by Jack Parker
Hannah's face lit up, but if anyone noticed, no one mentioned it. It really made Hannah's day that she wasn't being talked about in the past tense. Finally someone wasn't acting as though Hannah Ayers was gone or like Hannah Ayers should automatically know things and be just fine and dandy. Isaac had just lightly made a statement.
"Maybe." Jake shrugged and drank from a bottle of Coke.
No one spoke until everyone had sat down at the table with their food. Hannah glanced around the table, her brow furrowed. Frowning, she took a bite of her spaghetti, but after she'd swallowed that bite, she sighed. "Where's Dad?"
Isaac flinched and took a deliberate bite of his dinner. A look swept between Diane and Patricia, but Hannah finally got an answer. "Working, honey," Patricia answered brightly. "He works late."
"Oh." Hannah blinked and continued eating.
"Are you going to school tomorrow?" Isaac asked suddenly, facing his older sister. "Please say yes. I don't want to have to ride the bus again. It gets here freaking early."
"I told you that you could ride with me," Jake reminded him.
Isaac scoffed. "You leave about as early as the bus does. I'd rather ride with Hannah and be late, thanks."
Ride? Hannah felt something tighten in her stomach. She couldn't drive! Was Isaac insane? She didn't even want to get in a car at all! Not ever again! And even if she did, she had no idea how to get to their school or anywhere else.
Shrugging, Jake went on eating. "Suit yourself, dude."
"I will," Isaac replied challengingly. He turned his eyes back to Hannah. "So are you going back tomorrow?"
Patricia answered for her daughter quickly. "I don't think that's a good idea."
"I think it might be," Diane commented, much to Hannah's surprise. "It's up to you guys, of course, but I mean…it won't be good for her to stay here too long. The sooner Hannah gets back into the swing of things, the better."
"And the sooner people will stop asking me about her," Jake scoffed. He shot Hannah a look that she thought was rather dirty. "I don't know why people think I'm your keeper all of a sudden, but it's frustrating."
Isaac smiled. "Nobody asks me anything after I used big medical terms."
"Hannah, honey, do you want to go back to school?" Patricia asked, ignoring Jake and Isaac. Worry was etched into her forehead. "If you want to…I just—I guess it'd be okay. If you want to."
Chewing thoughtfully, Hannah bought herself some time to mull it over in her head. The pros of going included getting out of the house, being normal, and maybe seeing something or someone that would affect her memory. The cons were being confused, getting lost, being annoyed by 'friends,' and not recognizing anyone. But the cons were bound to happen at some point. At least if she returned to school now, she'd also have the benefit of the pros.
"Please say yes," Isaac pleaded with his eyes wide. "It's a matter of the bus driver's life or death. I'll kill him. I swear I will. Do you want that on your hands?"
"If she goes to school, she is not driving," Patricia said sternly, sharing a nod with Diane. "There is no way that I'll allow that."
"Of course not," Diane agreed. She gestured to Jake. "He can drive you both, Isaac. Hannah can stall, and then you'll arrive late. Problem solved."
Jake groaned loudly. "Mom! Don't give her any ideas."
"Excellent plan, Di!" Isaac grinned. Jake brandished his fork at him threateningly, but Isaac just rolled his eyes and looked at Hannah beseechingly. "Say you'll go."
"Okay." Hannah shrugged and continued eating. "Why not."
"Sweet!" Isaac exclaimed in jubilation. "I can sleep later!"
"If you sleep too late, it's going to be a matter of your life and death," Jake threatened, but Isaac only laughed. "I mean it. I'll leave you."
Diane rolled her eyes. "You will not."
For the duration of the meal following Hannah's consent, Isaac continued to talk about how glad he was that Hannah was returning to school to 'reclaim her place in the hall.' Although Jake didn't necessarily agree with Isaac, he did say that class was much quieter and less entertaining without Hannah. The conversation turned to Christmas plans, and before Hannah knew it, Jake was following Isaac into the living room and Diane was putting on her coat.
Hannah's brow furrowed at Jake's mom. "You're leaving?"
Smiling, Diane nodded and zipped her coat. "I'm working a late shift tonight."
"A double shift, you mean," Patricia corrected with a frown.
Diane shrugged. "Work's work." She gave Hannah a gentle hug and a bright smile. "You make sure you force Jake into waiting as long as possible in the morning, sweetie. You'll regret any lost chance of revenge later if you don't."
The comment confused Hannah more than the hug bothered her, but Diane was gone before she could question the meaning of it. To escape the potential of suffering through clearing the table and loading the dishwasher, Hannah retreated to the living room, where Isaac and Jake were playing a video game. Isaac was standing on the floor, taking his turn, while Jake watched from the couch. Without any hesitation, Hannah plopped down next to Jake and watched Isaac's awkward motions. The awkwardness increased when he gave Jake and Hannah a funny look, and he promptly erred on the game, thereby ending his turn.
Jake grinned. "You lost again, man."
"I wouldn't have if Han hadn't distracted me," Isaac said with a frown.
She glanced at her brother and gave him a little smile. "Sorry. I didn't want to do dishes. But if I'd known—"
"Did you hear that?" Isaac asked Jake, his eyes wide. "She's already trying to get her chores pushed off on someone other than her." He laughed and sat beside his sister. "Well done, Han."
Jake rolled his shoulders and appeared to study the television thoughtfully. Hannah glanced at him curiously, tipping her head. "Why are you so quiet?" she asked. "Isn't it your turn with the game?"
"Yeah," Jake replied without looking at Hannah. He hit a few buttons on the game's controller with his fingers and watched the screen intently.
"Mom said the girls came over today," Isaac commented to Hannah, but his eyes were trained on the television religiously, apparently trying to learn game strategy from Jake's example. "Glad I missed that."
Hannah's interest piqued. Isaac had told her all about her friends while she was in the hospital, but he was just now making negative comments about them. "Why is that?" she asked carefully. "You don't like them?"
Jake snorted. "Libby's a bitch—a skanky bitch."
"True," Isaac agreed. "And Morgan thinks she knows everything. She's a bossy, prissy know-it-all."
Hannah could understand half of Jake's comment about Libby, although she wasn't sure about the skank accusation. However, Isaac's statement about Morgan surprised her in a way; the girls did listen to Morgan, but she seemed nice.
"And Tisha—jeez. She's a stuck-up snob most of the time." Isaac rolled his blue eyes and glanced at Jake. "Isn't that right, Jake?"
"Completely right."
"But they must have good qualities," Hannah reasoned. She wouldn't have been friends with them if not, unless she was horrible at picking friends. From the looks of things, the latter might have been accurate. "What are their best qualities?"
Isaac rubbed his cheek thoughtfully, a look of intense concentration on his face. Finally, he said, "I don't know. You said once that Tisha would break her neck to help someone she cared about." He shrugged. "And Morgan sees through bullcrap, if that counts."
"If it's the nicest thing you can say about her, it counts," Jake spoke up, tilting his body away from Hannah as he played the video game. "Libby's hot though."
"Tisha's pretty too," Isaac commented. "Just annoying."
Jake completed whatever he was doing on the video game, and Isaac took back over. Hannah glanced to her side and studied Jake briefly. "Do you have a girlfriend?"
His eyes widened as he turned to look at her, and the light that caught in them turned his eyes a stunning shade of green. Hannah thought he defini
tely looked surprised. "No. I don't. Why?"
Hannah shrugged. "I just wondered. You think Libby's hot, so do you like her?"
"No way," Isaac answered for him, laughing out loud. "And Jake's sworn off girlfriends since summer, right, Jake?"
"Mmhmm." Jake was still looking at Hannah, and it made her mildly uncomfortable as she fidgeted a little. "I think plenty of girls are hot."
Considering this, Hannah nodded. "So do you date plenty of girls? Why don't you have a girlfriend?"
"I had one," Jake said lightly, looking back at the television. "Mercedes Jenson. She's vice president of the senior class." He turned smug as he cast a brief glance at Hannah. "I'm president."
Hannah raised her eyebrows. "Congratulations?"
"You didn't vote for me," Jake informed her. "But anyway, Mercedes and I broke up just before school started."
"And he does date plenty of girls," Isaac declared. "He has a new one every week. Just casual stuff, you know."
Hannah's eyebrows rose farther. "You have a new girlfriend every week, Jake?"
"No." He rolled his eyes and stood up. "I just hang out with different girls. No big deal." He nudged Isaac's back as he stretched. "Anyway, I gotta go. I need to finish some homework."
Isaac paused the game and sent a grin in Jake's direction. "If you need my help, you know where to find me."
Jake rolled his eyes again, and Hannah watched him put on his coat and leave. There was something about him that caught her attention. He seemed distant and weird, and she didn't understand why. Even as good-looking as he was, Jake didn't have a girlfriend, so there wasn't a girl to get jealous if he talked to her, and yet Jake barely even looked at her. It was confusing, but maybe they just hadn't been friends. Hannah started to ask Isaac, but he was engrossed in the video game, so she opted not to bother him.
All Hannah knew was that even if she and Jake weren't friends, he seemed like a better candidate for a friend than her real 'friends.' At least he didn't ask her prodding questions or smother her with niceness.
Chapter 4
Stupidly, Sucky School
Jake glanced at the illuminated clock in his Ford Ranger and fidgeted in the driver's seat. If Isaac and Hannah didn't hurry up, he was going to kill them both. He could only speed so fast in a school zone, after all, and if their early morning poking didn't stop, they'd all be late for first period. Even though Jake supposed that they could use Hannah's accident as an excuse, he realized she probably wouldn't like that, and he knew he wouldn't like being late to class with an excuse or not.
Sighing, he was about to honk the horn when the front door opened and a whirlwind of strawberry blonde hair caught his eye. Jake relaxed as he realized that Isaac and Hannah were finally coming, and they still stood a chance of making it to school on time. Miracles did exist.
The passenger side door opened, and Jake could hear Isaac's voice saying, "No, you take the middle seat. Your legs might be a little longer than mine, but it's not right for a straight man to sit so close to another straight man."
"You're not a man yet," Hannah responded, giving Isaac a little shove. It made Jake wonder if she'd gotten her memory back in the night, since she seemed to be trying to distance herself from Jake. "So you sit in the middle."
"Somebody sit in the middle before we're late," Jake grumbled moodily.
At last, Isaac climbed onto the middle section of the seat, complaining under his breath. "This is not fair, not fair at all."
Jake rolled his eyes and waited for Hannah to shut the car door. "Suck it up."
"I'm going to get lost," Hannah murmured worriedly, and when Jake glanced over, he saw her looking frantically at a drawn floor plan of the high school. He'd never heard her stress aloud before, but he just rolled his green eyes again and backed out of the driveway.
"You're not going to get lost," Isaac patiently argued. "Jake will show you around, and you'll be fine."
Casting a weird glance at Isaac, Jake frowned. "I will?"
Hannah's blue eyes widened, and her voice raised a near octave as she squeaked, "You mean you won't?"
"Jake…" Isaac's tone was warning, and Jake suddenly didn't want to let Isaac down. Isaac had made Jake swear to treat Hannah decently for awhile, after all, so he was required to interact with Hannah. "Come on."
Jake sighed heavily, already dreading the day, and made the appropriate turns on the road. "I will. Don't worry, Ayers. We have a few classes together, and our others are close by, so it won't be a big deal."
"And lockers are assigned alphabetically," Isaac put in cheerfully, clearly choosing to ignore Jake's last name usage. His cheerfulness was very out of character, since he wasn't at all a morning person, but Jake figured that Hannah's nervousness had rubbed off on him or something, and it was an adrenaline thing. "So Jake's close."
Hannah's bandaged forehead wrinkled. "What's his last name?"
The amount of uncharacteristic confusion in her voice almost made Jake grin, and if Isaac hadn't been there, he probably would have. "Allen," he answered in amusement, earning an elbow from Isaac. "Only Reagan Amburgey is between us."
"You guys have lunch together too." Isaac reached over and patted Hannah's forearm gently, giving her a reassuring smile. "So even though I probably won't see you too much, you can rest assured. Jake will have you covered." He looked over. "Right, Jake?"
A huge stream of curses flooded Jake's mind, but he dutifully forced a smile and nodded. "Of course. That only makes sense."
"Good," Hannah said in obvious relief.
Mentally, Jake was puzzled about Hannah's behavior. He could understand why Isaac was making a huge fuss over his sister, but the Hannah Ayers that Jake knew and hated would never allow that. She was independent and should have been protesting every time that Isaac offered some form of help, not being relieved. Hannah's new weirdness threw Jake off balance. How was he supposed to act around her now?
Decently. Jake smirked when Isaac's words resounded in his mind. That was right. He had to treat Hannah decently. He'd promised.
To make matters worse, Jake also had no idea how he was going to make it through a whole day with Hannah since the car ride alone was irritating him. He supposed that he could just shove Hannah off on her friends, since it certainly made more sense for Hannah to be with them than him. With that thought in mind, Jake's mood improved drastically as he drove into Butler High School's parking lot.
"You've got your schedule, right?" Isaac asked Hannah as Jake parked in his designated spot. "You know where you're going?"
"Yes, I have it, but no, I have no idea where I'm going," Hannah answered flatly. Her next words were almost sarcastic. "But it'll be okay."
Jake turned off his truck's engine, pocketed his keys, and collected the books that he'd taken home. By the time he'd exited the Ranger and moved past the bed of the truck, Hannah was at his side, eyeing him eagerly but anxiously, two emotions that Jake never saw directed at him by Hannah.
Once the three of them had entered the building, Isaac departed to go to his locker, and Jake silently guided Hannah to the hallway that theirs were in. He was vaguely aware of her wide blue eyes absorbing everything with curiosity, but Jake was more concerned with his dread.
It seemed like a lifetime had passed before Jake reached his locker. He looked up to point out Hannah's to her, but her hand was already spinning the dial. Taken aback, Jake stared at her until Hannah glanced up. "You memorized your combination already?"
Hannah's brow furrowed. "No." She seemed surprised when her lock opened. "I don't know. It was automatic."
If she'd been someone else, Jake would have been fascinated and inquisitive, but since it was Hannah, he just shrugged and opened his own locker. A thought floated into his mind saying that Hannah was faking her amnesia, but Jake crushed it for the sheer reason that he knew Hannah couldn't fake her niceness to him.
A girl with nearly black hair appeared between them, fiddling with the middle locker's combination. "Hannah… It's s
o good to see you." Jake rolled his eyes at her floating, sardonic voice. Reagan Amburgey constantly sounded strung out on drugs. "It's been too roomy at the lockers."
Hannah turned her head and looked at the girl, and Jake could imagine her reaction to Reagan's very thick, very black eyeliner and mascara. "Oh, well that's sweet," Hannah murmured. "Thanks. Reagan?"
Jake did a double take. No hateful comeback? No morning banter between social opposites? More weirdness. Usually Hannah and Reagan fussed daily about one or the other crowding the sparse space between lockers, but now Hannah was being nice, even when Reagan was sarcastic? Sighing, Jake reminded himself that Hannah was now clueless and closed his locker door. He moved to Hannah, grabbing her arm and closing her locker. The last thing he was going to do was stand around listening to Reagan. "Come on. First period starts in about a minute and a half."
"But—oh, okay."
Without another word, Jake half-dragged Hannah to first period English, which they shared. Had he not dragged her, Hannah would have had to stop and talk to everyone who tried to hug her and welcome her back, but, fortunately, Jake's strength outdid hers, so pulling her along was no problem. If Jake had to say so, he actually thought Hannah seemed pretty grateful that he'd pulled her away from everyone and steered her into their first period class. Her lack of independence baffled him.
Jake took his regular seat in the back of the room, next to some guys that were on the basketball or baseball teams with him. To his surprise, however, Hannah followed and sat in the desk in front of his.
"Hey, Hannah," one of the guys, Anthony Byrd, greeted with a smile. The other two guys murmured greetings too, and Hannah offered them a shy smile.
Jake glanced at her oddly and cocked his head toward the corner by the window. "You usually sit over there," he informed her pointedly. But Hannah just blinked her big blue eyes innocently. "So, you know, you could—"
"Oh my God! It's Hannah!"
