“Seth, what a nice surprise,” Shelly, Hannah and Colby’s mom, says as she opens the door wider to let me inside. What should I do? Do I leave? Do I stay? What will make this less awkward?
“Oh, uhh... Hi, Mrs. Shelly. I didn’t know y’all were in town. I can come back another time,” I say. I already know there’s going to be an awkwardness hanging over me and Hannah. I don’t want to be forced to hang out with her family and pretend there’s nothing going on. I’ve never been good at pretending.
“Quit being ridiculous, Seth. Come inside and have dinner with us,” she says. She pulls me inside, and there’s Hannah, standing in the kitchen, cooking dinner with her dad. Her jaw drops ever so slightly when she sees me. I wave like a dork because I don’t know what else to do.
I sit at the bar in the kitchen and watch Hannah and her dad make spaghetti—Hannah’s favorite. I wonder if this is a consolation meal because she didn’t get the job or a celebratory meal because she did get it. It’s wrong, I know, but I’m praying it’s the former.
“So, what brings you by?” Hannah asks with a tight-lipped smile. She’s angry with me. She turns her back to me under the pretense of washing dishes. And goodness, she’s really letting that cookie sheet have it. Is it really necessary to scrub it that hard? It doesn’t even look dirty.
I move around the island to stand beside her. I pry the scrub brush from her death grip and say, “I wanted to talk to you. You’ve been ignoring me all week.” I finish washing the cookie sheet and dry it off with the towel sitting on the counter. She takes the pan and puts it away without speaking.
“We have nothing to talk about,” she finally says so quietly that I almost miss it. Nothing to talk about? We have everything to talk about. Like, why won’t she look at me? Did her heart feel like it was going to explode with happiness when we kissed the way mine did? Does she love me, too? Why is she trying to run away from this, from me? That’s not nothing.
“Hannah,” I say. I put my hand on the small of her back, and she looks up at me. I feel like I can finally take a deep breath after being underwater for too long. But I don’t get to finish my thought, because Colby comes into the kitchen.
“What are you doing here?” he asks, trying to sound casual but not exactly succeeding. I hear the annoyed undertone. He doesn’t want me here. He doesn’t want me anywhere near his sister. He’s probably rejoicing in her decision to move away just because it will keep her safely out of my reach. Why am I even friends with this guy if he thinks so little of me?
“Just stopping by,” I say. I paste a grin onto my face as I meet Colby’s eyes.
“You’ve been doing that a lot for the last month or so,” he says with a raised brow. I know what he’s implying. He has been suspicious of my intentions with Hannah from the start. He’s justified in thinking I have feelings, but he’s not justified in trying to warn me off.
I’m a freaking catch! I have a good job, I own my house, I take care of myself, I’m fun, I have money in my savings account… I should probably figure out some investments for retirement, but I’ll get there soon.
“Okay, who’s ready to eat?” Hannah asks at a decibel that can be heard from outer space. I’d be willing to bet all of the neighbors heard and will be busting down the door for dinner any minute. Who knows? Maybe even the aliens orbiting Earth are going to join us, too.
“Hannah, my ears,” her dad, Mr. Greg, winces. “Ah, there goes the tinnitus.”
“Why do all men claim to have tinnitus? Seriously, did you all play with bombs as teens or something?” Hannah jokes.
“If sparkler bombs count, then yes,” Mr. Greg says, and the tension is eased for the moment.
We all sit around the table with plates of spaghetti, salad, and garlic bread. It smells delicious. Everyone digs into their food, and for a few minutes, the only sound is silverware clinking on plates. Shelly interrupts the silence and asks, “Seth, have you been seeing anyone lately?”
I freeze with a bite of spaghetti halfway to my mouth. The pasta slides from my fork and splatters back onto my plate. Hannah drops her fork and begins fidgeting with her hair. She leaves the table with the excuse of needing a hair tie. I watch her practically run out of the room before turning my attention back to Mrs. Shelly.
“No, I’m not seeing anyone,” I answer.
“Don’t wait around too long. You don’t want your dream girl to get snatched up by someone else,” Mr. Greg says with a fatherly smile.
“You’re telling me.”
Hannah and I are cleaning the kitchen together while the rest of her family is on the back patio, relaxing and drinking tea or coffee. Hannah volunteered as a way to get away from me, I suspect. I foiled her plan by volunteering to help her. Ha! Can’t get away from me that easily!
She is doing everything in her power to stay as far away from me as possible. If I’m at the sink, she goes to wipe a counter on the other side of the room. If I’m gathering dishes from the table, she has things to put away in the pantry.
“Hannanah, look at me,” I sigh when we both end up in the kitchen together.
“Why?”
I walk up behind her and put my hands on her hips. Her entire body tenses up, but I wait. After a moment, she turns to face me. She looks scared…vulnerable. I don’t want her to be scared of me. I want her to know that if she’d let me, I’d cherish her. I’d protect her so that she’d never have to be scared of anything ever again.
I should be the one who’s scared right now, because I’m putting all my hopes on her, and she has the power to stomp all over them. “Hannah,” I start, ready to lay it all out there for her. I can’t wait another minute.
“I was offered a job today. It’s in Austin,” she blurts out before I can even ask her out on a date. Austin is three hours away. My stomach begins to churn, waiting to hear what else she’s going to say. Everything in me is praying the next words out of her mouth will be her telling me that she won’t be taking this job. She can’t leave Waverly. Everything is here. I’m here. Doesn’t she want to stay and be with me as much as I want to be with her?
I swallow deeply and ask, “And?”
Her huge eyes gaze up at me as she inhales a ragged breath. I see tears pooling in her eyes, and I already know what she’s going to say. I drop my hand from her hip, and her eyes slide closed for a moment as she gains control of her emotions. Please don’t say it, please don’t say it.
“I’m taking the job,” she says in a firm voice that begs me not to argue. I nod my head and back away from her, feeling like we’ve never been farther apart than we are in this moment. I want to get down on my knees and tell her this is a mistake. But who am I to her? She has shown me this week that I don’t mean as much to her as she does to me. When we kissed, her lips told me a different story, but perhaps I misinterpreted it.
“Okay, I should go. Tell your parents I said bye and thanks for dinner.” I throw the towel onto the counter and walk out of the kitchen. As I open the front door of the house, I hear the sound of a sob coming from the kitchen. Her tears aren’t for me, though. She doesn’t care for me. If she did, she would have talked to me before doing this.