Part 19 (2/2)
”What?”
”Come on. I know we're all close with each other, but you and Baker literally tell each other everything. I have a hard time believing you don't know what's going on.”
”Joanie, I told you already, I don't know.”
Joanie takes on that challenging expression she used to get as a little kid, the one she'd wear when she and Hannah would sneak downstairs to watch the Disney Channel in the middle of the night. ”You're lying,” she says. ”I can tell.”
”I'm not lying,” Hannah says heatedly.
”Hannah, your 'best friend' is sitting way over there, completely ignoring you, and completely ignoring us. So maybe it's time you let some other people in, huh? We're your best friends too, you know. Maybe it wouldn't kill you to share the truth with us-”
”That's not even-Jesus, Joanie-”
”Maybe we should all just take a breather-” Luke interjects.
”Just tell us, Hannah,” Joanie huffs. ”G.o.d, it's not like the rest of us are withholding information from each other-”
”Are you kidding me?” Hannah says dangerously, feeling her skin flush with fire. ”Like you're some paragon of truth-telling? Fine, Joanie, then why don't you disclose all your secrets to the table? Maybe you could start with, oh, I don't know, how you're planning on dumping Luke right before he goes off to Alabama?”
Hannah wants to s.n.a.t.c.h the words back as soon as they leave her. A stunned silence spreads over the table, the kind that presses on and on until the point where nothing anyone could say would pull the conversation back from the edge.
Joanie sits frozen across from Hannah, her entire face aflame, her eyes wide in shock. Luke sits frozen next to her, his mouth half-open like he was just punched in the gut, no shadow of dimples on his face.
”I-” Hannah says.
Joanie's eyes cut loathingly into Hannah's. She breathes very fast, her face turning redder and redder, her expression murderous.
Luke pushes back from the lunch table. He swings his booksack onto his shoulders and moves to gather his snack wrappers, and Joanie grabs his wrist and pleads, ”Luke-Luke, listen-”
He jerks his wrist out of her grip. ”See y'all later,” he huffs, not looking at any of them, and then he stalks away.
Joanie turns to Hannah with her face full of a horrible wrath Hannah has never seen before. ”I hate you,” she spits, scorching Hannah with her loathing eyes. She lunges aggressively for her sandwich and Diet c.o.ke can, clenching her teeth against her anger and tears, and then heaves herself up from the table. ”I-hate-you.”
Then she turns and runs after Luke, and Hannah sits dumbly in her chair, unable to process the wave of sadness that comes over her.
She and Wally don't say anything for a long minute. Hannah is afraid to look at him, to face his disgusted reaction. They sit in heavy silence while Wally folds his napkin into tinier and tinier squares.
”I didn't mean to say that,” Hannah says finally. She chances a glance at him and finds him staring hard at the napkin in his fingers, his face crinkled in thought.
He looks up at her, and the expression on his face is not judgmental. ”I know,” he says. ”What are you gonna do?”
”Apologize to her when I can.”
”Yeah,” Wally agrees. ”And to Luke.”
”And to Luke.”
Joanie doesn't speak to Hannah on their drive home from school. When they reach the stop sign at the corner of Kleinert and 22nd Street, Hannah takes a breath and reaches deep into her stomach for an apology. ”I'm sorry,” she mumbles.
Joanie's quiet for a long minute. Just before they turn onto Olive Street, she says, ”I don't think you are.”
Hannah glances sideways at her. Joanie stares straight ahead at the winds.h.i.+eld, her jaw set and her eyes wet.
Please talk to me, Hannah texts that night.
At two in the morning, when Hannah is asleep, Baker responds.
I'm sorry Han. I can't.
On Wednesday, when Hannah and Joanie arrive at school, Baker's car once again sits four spots down. Hannah knew it would, but the sight still hurts her.
Joanie immediately pushes out of the car and sets off for the building. Hannah watches her go, feeling stupid and lonely. She sits forlornly in her car, half-heartedly applying her eyeliner, until she notices Wally's green Camry pull into its usual spot.
”'Morning,” she says as they step out of their cars.
”Hey,” he says as he fixes his tie. ”How'd everything go with Joanie?”
”She won't talk to me.”
Wally frowns. ”She'll come around.”
Just then, Luke's car drives by. He pa.s.ses right by them and parks in a s.p.a.ce much farther down the row, near the building entrance. Hannah and Wally watch as he ambles out of his car, his hair ruffled, his tie hanging loosely around his neck, and his s.h.i.+rt untucked.
”Manceau's gonna slam him with a ton of uniform infractions,” Hannah says.
”I don't think he's worried about that right now,” Wally says.
Hannah and Wally sit by themselves at lunch that day. Some of their cla.s.smates glance curiously at their table, wondering why Baker, Clay, Joanie, and Luke are no longer sitting with them. Michele watches them with a hungry look in her eyes, like she's desperate to know the gossip; as Hannah looks at her, Michele leans over to her friend Taylor and whispers behind her hand.
It goes on like that all week: Hannah and Joanie drive to school in silence; Hannah casts a longing look at Baker's car when they pull into the parking lot; Joanie dashes off into the building without speaking to Hannah; Luke pulls in just before the bell and hurries inside without looking at anyone; and Hannah and Wally continue to hang out by themselves, at lunch and in the parking lot, neither one of them mentioning how much they miss their friends.
”Wally,” Hannah says on Friday afternoon, when she and Wally sit on the trunk of her car and wait for Joanie to come out to the parking lot so Hannah can go home, ”you don't have to keep me company, you know. You should still hang out with the others. I feel bad.”
”Don't worry about it,” Wally says, lacing up his track shoes. ”This thing'll fix itself. Friends have arguments, you know? It doesn't change anything.”
”Wall...this whole thing is my fault. I really f.u.c.ked up with Joanie and Luke. And-and with Baker and Clay. Joanie was right-I was lying before. Baker's avoiding me, and the rest of you, because of something that happened with us.”
Wally squints at her in the spring sunlight. Hannah looks away from him and keeps talking.
”Baker and I-we had an issue. An issue that I don't know how to resolve.”
”Yeah,” Wally says. ”I know that, actually.”
”What?”
”I talked to Clay.”
<script>