by Rebel Hart
“Thanks,” I said. “Wish me luck, I need to call Aria’s mom.”
“I’m gonna head back inside and update Darton and Polly,” Codie said, then he put a hand on my shoulder. “Please update me soon, okay?”
I nodded. “I will.”
Codie walked away and Suli looked at me. “Arden…” She sniffled in, but it only made her start crying harder. “I’m sorry.”
“This was my choice,” I said, then I put my hand on her head. “Please don’t blame yourself.”
She laughed. “Easier said than done.” She gave me a quick hug and then she walked away, wiping tears from her eyes as she went.
I looked down at my phone and my stomach twisted with frustration. I hated that I had to make this call, but I dialed Aria’s mom’s number and waited.
“Hey honey,” she said. “It’s a little late. Is everything okay?”
I immediately started to cry. “No. Serene, please don’t hate me.”
“Hate you? Why would I hate you?” she asked. “What’s wrong?”
“I came back to the club that Aria didn’t want me coming to and she found out. She came to get me and this huge fight broke out. She cracked her head on the concrete and is on her way to the hospital,” I explained.
It was totally silent, which was more painful than if she’d let out a scream. “I need to go speak to my boss,” was all she said when she finally did speak.
“Okay,” I said. “I’m sorry.”
But the line just went dead. It killed me knowing that I’d let her down as well. Aria and her mom had been nothing but wonderful to me and had only asked one thing of me in return. What was I doing?
The blare of the ambulance made me turn around and the truck was pulling away from the curb. Though I was nervous to do so, I walked over to Tristan and stood next to him, not saying anything until he chose to talk to me. We stood there silently and watched as the ambulance pulled down the street and then turned the corner and eventually out of sight.
“Why are you here?” Tristan asked. “I thought you were having dinner with your friends.”
“I swear to god, Tris, I didn’t know. Suli planned this whole thing for me, and she planned it here. There was no drinking or drugs or anything, even they weren’t drinking, she just did it here because it’s been kind of our home base and so she thought this would be the best place to do it. I wouldn’t have done it except they’d already put it all together and she paid for a VIP booth and stuff.” Then I stopped myself. “You know what? I’m making excuses. I shouldn’t be here. I promised Aria I wouldn’t come back and now she got hurt.”
“I’m pretty sure Hannah used the fact that you were here to set Aria up,” he said. “She was here with Ceradi and when she saw that Aria got hurt, she took off.”
That shattered me to pieces. “I can’t believe that.” My phone rang in my hand and I answered it immediately without even looking. “Hello?”
“Arden?” Aria’s mom said, fortunately not sounding like she hated me, but she was definitely suffering. “Where are you? What are you doing?”
“We’re still at The Undersound, but we’re leaving now to head to the hospital.”
“Okay. I’ll be leaving work in ten minutes. I’m the only one here so I can’t leave without a key. As soon as my boss gets here, I’ll head to the hospital. Please call me when you get there and if I need to give permission for you and Tristan to be with Aria, I will.”
“Okay, thank you,” I said, crying. “Serene, I’m so sorry.”
“Just go be with Aria,” she said. “I’ll see you soon.”
“Yeah. Bye.” I hung up with Serene and put my hand on Tristan’s back who was clearly so shocked he was frozen. “Tristan, we have to go. Aria needs us.”
He seemed to pull to attention. “Yeah let’s go.” Then he handed me his keys. “I need you to drive. I can’t do it.”
20
Hannah
Immediately upon getting back to Ceradi’s, I went directly to my car. Ceradi followed after me, playing the video of the brawl over and over. I could tell that she was doing it to torment me. I bit my lip, thinking fondly of Aria for the first time since she and Tristan first started dating and I tried to fake it. If these were the kind of people she’d been dealing with her entire life, her strength knew no bounds. Whatever her and my issue was, she didn’t deserve to be attacked the way she was, and she certainly didn’t deserve to have her skull cracked open.
Ceradi was a psycho.
“Hannah, come on. What are you going to do, go to the hospital? That’s about the same as going to the scene of the crime, are you insane?” In spite of the words she was saying, she had an amused tone to her voice and was practically giddy. “Just stay here.”
“I’m not staying here. I need to check on Tristan, I need to check on Aria, and I need to check on Arden,” I said.
“Arden?” she barked. “Why do you give a damn about that dyke freak?”
At that moment, something just came over me. Maybe it was the slur that she’d now used twice in my presence, maybe it was the fact that I knew I also fit into that group she was nastily insulting, or maybe it was just because I loved Arden and couldn’t stand to hear Ceradi insult her anymore. I dug my feet into the ground, balled my hand into a fist, whipped around, and socked Ceradi straight in the nose. She screamed and toppled backwards, landing hard on the ground and sending her phone clattering out of her hand across the pavement, cracking in the process.
“Dyke is a derogatory term!” I screamed. “And don’t talk about her that way!”
“Ceradi?” Milton called, rushing over from the house, and when he noticed her on the ground and me standing over her, he froze. “Whoa! Hannah, what the hell?”
“Get up!” I screamed at Ceradi. “Right now! Get up off the ground! I’m kicking your ass! I’m so fucking sick of you.”
Ceradi seemed truly terrified of me. “You need to get off my property right now before I call the police!”
“Oh don’t be scared now, bitch!” I snapped. “Get up!”
Milton came running over and pushed me backwards a little bit, posturing his body between mine and Ceradi’s. “Hannah, you need to back off.”
“You stay away from my friends!” I bellowed. “If you go anywhere near Arden, Tristan, or Aria again, this will not be the last time you feel my fist against your face.”
I was screaming so loud and passionately that I could barely catch my breath.
“Hannah!” Milton screamed. “Leave. Now.”
Not wanting to get into any more trouble than I was sure I was already in, I took Milton’s advice the second time he demanded it, and turned my back to them. I had no fear that Ceradi wouldn’t come after me, since she only knew how to run her mouth, and a little wave of satisfaction washed over me as I heard Ceradi slowly start to cry.
Good. Let her suffer a little bit for all the pain she’d caused others.
I could have called Tristan, but I was honestly afraid to face him, so I called the only other person I could think of. It was going to be bad and I was likely going to have to hear an earful, but it was worth it to try and get some sort of update.
“Hello?”
“Hey,” I said. “Um… Where are you?”
Arden took a deep sigh. “I’m at the hospital. Where are you?”
She didn’t sound like she hated me, but I wasn’t sure if that was because she didn’t know my involvement, because she was in shock, or a combination of both. “I’m leaving Ceradi’s… I just punched her in the face.”
“Really?” Arden asked.
“Yeah,” I said. “She kept saying really disrespectful shit and I just lost it.”
Arden actually let out a little snicker. “Wish I could have seen it.”
“How’s Aria?” I asked.
“We don’t know yet. She’s been patched up and all of that. She’s not dead or dying, but that’s all the doctors can tell us for now. We have to wait until she comes to in
order to see how bad it is.”
“Okay,” I said. “Um… Is Tristan there?”
“Yeah,” she said. “He’s pretty upset, Hannah.”
That let me know definitively that Tristan had seen me, and had told Arden. The only thing that it didn’t tell me was why Arden didn’t seem to be more angry with me if she knew. “If I came to talk to him, do you think he’d listen?”
“Maybe?” she said. “He’s kind of shell shocked. I can’t tell if he’d be better off having you here, or worse.”
I sniffled in, emotional for many reasons that ranged from knowing this was the longest, amicable conversation I’d had with Arden in a long time to knowing I was responsible for hurting the love of my best friend’s life. “I really messed up, Arden.”
“You and me both,” she replied. “Do you think you’ll come here? I wanna give him a heads up if you are.”
“Yeah. I’m on the way.”
“Okay. Be careful. Don’t drive crying,” she said.
That really only made me cry harder. She was always worrying about me. Had she ever stopped for even a day? “Yeah. Bye.”
“Bye.”
The second the line went dead, I dropped my phone and collapsed against my steering wheel. I was sobbing so loudly that if anyone were to come within ten feet of my car, they’d hear it and think I was giving birth. I just wanted love. From Tristan. From Arden. From my parents. From my friends. It hurt so badly to have a relatively normal conversation about such an abnormal, horrific situation. That was what I wanted. I wanted to just be able to call her and talk to her and hear her voice when I wanted.
I just wanted her.
Sitting up and wiping my eyes, I started up my car. Tristan needed me. He was owed an explanation and an apology and anything else I could muster, so I needed to suck it up. No more playing the victim. It was time to take responsibility for my actions.
All of them.
My drive to the hospital was grueling. Every time I allowed my mind to wander, I brought myself to the verge of tears again, imagining Tristan or Arden hating me. I couldn’t even lie and say that I didn’t know what I was doing. I knew Ceradi was unstable and hated Aria. I never should have involved her. I could barely even blame her for what happened. I brought her to where Aria would be and coaxed Aria there myself.
Aria’s injuries were totally on me.
Once inside the hospital, I wasn’t sure where to go to find Aria, so I approached the front desk. “Hi,” I said. “Um… My friend fell and hit her head and they brought her here by ambulance. What floor would she be on?”
“Probably trauma.” She pointed around the corner. “This floor, follow the signs.”
“Thank you,” I said, then ran off in the direction she’d pointed. I followed the signs until I could hear a couple of voices talking that I recognized. Tristan and Taylor.
The door slid open into the trauma waiting room and everyone inside looked over at me, though there were only a few people there that I recognized, Tristan, Taylor, and Arden. A few of the other people gave me that passing familiarity like I’d seen them somewhere before, but I couldn’t quite place it.
Shockingly enough, it was Arden who stood up and walked over to me. I felt compelled to walk directly into her until she hugged me, but knew why that would be a bad idea and abstained. “Hey,” she said.
“Hi,” I replied. “Some of these other people look oddly familiar to me.”
“Yeah, Aria’s whole family was in town for graduation.”
It was like someone shot me. Of course, I’d seen them at graduation. It was Aria’s extended family. “Oh my god.”
“Hannah, what happened?” Arden asked. “I mean… tell me you didn’t…”
“I’ll explain everything to you,” I said. “I really want to, but right now—”
“Yeah,” Arden cut me off. “Go. Talk to him.”
I walked around Arden a little and then stopped before I got too far into the waiting room. “Um, Tris? Can I talk to you, please?”
Taylor pushed his brother. “Go. I’ll let you know right away if we hear something.”
Tristan stood up from the chair next to his brother and walked towards me. Again, I thought about hugging him, but I could only duck my head in shame.
“Outside,” he grunted as he passed, not breaking stride, and I turned around and walked after him, noticing the look of disappointment on Arden’s face as we went.
We passed back through the sliding doors and walked until we were in the hospital’s main waiting room just outside near the reception desk. Tristan sat down in one of the chairs and I sat down next to him, not entirely knowing how to start.
“Um,” I said quietly. “I’m so sorry.”
“What did you do?” he asked, looking over at me. “I mean, what did you do?”
“It got really out of hand,” I admitted. “I was drinking a little and Ceradi was trying to shove me upstairs with this guy and I was overwhelmed. I didn’t want to go and she thought it was because I was still hooked on you and you’d been stolen by Aria. She said she’d help me get revenge.” I stopped there. “I can’t blame it on her. I told her where to go, I convinced Aria to come. This is totally on me. I didn’t know that she was going to start that whole fight, but that’s no excuse. This is my fault. I admit that.”
“Why?” Tristan asked breathlessly. “Aria’s such a good person and she’s never done anything to you but try and be your friend. How could you do this to her?”
“Because…” Tears filled my eyes and I was irritated that I was going to get hysterical, but there was nothing I could do. “Because I don’t like her. She came into your life and you’re crazy about her. And Arden’s crazy about her. She’s so perfect and everything comes to her so effortlessly. This stuff that I have to try and try and try at, she does with the snap of a finger. She’s so confident and comfortable with who she is and it makes me angry that nothing I do ever seems to measure up to her.” I buried my head against my legs and started sobbing. “I hate that I won’t ever mean as much to you or to Arden as she does. I love you both so much and it hurts me every day knowing that you’re both slipping from me because of her. But I swear, Tristan, I didn’t mean for her to get hurt. I wanted her to feel some of the pain I felt, but I didn’t want this.”
There was silence in the wake of my confession. I expected that Tristan was angry, but then I heard the chair creak and felt a hand on mine. It pulled and I looked up to see Tristan’s eyes full of tears and anguish. He continued to pull my hand and I relented to his pull, letting him drag me to my feet and eventually into a hug. It was so much more than I deserved for all the pain I caused, but I took it anyway, bawling into Tristan’s chest.
“I’m sorry,” I whined.
“Hannah…” He let out a sigh. “What else could I have done to prove to you how much I love you?”
I stepped back from him, surprised. “What?”
“I tried. I tried telling you and I tried showing you. I went out of my way, I canceled plans with Aria, I was there for you about Arden as much you would let me. Every day I tried to do at least one thing to show you that you were my best friend and mean the world to me. What do you mean you don’t mean as much to me as Aria? Frankly, the only reason that I can’t love you as much as I love her…” He paused and looked into my eyes. “Is because you won’t let me.”
I sucked in air and my hands flew to my mouth. Was that true? I was the problem all along?
“Tristan.” We looked over and Arden was standing just outside the waiting room. “Aria’s awake.”
21
Arden
I was glad to see that Tristan and Hannah seemed to be able to bridge the gap between them given what had happened. When I announced that Aria had woken up, Tristan actually looked conflicted that he had to leave, but Hannah quickly pushed him away from her.
“Go, go, it’s okay. I’ll be here,” she said.
Tristan gave Hannah one final hug and then turne
d around and started walking in my direction. Just as he was headed my way, Aria’s mom came bolting in through the front door.
“Serene,” I said.
“Is she awake yet?” she asked in a panic.
“She just woke up,” Tristan answered. “I’m going to see her now.”
“I’ll come with.” I thought she was going to run straight past me, but she ran straight up to me and wrapped her arms around me. “Hi sweetie.”
I immediately started sobbing in her arms. Though I knew she had to get to Aria, I couldn’t stop myself from throwing my arms around her back and squeezing tightly. “I’m so sorry!”
“This isn’t your fault,” she said in a soft, motherly voice. “We all make mistakes. You never could have predicted or prevented this.” She leaned away from me and put a hand on my face. “I love you.”
I nodded. “I love you too. Go. I’m sure she’s waiting for you.” She ran between Tristan and I and rushed into the trauma ward and Tristan looked at me, looking as exhausted as if he’d been awake for ten days straight. “I’m sure she’s waiting for you too. You should go.”
He looked over his shoulder at Hannah, who was back to sitting in one of the chairs with her head down in her lap. “The real reason Aria got hurt is because you two are lying to each other and yourselves.”
It was a difficult pill to swallow, but a necessary one. “Yeah.”
“Go talk to her,” he said. “Actually talk.”
“I will,” I replied. “Now go. Let me know when I can come see her.”
He tapped me on my back and followed off after Aria’s mom and I took a deep breath and walked over to where Hannah was sitting. I could see her back lifting and lowering slowly and it broke my heart. I always hated seeing her cry.
Rather than sitting in the chair next to her because I felt like I couldn’t see her well enough that way, I sat on the floor in front of her. I crossed my legs and just watched her for a minute. It’d been so long since I’d had a conversation with Hannah that wasn’t laced with ire that I’d damn near forgotten how to do it. I was so clouded by being angry because of what happened between us that I didn’t see the way my words and actions were whipping up a storm that was swallowing up everything around it.
