, but I didn't know how to be a decent friend because I ended up leaving them anyway. I had good friends there, Hannah, who truly liked me but then I started to ignore their e-mails and everything because I knew I was never going back to those different places. And it was hard to see my friends living their lives together, without me.

"So then I decided that I shouldn't try at all," he said. "And it worked. I didn't have to lose anything. No attachment, nothing to lose. It worked well. Then I found out we didn't have to move around anymore but I already forgot who I was by then. I was so mad and I took it out by doing something that I couldn't fix and that's me. That's who I am now." He took a deep breath and slowly let it all out. "There. I've told you something about me that you don't already know. Hell, I've never even told anyone else about it. Are you happy now?"

I shook my head. "No, I'm not." He frowned in confusion, so I added, "Not until you are happy."

He accepted me in his arms, and his hands slowly moved up and down against my back. "It's okay, Hannah. I'm happy when I'm with you and that's enough for me."

I hugged him tightly, trying to let him know that I was glad he had told me everything about it.

"I'm a fucking wimp and I'm scared that you would think less of me because of it."

I sighed into his shoulders. "You're not a wimp, Jonah."

"I am," he insisted. "Even Clara does fine after everything, and she didn't have to end up being the weird freak like me."

"Everyone has a different way of dealing with things," I told him. "This is yours, and it doesn't make me think any less of you. It does make you not perfect, I know that, but who the fuck is?"

He let out a short chuckle. "How is it that you always have something to say?"

I just smiled as I pulled away from the hug. "Do you have a fear number three?"

He was silent for a while, his eyebrows furrowing tightly. He then reached out and brushed the hair that covered the scar on my forehead, before finally saying, "Seeing you get hurt." Then he shook his head. "No—being the one who hurts you. That's my fear number three."

"You're not gonna hurt me," I said as I pulled his hand away from my forehead.

"I'm probably capable of it."

"If you end up moving away again, I'll follow you there." He raised an eyebrow at me. "I'm serious. I will follow you. You can't get rid of me that easily, Jonah."

He cracked a smile. "Such a stalker."

I grinned. "You have no idea."

The smile on his face widened, and he started to lean forward as he softly said, "You know what, Hannah? I think I—"

"Lovebirds!" Clara's voice rang out from the dining room. "Dinner's started ten minutes ago. When are you two gonna join?"

[]

author's note: the song that played when hannah woke up is Emergency - Paramore.