by Jack Parker
Tisha appeared thoughtful. "I had a feeling you'd say that."
"And you still went along with this?" Libby asked incredulously.
Hannah knew that Libby was only this upset because she'd been left out of the loop. Had she been involved with the plot and known what was going on, Hannah had no doubt that Libby would be acting just as calm as Tisha was. She was just mad that she was as clueless as Hannah.
"I've got Han's best interests at heart," Tisha explained, looking at Hannah. She pressed her hands together and placed them on the lunch table. "Do you want to know why Jake's not at school today?"
Curiosity piqued, Hannah almost admitted that she did want to know why Jake was cowering—if that was what he was doing—at home when she, the injured party here, was braving school. But Hannah refused to fall into that trap. Because, really, what if it was just a trap? What if this was Jake's last—or just next—stunt to pull Hannah back into his mind games?
Morgan wouldn't fall for that. Part of Hannah knew that and put some trust in the situation. Morgan was the smart one, and she was with the boys—with Jake—right now. She'd see through any lies that were told.
Hopefully.
But she hadn't seen through them before, when Jake had conned Hannah's friends into telling him information about her. Remembering that made Hannah remove the trust that she'd just given Morgan's judgment of Jake's character. Even the genius girl could be fooled from time to time.
"Hannah?"
Tisha was waiting ever so patiently on Hannah's response. A very tiny part of Hannah—the part that was still crazy about Jake—had hoped that Tisha would press on without waiting on Hannah to prompt her. But of course, the world conspired against Hannah Ayers, and nothing was ever that simple.
"I want to know!" Libby declared.
Ah, maybe the world could be simple, if Libby could prompt the response.
"I didn't ask you," Tisha replied calmly, as if knowing that Hannah was hoping for an easy way to get the information out in the open. "I asked Hannah. Hannah, would you like to know why Jake isn't here?"
"We all know that he doesn't have the balls to face her or us," Libby said obviously. Her hands fidgeted with the intricate up-do her dark hair was in, the same up-do that Hannah had deemed ugly earlier in the day. "That's why he's hiding out. He knows I'll pulverize him."
The thought of Jake writhing in pain on the floor briefly amused Hannah. Maybe there was something to that revenge that Libby kept offering to put Jake through. Wouldn't it be nice to see him tortured—if even just the tiniest bit—for all the emotional upset that he'd created for Hannah?
An eye for an eye, a life for a heart…
Jake's life, that is, for Hannah's broken heart.
"Tell me." Hannah made the decision on a whim. Glutton for punishment or cynical enough to want to doubt Jake's reasoning, Hannah wanted to know. "Why isn't Jake at school today?"
Tisha leaned toward Hannah, as though the reason was hurting even her. "He's not here because he's afraid of how you feel about him. Jake's heartbroken, Han. The poor kid is crazy about you, but you wouldn't let him tell you that." She paused, seeming nervous for a second, but then Tisha went on. "Now, I totally get why you were too pissed to let him explain. It was an easy thing to mistake and all, but, Hannah…Jake's crazy about you!"
Hannah stared at Tisha. That was it? That was what Jake was telling people now? He all of a sudden could stand Hannah, didn't hate her, and was worried that she had bad feelings toward him? He was lovesick and moping over her?
Yeah. It'd take a lot more than a severe bump on her head to make Hannah fall for that one.
Jake had told Hannah himself that he couldn't stand her. His words had been that he hated her and that he always would. There was no way that Hannah would ever be able to believe that Jake's feelings could change into some heated passion for her just like that. It would take an idiot to believe him.
Slowly, Hannah turned her strawberry blonde head to Libby. For the past several minutes, Libby had taken on the anger that Hannah was feeling, and she expected Libby to react to Jake's alleged feelings with fury. When Hannah saw Libby, Libby was staring right back at her, her forehead furrowed above her blue eyes.
"I don't know what to say, Han." Libby seemed to read Hannah's mind, feeding off of the serious doubt that Hannah had. "I really just don't know what to think about it at all."
Hannah looked at Tisha and raised her eyebrows. "You believe Jake?" Hannah asked, not bothering to hide her annoyance. "Really, Tisha?"
Earnestly, Tisha nodded, her blue-green eyes seemed to glow in a way that disgusted Hannah, who had had her anger rekindled. It was bad enough that Jake had the power to hurt her, but when he was given the power to make her friends look like a bunch fools that believed his lies too, it pissed Hannah off on a new level.
Oh, Jake was good. He'd fooled her friends, fooled her, fooled her friends again… For him to go through so much trouble, Hannah decided that Jake definitely had something up his sleeve—one last trick that he wanted to pull on her or something to that effect.
"I think—no, I know…I'm livid." Hannah stood up from her seat in the cafeteria, a perfectly controlled air about her. She inhaled slowly, angrily. "If you guys want to believe Jake, that's fine with me. But I'd rather burn the skin off my body than listen to Jake and his lies."
She turned around, desperate to get out of the cafeteria. There had to be a place where she could go and think happy thoughts by herself with no interruptions and with no pressure to think about Jake. It sickened her that her friends were catering to Jake, letting him play his twisted mind games, and Hannah thought maybe that was his latest game, to blindside her friends next.
Well. That wasn't going to happen. Hannah would take him out first.
Chapter 20
Very Vehement Vindication
Jake felt positively ill. It had been days since he'd talked to Hannah, and the feelings he felt over that were overwhelming. He was pretty sure that he'd never before gone more than a day without interacting with Hannah in some way throughout his entire life, and, for once, not even the coldest of his multiple personalities could deny that it just wasn't right not to talk to her. Even if his warmest personalities weren't crazy over Hannah, he still would have felt weird going so long without even so much as a glare from Hannah.
Pacing his bedroom floor, Jake looked at the clock. The display said it was seven-forty. It had been a long day.
Jake had woken up at his usual early hour and decided almost right away that he didn't have the audacity to go to school. As a senior, he felt he had the right to take a day off every now and then, and, since he hadn't before, Jake skipped out on his classes—and Brent and Ethan had skipped right along with him.
When Morgan Owens had showed up at his house, Jake had been shocked, but she'd explained easily that she was concerned about his wellbeing. Jake had almost scoffed until he realized that she was serious. Realization had then hit that that was why Brent and Ethan were there too; they were all worried about the effect that Hannah's anger was going to have on Jake.
"I saw it when you came to get help with Hannah from us," Morgan had said. "I knew that day that you were falling for Hannah, even if you didn't want to see it for yourself."
With Morgan saying stuff like that and Brent declaring that Jake was in over his head with Hannah, it hadn't taken Jake long to come clean—he confessed that 'sometimes his head got screwed up' and that he 'liked' Hannah 'way too much' but 'only sometimes.'
"Really, dude, it's been obvious," Brent had declared. "I could tell you weren't ready to talk about it though or else I would have made you own up to this a long time ago." He had then proceeded to smirk at Ethan and say, "And you owe me twenty bucks. I told you that Jake would fess up eventually."
It had amused and irritated Jake that his two best friends had bet over him. Mainly it amused him, since he knew that he would have bet on either of them if the situations were reversed.
; Before the time his friends and Morgan had left, however, Jake was singing a new tune. He was sprouting a melody that openly admitted that he harbored romantic feelings for Hannah Ayers, his pride be damned, rather than insisting that his feelings for her were only confused some of the time. It, shockingly, wasn't as hard as he thought it would be to admit that Hannah had started to mean something to him; the harder part was admitting that he was lovesick over her being mad at him. After all, Jake had never been one to get moony or mopey.
"Take the offense," Ethan had suggested. "Maybe being bold with her never got me anywhere, but she likes you. Boldly let her know that you like her too."
Hearing that, Jake had flirted with the idea of going up to Hannah and kissing her, much like she'd randomly kissed him. It was cheesy, yes, but if it worked, then who really cared about that? But the fear of failure had implanted in Jake; he lacked what it took to make himself that vulnerable, at least at this point.
"Stalk her."
That had been Ethan's next grand idea. Listening to his friend helped Jake understand why Ethan didn't have a girlfriend.
"Bribe her with food," was the idea that Brent had tossed up. "Shove a cupcake in her hand, and while she's eating it, make her listen to you."
Brent's mindset worried Jake about how Tisha was going to handle him. Hopefully, Brent and Tisha would never get into an argument because, obviously, Brent's ideas for making up were not the brightest. Though Jake did admit that he'd lengthily considered the gist of that idea before rejecting it.
Ethan and Brent had bickered about the best way to get Hannah to forgive him. Everything from buying her an expensive gift (or a pizza), to taking her someplace special (or holding her hostage), and to seducing her (or sedating her) had been discussed. Their thoughts did little for inspiring Jake, but they definitely kept him entertained, which was something to be grateful for.
Unfortunately, Morgan had been utterly no help at all, at least not for coming up with a plan for Jake to use. She had been able to communicate to Hannah through Tisha (as had Brent) that Jake was going crazy with worry and attraction, but Morgan was just as clueless as the guys. Everyone knew how stubborn Hannah could be, and there was no way to pretend that Jake hadn't spilled negative information to her. He'd screwed up, and Jake was blaming himself mercilessly.
Impulsively, Jake jerked his coat on and abandoned his house, heading across the street to Hannah's. He'd tried calling her several times after she'd gotten home from school, but, of course, Hannah hadn't answered. Jake figured he had nothing left to lose by trying to see her in person, and, if she refused, maybe he could conspire with Isaac to make things better.
That is, if Isaac didn't get pissed at Jake for the disaster he'd created.
If Isaac was on Jake's side, then success was pretty much guaranteed.
Jake paused at the Ayers's front door but only briefly; then he strode in, shedding his coat and hanging it near the door. The house was pretty quiet, and Jake wondered where everybody was.
Hearing shuffling in the living room, Jake wandered over there. And there Hannah was—he'd found her effortlessly. She was sitting in front of the fireplace, apparently starting a fire. Interested and unsure of how to start a conversation, Jake watched Hannah pick up a brown book, rip a couple of pages from it, and toss them into the fireplace. Flames engulfed the paper immediately.
Jake continued watching as Hannah ripped out several more sheets of paper, a satisfied smirk on her face. It was then that Jake recognized the brown book as Hannah's diary; he blinked in shock.
Perhaps talking to Hannah when she was in a violent mood wasn't such a good idea. But if Jake didn't try it now…
"Hey."
Hannah didn't flinch. Instead, her head turned slowly in Jake's direction, and piercing blue eyes—those uber blue eyes that had the power to mesmerize Jake—looked at him fiercely. Without looking away from his gaze, Hannah blindly ripped out more pages from her diary and flung them into the fireplace.
Jake cleared his throat and shifted his weight nervously. "Can we talk?"
Finally, Hannah looked away from his eyes and ripped out more pages. She fed them to the fire, evidently watching the blaze seriously. Cautiously, Jake moved farther into the living room, walking until he was decently close to Hannah but still far enough away that she'd have to give a warning sign if she moved to attack him.
Not that Jake was paranoid or anything.
He especially wasn't scared. Of course not.
"We can talk," Hannah said hesitantly. She shifted so that she was sitting Indian style and facing Jake. "But only if you tell me what you're trying to pull."
Surprised, Jake stared at Hannah as he dropped down to sit on the floor next to her. "What are you talking about?"
Hannah sighed impatiently. "What exactly are you playing at?"
"I have no idea what you're talking about," Jake said as earnestly as he could. He felt his forehead wrinkle in confusion from her accusations. "All I want to do is set a few things straight."
"Huh." Hannah crossed her arms over her chest in clear disbelief. "So there's no reason in particular why you're trying to turn my friends against me? You're not planning some kind of sabotage to screw me over? You've suddenly quit playing mind games with me?"
Anger shot through Jake. First, Hannah's friends had accused him of being up to something when he was being nice to Hannah. After that, Hannah's own grandmother had warned him not to mold Hannah to his will and make her into whomever he wanted her to be. Then Hannah's friends had been suspicious of him yet again when he tried to help Hannah get her memory back. And now Hannah herself was accusing him of playing cruel games with her.
What kind of sick, twisted bastard did people think he was?
"Very original, Hannah," Jake rolled his eyes, agitated. "You're not the first one to accuse me of shit like that."
"Probably because your real intentions are so easy to spot," Hannah snapped. "So just tell me, Jake, why the sadistic fascination with ruining me? Are we really going to do this for the rest of our lives? I mean, okay, it was all fun and games when we were kids, but now you're just getting vicious. When does it stop?"
"I haven't been doing anything cruel like that!" Jake finally exclaimed, his eyes widening to make his point. "You just wouldn't give me the opportunity to explain that to you before."
Hannah shrugged easily. "That's because you were pissing me off."
Raising his eyebrows, Jake insisted, "You still should have let me explain everything to you."
"You're doing it again. Pissing me off."
Frustrated, Jake blurted, "I know you think that I was only trying to hurt you, but I really do care about you, Hannah. A lot. I'm sorry that I said what I said—because I didn't mean it at all." He stopped and sighed, stalling. "I only said it because I was afraid of feeling…what I feel for you."
Immediately, Jake looked at the ground, sheepish for sounding like a soap opera or something equally tacky. He wasn't the mushy type, and he'd never been in this kind of situation before. When he'd dated Mercedes, who was his only serious girlfriend, they both were open with their feelings from the beginning, not having any childhood hatred to overcome.
Suddenly, Jake felt like a hypocrite. Hadn't he accused Hannah mentally of trying to pull one over on him as well? Her trying to break his heart had definitely been on his list of possibilities.
When Hannah still hadn't said anything, Jake glanced up at her. Her eyes had returned to the blazing fire, and her shoulders had slumped in defeat. Jake wasn't too sure what that was about; he was pretty convinced that he would never entirely understand Hannah Ayers, but that was something that he could accept, if Hannah would give him the option of doing so.
"It did start out with me just wanting you to get your memory back so things could go back to normal," Jake confessed, peering at Hannah with utmost seriousness. He wanted to be totally honest, just as he would have been with Mercedes. "But really, can you blame me for that? At that point
, I didn't know what to think of you. You've been around for my whole life, you know? It wasn't easy to have you become some new person that I didn't know at all."
Hannah scoffed. "You say that like it was easy for me."
"I know it wasn't," Jake said quickly. "But imagine if you were the one who remembered everything and I was the one who, for some reason, always wanted to spend time with you. It all really messed with my head too."
"Mm." Hannah glanced at Jake for the briefest of seconds. Then, extremely obviously unwillingly, she muttered, "I see why you were freaked out."
Jake hadn't expected Hannah to admit to that one. She should have been way more stubborn. It occurred to him then that the accident had changed more than her feelings for him; it had changed her in general as well. That was probably a good thing, Jake thought, because it was the amnesiac Hannah that he had fallen for. If there were no traces of that girl left behind, would he still feel the same way about her?
"I stopped thinking that way, Han," Jake said softly. "I honestly am crazy about you." He watched her face, trying to read her thoughts while she processed that. "Everybody but me, I guess, has kinda known that for awhile now, but I didn't want to admit it."
Hannah's face was unreadable. "Why not?"
That was certainly an awkward question. It made Jake think very heavily—not about the answer to the question, since he knew that well enough, but about how to respond. If he was really serious about pursuing something with Hannah, and he liked to think that he was, then he needed to be completely upfront and honest with her; that's how Jake rolled. But, on the other hand, he was putting himself out there to be severely hurt and judged. Maybe he deserved that though.
Jake took a deep breath. "I was scared," he admitted. "I knew you didn't hate me, but I didn't know if that was going to change when your memory came back." He shrugged gently. "It kind of had me paranoid. I didn't want you to feel like I'd betrayed you and let you fall for me—and I know that's how you feel now—and then have you hate me when you got your memory again."
