I take a step closer to her, and she backs up and puts her hand up in front of me to stop me from moving in on her space. “Hannanah,” I say her silly nickname like a prayer.
“No, don’t say my name like that.”
“Why not?”
She shakes her head and says words that leave me broken. “I have loved you for as long as I can remember, and I’ve had to accept that I’ve loved you alone. I’m used to it. It’s all I know, but I’ll get over it.”
“I had no idea, but you’re not alone anymore.” I reach for her hands hanging down by her sides, but she pulls them away and crosses her arms over her chest.
“I’m moving, Seth. You waited too long.”
I’ve never felt true heartbreak until today. I didn’t know that it could feel so crippling. Hannah took my heart into her hands and wrung it out like a damp cloth. She crushed it under her feet. She has quite literally destroyed me in the span of five minutes. I back out of her room as we stare into each other’s eyes, and as soon as I hit the hallway, I run out of Colby’s house as fast as my legs will carry me.
I don’t know how I got here, but I’ve somehow ended up lying on my back in the middle of the baseball field. I’m staring at the clouds with squinty eyes, trying to block out the sun. But why bother to block it out? Who cares if I go blind if I can’t look at her face every day for the rest of my life?
Hannah and I were supposed to have a future. The kind with a three-bedroom house, ten kids running around the backyard (only three of those would be ours), puppies, family game nights, everyone piled onto one tiny couch to watch cartoons, donuts on Sunday mornings… I wanted all of that with her, and I still do.
Who cares if I took a little too long to say it to her? I said it. That should count for something. If she loves me like she said she does, why isn’t it enough for her?
I’ve been lying here in the warm sun, wallowing in self-pity, for who knows how long when I hear footsteps walking toward me. I turn my head in their direction to see that it’s Jameson. He’s in his uniform, so he’s on duty.
“Someone called about you. They said you hadn’t moved in a long time, and they weren’t sure if you were alive or not,” he says with a laugh. He sits down on the ground beside me with his long legs stretched out in front of him. “What’s going on?”
“Everything went wrong,” I say. It’s the only way I know how to describe it. I’ve dated plenty of women over the years, and I’ve never felt that spark I feel when Hannah smiles at me or touches my arm. I never envisioned a future with them like I do with Hannah. But she rejected me. I think about what my future will be without her, and it looks bleak. Everything looks gray and sad because she’s supposed to be there with me.
She cares for me. She said she waited to hear me say ‘I love you’ for years, so that means she loves me, too. Or she did once.
“Why don’t you start from the beginning?” Jameson says. So, I tell him all about my pitiful attempts to woo Hannah Stuart. Jameson is shocked at everything he has missed while he has been living in perfect, newly wedded bliss with Millie. He had no idea that I’ve been battling my attraction for our best friend’s little sister for two months.
“What do I do?”
“Well, you need to give her time. I always find that when Millie is angry with me, I have to go somewhere else to let her stew on things and calm down. If I push her to talk before she can simmer down, she just ends up yelling at me, and things spiral out of control.”
“Okay, well, after the time to calm down? Then what?”
“You need a grand gesture.”
“Like flowers?”
“Do flowers really sound grand to you?” he asks. I shake my head no, and he continues. “What’s something she loves? Something she has wanted for a long time? Something she dreams about?” he asks. I immediately know what I have to do.