Part 26 (1/2)
”I'm sorry,” Hannah says hurriedly. ”I didn't-sorry.”
”It's okay.”
”I talked to him today.”
”You did?”
”At the lockers.”
”How was he?”
Hannah tells her about the joke Luke made, and Joanie takes on a soft, yearning expression. ”I miss him so much,” she says.
”I'm really sorry.”
”It's okay. When it all comes down to it, it's my fault.”
”Do you still want to be with him?”
Joanie doesn't hesitate to answer. ”Every second of every day,” she says, and Hannah knows exactly what she means.
Hannah and Wally sit for the national AP Calculus exam on Wednesday morning. It's a grueling exam-long and full of complicated problem sets-and by the end of it, Hannah's wrist aches from writing, and the eraser on her mechanical pencil has been beaten down to a nub. ”I am so done with math,” she tells Wally afterwards, when they're walking back to their cla.s.ses. ”Like, don't even show me another number for the rest of my life.”
Wally holds up three fingers. ”What number is this?”
”Stop,” she laughs, hitting him in the ribs, and he recoils and pretends like she hurt him. And then, right there in the hallway, with the rest of the student body still in their regular cla.s.ses, Wally kisses her.
”Oh,” Hannah says in surprise.
”We haven't done this in way too long,” Wally says against her mouth.
”Maybe here isn't the best place.”
They hear a catcall, and both of them whip around to see a handful of their AP Calculus cla.s.smates crossing down a perpendicular hallway. ”Get it, Sumner!” David calls, and Wally turns red and raises his middle finger.
”One,” Hannah says.
”What?”
She laughs. In the middle of this hallway, where her cla.s.smates just spotted her kissing Wally, she feels wholly normal and beautifully conventional. ”One,” she repeats, her voice giddy now. ”You just held up one finger.”
Wally's face breaks into a huge smile. He kisses her again, and Hannah lets him, and she feels so, so safe.
When she gets home from school that day, Hannah pours herself a bowl of Apple Jacks and eats the green and orange cereal bits one by one, striving to keep an even ratio between the two colors. She studies a page from her AP Literature notebook (”Notes on 'The Friar's Tale'”) and focuses her eyes away from the sketch of a bald, dumpy little friar, drawn in blue ink pen, that Baker had scribbled on her paper in the middle of cla.s.s that day (Where's my hair? the friar's speech bubble reads).
”Han,” Joanie says, coming into the kitchen and clutching her cell phone in front of her body, ”have you seen the news today?”
”No,” Hannah says, only half-listening.
”The president came out in favor of same-s.e.x marriage.”
”What?”
”I just saw it on my news feed. I read the transcript. Look-”
Hannah reads the transcript of the president's words with her heart beating fast in her throat. Joanie hovers over her shoulder and reads down the screen with her.
”Wow,” Hannah says when she's through.
”This is great,” Joanie says earnestly. ”Hannah, this is really, really good. He's the first president in history to support same-s.e.x marriage-”
Hannah slams her notebook. ”Yeah,” she says, standing up at the counter, her mind racing and her heart still hammering. She carries her cereal bowl to the sink, turns the faucet on, waits for the water to turn from cold to hot.
”Aren't you excited?” Joanie asks.
”Can we not talk about this right now?”
”What's wrong? Don't you want to get married one day?”
”Who says I can't, Joanie? Just because I'm-I mean, just because I told you about all this confusing stuff with Baker, doesn't mean I'm-like, I might not even be-”
”What?”
”You know 'what.'”
”I'm not gonna say it for you.”
Hannah jams her cereal bowl into the dishwasher. ”Maybe I still want to marry a guy, okay? Maybe I don't have to be this way.”
”What are you talking about?”
”Wally's been really great to me. He's a good person and he understands me. And we're both going to be in Atlanta for the next four years. Don't you think that's significant? Don't you think maybe it's a sign?”
Joanie scrunches up her face in distaste. ”A sign about what?”
”That maybe that's the right path for me! I mean, just because I feel a certain way, doesn't mean I have to indulge it-doesn't mean I have to go down that life path-”
”Are you saying you like Wally now? Like, really like him?”
”You ask that like it can be a straight answer.”
”It is a straight answer.”
”I could grow to like him! I really feel like I could. I love him in a way. I really do. He's smart and sweet and totally devoted to his family-”
”Does he make you happy?”