Hannah
Crushed is an understatement when it comes to how I’m feeling. After Seth left last night, I went to bed and fell asleep in a pool of my tears. I didn’t bother telling my family that Seth left. I didn’t tell them goodnight. I couldn’t face them because I would have had to tell them why my eyes were leaking. I really wish they’d stop doing that already.
I’m lying in my bed, cuddled up with my kittens, doing my best to ignore the heavy weight in my chest. The little furballs are doing a great job distracting me with all of their wrestling, biting, and purring. I still need to name them, but Seth and I agreed to name them together. They may remain nameless for the rest of their little lives now.
My mom slips into my room with two cups of coffee and a concerned look on her face. Looking at my mom is like looking in a mirror, if that mirror showed you what you’d look like in twenty years. But that’s where our similarities end. My mom is outgoing and peppy. She has always been someone people love to be around. I’m more like my dad: quiet, reserved, observant.
I sit up in my bed and scoot over to make room for my mom. She scoops the kittens up one by one and places them on the floor. She sits down on my bed and hands me the mug before asking, “Why did you disappear on me last night?”
“I don’t want to talk about it right now,” I say with a sigh. I’ll have to talk about it eventually. If my mom is anything, she’s persistent, and she cares about her children fiercely. She won’t let this go until she knows everything.
“Did Seth do something? I noticed he didn’t say bye to anyone either.”
“No,” I answer, and gosh, my eyes are leaking yet again. My voice cracks, so I can’t even try to hide it from my mom. She sets her mug down on the side table and turns her body to face me. She takes my face in her gentle hands and kisses my forehead. I feel like a little girl, but I don’t care. I love it.
“Mama, I love him,” I sob. She sighs and wraps me in her arms.
“Have you told him?” she asks. She has lost her mind if she thinks I’m going to confess my love to the man I spent all of my teen years and most of my adulthood pining over.
“Of course not!” I protest. My mom laughs and rubs my head.
“Don’t you think you should before you spend your whole weekend crying over him?”
“He doesn’t feel that way about me, Mama,” I say. There have been a few times that I’ve thought maybe he does—the kiss being one of them, obviously. I don’t know what prompted that kiss, and I don’t want to know. I only know that I have to forget about it, completely wipe it from my memory, or I’ll never be able to move on with my life.
“How do you know if you don’t talk to him? The man I saw last night has some kind of feelings for you, and it’s certainly not of the brotherly variety. His face has never been able to hide what he’s thinking. It’s those mischievous eyes.”
She’s right. His eyes have always given him away. It’s those eyes that made me fall in love with him. The easy way they land on you and make you feel like everything is going to be okay, because if Seth Miller is looking at you and smiling, at least one thing in this crazy world is perfect.
“He has had so many chances to ask me out or tell me how he feels, but he hasn’t said anything. He just let Colby tell him what to do. If he cared for me at all, he wouldn’t have done that,” I argue. Mama hugs me tighter, and I breathe in her clean, soothing scent. I’m glad she’s here. Her presence makes this easier. I can face anything as long as my mom is here to hug me and tell me everything will get better. And it will get better. It has to.
“I’m sorry, Hannah,” Mom whispers into my hair.
Tess and Millie have taken me out for a girls’ day to get stuff for my new apartment. I’ve told them repeatedly that this is a complete waste of time, considering the fact that the apartment I’ll be renting in Austin is completely furnished.
“Nonsense,” Millie says. “It will need personal touches here and there if you want it to really feel like home.”
I just roll my eyes and continue perusing the store. I know the main reason for this outing is to take my mind off of my broken heart. I don’t know exactly who blabbed to them about what’s been going on. I suspect Colby talked to Jameson, who talked to Millie, but it hasn’t been confirmed or denied one way or the other. They’ve been coddling me for days. I appreciate how much they care, but I’d love to sit in peace and quiet and wallow in self-pity while cuddling my nameless kittens.
“Oh, Hannah, look at these adorable bookends!” Tess says while holding up a set of iron bookends with owls on them. They’re cute, and she decides that I simply must have them. Millie finds a hoard of cream-colored throw pillows that should look nice on the navy-blue couches in the pictures we saw online. I push the items around in my shopping cart while the two of them find more and more things that I must have. A new set of sheets, a few mugs, and a picture frame are added over time.
“I don’t want you to go, but if you feel like you have to, I just want you to be happy,” Millie says. How does she understand exactly how I feel? She’s such a good friend. I don’t think I’ll ever have another friend who gets me the way Tess and Millie do. Maybe this day is a way for them to cope, too. I stop all of my grumbling and complaining and let them shop until their hearts are content.
Tess adds curtains to the cart, claiming that the ones in the pictures are atrocious. She’s correct, but I was prepared to deal with them for the sake of not having to spend money on new ones. By the end of the shopping trip, the trunk of my car is loaded with new things for my apartment, and my heart feels ten times lighter than it did before today.
I hate that we won’t have each other anymore. No more lunch breaks at the diner, no more nights bingeing ridiculous TV shows and eating obscene amounts of junk food, and no more tight hugs that instantly brighten even the worst mood. I didn’t get to hang out with them all the time (if you don’t count working with Millie), but when we did, it was always special. These girls have my whole heart, and now it’s really hitting me how much I’m giving up.