by Karr, Kim
The sun was shining in the direction of the door, and it was hard to see, but I could make out the shape of a woman as she came into view through the mesh. She had a large book in her hands and her face was down as if in deep concentration.
Everything started to change the closer she got to me. First there was the unmistakable smell of lavender, a scent that made my nostrils flare in excitement, and then I saw the familiar shape of her eyes, her lips, her nose, and even the slender curve of her shoulders.
What happened next was like one of those slow motion movies.
I stumbled back with a jolt and thought . . . no way.
The woman with blonde hair that hung straight at least halfway down her back struggled to open the door, and only once she did, did she raise her gaze. “Can I help—?”
Out of nowhere, pure adrenaline raced through my veins. A thrill. An excitement I hadn’t felt in a very long time. I opened my mouth to speak, but shut it.
She didn’t finish her sentence either. Instead, she set the book down on the table beside the door. The haphazard way she released it caused it to fall and land on the floor with a clang. The spine read, “Web Design.”
That wasn’t what drew my attention, though. Rather, I found myself staring at the unusual pale blue color of her eyes. The color of a hot summer’s day and cool spring night. A color I’d only ever seen once before. But no, it couldn’t be—could it?
The silence drew out. I was dimly aware of her wiping one of her hands on her jeans, but nothing else. There was a reason I was there. A wrong to right. But unable to look away from her wide, startled eyes and her half-open mouth, I couldn’t seem to recall what exactly it was.
I took off my sunglasses to get a closer look. From the angle she was standing at, I could see the curve of her ass, the shape of her tits, the plane of her stomach, and I knew, I knew for certain that this was her.
This was Hannah.
H. Crestfall was Hannah Michaels.
The first girl I ever loved . . . and the one who broke me even more than I already had been before I met her.
“Hannah,” I said at the same time she said, “Jace.”
I nodded.
She nodded.
“What are you doing here?” she asked in a voice that trembled.
Right.
I was there for a reason, and it wasn’t to go down fucking memory lane, and it certainly wasn’t to relive the pain she caused me.
Still trying to brush off the shock, I stuffed my hands in my pockets. “Do you have a son named Jonah?” I asked, my voice slightly uneven.
She nodded and pushed her silky blonde hair behind her ear. It was a nervous twitch I knew so well.
“Does he attend The Preston School?” I asked to be one hundred percent certain.
Her eyes narrowed. “Yes, he does. Why are you asking?”
There was no invite inside, and it was for the best. I’d regained my balance by now and went for the jugular. “He’s in my daughter’s class, and today he said something to her that made her cry.” This time I kept my voice even, calm.
Her narrowed gaze raked over me in an accessing manner that told me she didn’t appreciate me being at her front door. “What is it you think he said to her?”
I ignored the sarcasm that dripped from her voice, and remained calm. “He told her that her hair looked like she’d plugged herself into a light socket, or something along those lines. I thought you might want to know that he was bullying someone.”
“Jonah has the sweetest disposition, and I doubt he would ever say anything like that.”
“Are you calling my daughter a liar?” I asked.
The physical trembling was hard to ignore, but I found it even harder not to notice the step she took closer to me. “Are you calling my son a bully?”
That wasn’t my intention, but she was pushing my buttons. Without realizing it, I puffed my chest out. “I’m just calling it like I see it.”
Her eyes, those blue eyes, blazed, and she put her hands on her hips. “Still the same old big shot, huh, Jace. Think the world revolves around you.”
A white-hot fury rose up from somewhere deep within me from a place I had buried it long ago. Once it did, I couldn’t stop it, or my reaction to her words. “Screw you, Hannah,” I bit out, and turned to stomp down the stairs.
“Jace,” she yelled.
Every hurt I ever felt from that day so long ago came back to me, and I had to ignore her. Unable to fight my emotions, I tuned out whatever else she was trying to say to me. I didn’t want to hear it. I knew I had come here about our kids. I also knew this wasn’t about us. But as soon as she called me a big shot—that’s what it became.
I tried to take a deep breath as I stormed toward my car with my words echoing in my head.
Screw you.
Two words I had wanted to say to her all those years ago and never did.
Screw you.
It wasn’t the right time, or the right context. Hell, I wasn’t even sure I really felt that animosity any longer.
But I didn’t give a fuck.
Screw you.
She had it coming.
Ten Years Earlier
Hannah Michaels
THE 1967 COSMOPOLITAN story on women computer programmers was making the rounds again.
And the girls in my computer class were fired up.
The story last made its way around the Internet five years ago when I was a junior in high school.
Back then, a little known blog pointed out that years ago the article had wrongly appeared between story headlines about how to frost a cake and what to wear in the rain. The blog also noted that not much had changed since then, considering one of the biggest software companies in the country only had one woman on their technical staff — and she was an intern.
But the newest circulation of the article had an addendum, and it stated that that one woman, whom had been pointed out years ago, went on to become the head of Google’s analytics department.
Way to go!
For a select few of us, the party we were at was a celebration of how far women had come in the computer field. We’d gone to pay homage to the road that had been paved for us.
The off-campus party was actually being thrown as a kick off to Greek Week, but I ignored that fact. Fraternities and sororities seemed to take up way too much time. I was at college on a scholarship, and I had to maintain my grades to keep it.
My roommate had driven me, but soon after we arrived she abandoned me to go upstairs with a cute guy she’d just met. I had no choice but to wait for her, or walk back to campus, and it was a little too far to do that.
Even though I wasn’t much of a partier, I carried an empty red cup around and chatted with my peers to see what they were working on in their classes. I liked to hear their ideas and absorb the knowledge they had. I wanted to go far. Be someone who mattered.
Change the world.
Social media was where the computer world was headed, and I intended to create the next big Facebook.
I moved among the crowd, and once I’d spoken to the few people I knew, I went in search of the bathroom. It was a good place of refuge.
Having been told it was right through the kitchen, I walked that way, and then paused as soon as I entered the room.
Sitting on the counter next to the keg was a guy that nearly knocked me out of my Converse sneakers, and I instantly wished I’d dressed a little nicer. Perhaps not worn my ripped jeans and smiley face t-shirt. Or better yet, blow-dried my dirty blonde hair, instead of pulling it back with a glittery headband.
The dark haired guy flashed me a grin of perfect white teeth. Oh my God, that mouth. His mouth. It was perfectly shaped. My only thought was I want to kiss him. Obviously, I was instantly smitten. But I was shy, so I walked right past him and found that place of refuge I was in search of.
I didn’t stay long.
I was intrigued. Captivated. Curious.
Would he still be there?<
br />
When I returned from the bathroom, at first I didn’t see him, and my heart sunk. But then I spotted that messy, dark hair, and my heart pounded.
He had changed positions. He was leaning against the opposite counter with his hands in his pockets. Long. Lean. Hot. He wore jeans that hung low on his hips and a very worn Harvard t-shirt that showed off the most incredible build I’d ever seen.
“Want a refill?” he asked just as I was about to pass because I was way too nervous to stop.
Heat flushed my cheeks as I looked down at my cup, which I knew was empty, and then over toward him. That’s when I figured why not, and extended my hand with the cup. “Sure.”
Our fingers barely touched, and I felt a jolt of electricity travel through my entire body.
While he poured beer into my cup, he said, “I’m Jace.”
“I’m Hannah,” I said, my voice breaking from nerves.
“What’s your major?” he asked over the music.
“Computer Science,” I told him. “What’s yours?”
“Undeclared,” he sighed, as he offered me the full cup.
“Undeclared?” I questioned, taking a sip, and trying not to wince. I really hated the taste of beer, especially cheap, draft beer.
He nodded. “Just call me, Mr. Undeclared.”
My nervousness waned, and I felt at ease with him. “You should totally major in Computer Science,” I said, “It’s where the future is at.”
“Oh, yeah,” he smiled, with a raise of his brow, “Tell me more.”
And so I did. Sip after sip, I explained to him where the world was headed, and why our generation had to jump on the bandwagon and take the lead.
That was the first time in my two years in college that I got drunk. And I didn’t handle it well. Right in the middle of our conversation, I told him I had to go, and went running off.
When my roommate finally came back downstairs, she found me puking my brains out in the bathroom. Mortified. Humiliated. I left without saying a word to the guy with the great smile. Not that I could have even if I wanted to. In fact, my roommate had to practically carry me to our dorm room.
My brain was a little fuzzy when I woke up the next morning, but I remembered telling my roommate the night before that I was going to marry that guy some day, if only I knew how to find him.
We hadn’t even exchanged last names.
The next week was hell for me. With all of my courses well underway, and the work piling up, I didn’t have much time to think about my future husband. Or go in search of him. Not that it would have been an easy task on a campus with more than fifty thousand students. Still I asked around. No one in my circle seemed to know him. Then again, my circle was very small, and we were all geeks.
He, however, was certainly no geek.
A few weeks passed when one day I was in the library studying and a good-looking blonde-haired guy sat next to me with the same English book I had opened up in front of me.
“You’re in my class,” he said, lifting his own book.
I nodded. I’d seen him sitting in the back of the lecture hall, flirting with whichever girl was beside him.
“Mind if we study together?” he asked.
Shyly pulling my hair behind my ear, I shrugged. “Sure.”
He smiled at me. “I’m Ethan Miller.”
“I’m Hannah Michaels.”
Ethan was a flirt, but he was also sweet, cute, and although I couldn’t believe it, interested in me.
Mr. Undeclared was nowhere to be found, and I had come to assume he didn’t really attend Michigan State. Perhaps he was a local boy from East Lansing, or maybe he actually attended Harvard, in which case I knew I’d never see him again.
Three weeks later, Ethan and I were officially dating. Four weeks later, I was blowing him. Five weeks later, we were fucking, and I was still blowing him. Blowjobs and hand jobs were something he couldn’t get enough of, and I wondered if he’d been neglected in high school.
Ethan was my first boyfriend, but not my first lover. That title would always belong to a big shot. You know the type—an influential person who thinks he’s all that. Adam Crestfall was the rich, stuck-up kid I’d grown up with in Grand Haven, and the one who had humiliated me.
His family name dated back to the days of fur trading and lumberjacking, and they still owned the majority of lumber mills in the northeast.
From the day my mother had turned sixteen years old, she worked in the Crestfall mansion. Because of all the years of service she’d given them, once I was born, the family allowed us to live in a small cottage on the edge of the property. Whoever my father was, my mother never said, and I’m not sure anyone else knew.
Because I spent a lot of time in the big house growing up, I was around Adam most of my life. I’d thought he was the one Crestfall I knew, but in the end I hadn’t really known him at all.
Turned out he was no different. After he’d asked me to prom, and I’d said yes, we had sex. He told everyone about it. And when I’d said we were dating, that we were going to prom, he denied he’d ever asked me, and went with the most popular girl in school.
Lesson learned, or at least I thought it was. Time would prove I hadn’t learned anything at all.
Thank God, Ethan was nothing like him. He’d grown up in Kalamazoo. He came from a middle class, hardworking family, and had to pay for school himself. Like me, that meant he worked. Ethan was motivated, smart, and easy-going. He was also a senior, and a pre-law major. Because he carried a heavy load, we often went days without seeing each other.
This was mostly because he lived off-campus, and since I didn’t have a car, I preferred him to come to my room, which he couldn’t do that often.
My roommate was always gone, so it was like I had my own place. This was a good thing because every once in a while Ethan liked to watch porn before we had sex. He was a little obsessed with threesome storylines. I had to admit, they were kind of hot. And I was intrigued.
Just before Thanksgiving break, Ethan was going crazy filling out law school applications. I hadn’t seen him in days, so I decided to surprise him one night with a visit.
Needing transportation, I borrowed my roommate’s car. It was the first time I’d done that and she didn’t seem to mind at all, as long as I agreed to fill the tank. Along with the gas, I spent a good portion of my paycheck from the Smart Bar, a computer technical support station where I worked on campus, to purchase a sexy new bra and panties. Ethan was a bit kinky, and I knew he’d like the sheerness of them.
The house that Ethan rented was run-down. Not that most off-campus college housing wasn’t, but that one looked especially so. The stairs creaked as I ascended them, and the window in the door had a piece of plastic duct taped over it. There were shards of glass on the peeling wooden planks under my feet and I wondered if someone had recently broken it.
Loud music was playing, which seemed so unlike Ethan. He never liked to listen to the music I played in my dorm room, and in fact, he often turned it down. I think it was the Sex Pistols, or maybe the Ramones. Not that the band mattered. Either way, I had to knock, and knock, and knock.
“Cool your jets,” a voice hollered from somewhere in the house.
It wasn’t Ethan’s. The voice was huskier, deeper, and a tad bit familiar. All of sudden, I felt a prickle behind my neck.
When the door swung open that place in-between my legs started to ache. And that wasn’t all. My throat clutched. Every one of my nerves hummed. And my heart beat faster than it ever had.
Standing in front of me, shirtless, was Mr. Undeclared. In one hand was a computer science textbook, and in the other a beer.
He flashed me that smile of his, and it made me feel drunk all over again. “Hey, I know you,” he said.
Between the slow ticks of the clock, my knees nearly buckled beneath me.
“You’re Anna, no last name. I asked around about you, but no one seemed to know where I could find you.”
As if tongu
e twisted, I managed to say, “It’s Hannah. My name is Hannah, not Anna.”
“Hannah? Not Anna?”
I nodded.
His face went white. “As in Ethan’s Hannah?”
All I could do was nod again. I didn’t want to be Ethan’s Hannah. I wanted to be his Hannah.
And I knew I’d burn in hell for that.
Present Day
Jace Bennett
THE WORD POOR wasn’t an adjective that ever should have been used to describe me. Yet, every decade it seemed to become a precursor to my name.
When I was ten it was Poor Jace, his parents were killed.
When I was twenty it was Poor Jace, he doesn’t know what to do with his life.
And when I was thirty it was Poor Jace, he’s a widower at such a young age.
Less than eight years until I turned forty, and I hoped like fuck that word didn’t make a comeback.
Yet as I lay in my bed tossing and turning before the sun even came up, I found myself feeling like Poor Jace. Only this time I was the one thinking it.
Sympathy wasn’t anything I ever wanted.
Pity was something I disliked.
But judgment was something I loathed.
And Hannah Michaels had judged me harshly.
So screw her.
Yeah, that was the problem, wasn’t it?
That tremendous sex drive I had always had took a hiatus when Tricia died, but lately it seemed to be emerging with a vengeance.
Proof was the raging erection I was looking down at. Sure, I had morning wood almost every day, and every day I dealt with it in the same manner that I brushed my teeth. Like it was something I had to do.
This morning though, it was different. I didn’t want to just deal with it. I wanted it relieved. I wanted to feel something more than a vague darkness. And that was why I had donned myself Poor Jace.
Frustrated, I rolled over and punched my pillow. Not the best idea. I rolled back over and glanced down. Yep, it was still there. Deal with it, asshole. You had a dream about her. You let her in your thoughts. Now fucking deal with the consequences.
Arguing with myself also wasn’t something I was keen on, but it was another method I had learned long ago to help temper my aggression.
