by Angela Peach
“Do you know what the worst thing is Fred? The worst fucking thing is that she's probably stuck for eternity with that evil bitch. Instead of going to Heaven, or wherever actually exists in the afterlife, she's gone to her own personal Hell. She's not gonna be resting in peace cos Melanie won't fucking let her. She didn't deserve that.”
“We don't know that she ended up with Mel, babe,” I said, not very convincingly.
“They said she was brain dead when she got to the hospital, which means she woulda technically died back at the flats. I'd like to think she's floating around in an orgy of hot, dead lesbian ghosts, Freddie, but she's probably being made completely miserable by that twatty ex. I just...every time I see her falling...it didn't look like she jumped. She wouldn't have. I know she said she was gonna, but I didn't believe she was actually gonna do it. It's not something she would've done.” Ju was rambling, not really focusing on one particular thing for long as her mind skipped along.
“Of course it isn't.”
This was actually something that bothered me. When Sophie had told me (rather hysterically) what Hanna had promised Mel in exchange for her life, I'd known instantly she'd have had no intention of going through with it. And I'd told Sophie that, reassured her that Han would never do something like that. But then a short while later, Ju had called me in total shock and said she'd just watched Hanna jump out of the window.
Sophie had lost it and been heavily sedated while the hospital made the decision to call her next of kin, which was her Mother. It was the last time I'd seen her and she'd disabled her Facebook account a few days later. When I tried to track her down, it was like she'd disappeared off the face of the earth, and neither Ju nor I knew enough about her to conduct a proper search. She didn't return to her flat, left no forwarding address for her post, and we had no idea where her parents lived other than in a completely different County so we just waited to see if she got in contact with us.
Which she never did.
Both things bothered me. The first, that Sophie would just not bother to find out about Hanna's condition, and second, that Hanna would actually jump out of a window. I spent a lot of time pondering over these things, and now I guess I'd probably spend the rest of my life just having to wonder. I mean, it wasn't even that Han wasn't an honourable person or anything – normally if she gave her word, she kept to it because she was a decent human being like that.
(Had been. She obviously wasn't anymore.)
I struggled to picture her stood voluntarily in the window, saying goodbye to the world, to Sophie, to us, to her life...all for Mel? No, it was rubbish. I refused to believe she even contemplated such a ridiculous, outrageous act, let alone carried it out. It was clearly something she'd just said to get Sophie out to safety, and I strongly believed Mel had pushed her. I had to believe it.
I realised that my mind was wandering, but it was hard to focus on any one subject for too long. That was when the reality of what had happened started setting in, and I didn't like that feeling at all.
Watching them turn off her life support had been the single most surreal experience of my life. We'd all stared intently at her, and I knew her parents had been willing her to blink or twitch a finger like they always did in the movies, just as much as I was. But she hadn't. Nothing had happened. They'd removed the breathing apparatus and told us it was just a case of her body shutting down, which was something none of us wanted to watch. And as her heart-beat slowed, I'd made a hasty exit and just about got to the toilets before being sick.
I couldn't stop replaying it over and over in my head, as if by going over it enough times it would change the outcome.
“D'ya thing Sophie knows?” Ju slurred, her eyes glassy as she poured one whiskey for her glass, and one for the table. “Why di'n she get in tush? I' duzzen make any sense. D'ya thing she knows?”
“I don't know. Maybe? Maybe she doesn't want to know.”
“I wouldn', if i' wuz you. Don' you ever dare do tha' to me, Freddie. Promise me you'll never...” she broke down in sudden tears, her face crumpling and most of the whiskey sloshed out of the glass over her stomach. Oh well, better out than in sometimes.
“Of course I wouldn't.”
“Promise me?” she insisted. This was a fairly regular conversation we had, which I fully understood and always took time to reassure her on.
Before long, I recognised she was ready to pass out and managed to get her to the bedroom in time. I kissed her softly, pulled the sheets up and tucked her in, then tippy-toed on out of there.
“Come on Danny. Let's go for a walk shall we?”
I remembered the first time I'd met Hanna. We'd met on a dating site and arranged to go see a band together. The band had been absolutely terrible and we'd been two of only eleven people that turned up to watch them, but we'd hit it off so well that I'd been totally confused for a few weeks. On the one hand, I had a strict one date rule with girls (for obvious reasons) but I liked her enough to arrange another date, and another one, and then another. Eventually, while round at her place for a meal and movie night, I confessed that even though I really liked her, I didn't feel attracted to her. Laughing in relief, she'd admitted she felt exactly the same and had been trying to work out how to tell me. From then on, we still saw each other regularly, but our dates were just friendly ones.
I'd come so close to telling Hanna my secret, so many times. It wasn't that I thought it would ruin our friendship or anything – I just couldn't really seem to find the right time. And then I realised that a year had passed, then two, and the longer I left it, the harder it got to tell her.
And now she was gone.
I swiped at a tear that was rolling down my cheek. I was angry at her. Angry that she'd left so many questions, angry that she'd stayed with Mel even after death. But I was furious with her for being Hanna, the girl we'd all loved so much, and she'd just gone and left us all behind.
By the time we got home I was crying freely but I didn't care if anyone had seen. I stripped off and got into bed with Ju, cuddling almost desperately into her for some much needed comfort. I knew there would be no chance of sleeping tonight, but I felt better just holding my girlfriend.
Shaun had called earlier this morning with a list of requests regarding Hanna's funeral. They wanted to know her favourite songs, who she would have wanted us to invite and whether we wanted to say a little eulogy for her. They were utterly shell-shocked, but I could tell that they wanted to do things right for their daughter and genuinely had no idea of the things they'd asked us. Again, it gave me something to focus on, even if for the short term, so I threw myself into the task. Ju helped as much as she was able to, but she was in a very delicate space right now.
“I don't think we should include Catgroove by Parov Stelar in the list. It was one of her favourite songs, but it just seems way too upbeat and I don't think Mary will play any upbeat songs, no matter if it was Hanna's favourite or not,” Ju said with absolutely no enthusiasm.
“But Shaun said they wanted a list of all Hanna's favourites. I'm just compiling that list and they can choose what they want from it,” I insisted, needing to complete my task as requested. She stared at me for a moment, then returned her gaze to the window.
“But it's one of my favourites too,” she whispered, and I realised why she didn't want it on the list. I removed it quickly.
“Okay, I've taken it off babe.”
A flicker of a grateful smile appeared on her lips.
“A few years back we put it on repeat and danced around my flat to it one night over and over and over again. It must've played about twenty, thirty times, if not more. She just kept shouting, 'One more time' whenever it finished and then it just got funny to play it again. That's the memory I want when I hear that song.” Ju smiled again, but it turned into a grimace as she crumbled in front of me. “Oh god, I don't think I can ever listen to that song again. Oh no-o,” she wailed, covering her face with her hands. Danny whimpered and trotted over, putting his p
aws in her lap and trying to nuzzle her face. She cuddled him into her, crying into his fur.
The bond between Ju and Danny made me feel irrationally jealous sometimes. I'd see how much comfort he gave her and wished I could find the same amount of solace with him, but I couldn't. I adored the little staffy more than I'd ever loved any other dog before, but he was just a constant reminder of Hanna.
“Do you think Sophie knows?” Ju asked suddenly. “I can't stop thinking about it. I mean, I'd want to know, and if she doesn't know, maybe we should tell her?”
“We tried, remember? There's nothing else we can do that we didn't already. When we added her on Facebook the first time, we had no friends in common so I don't know what else we can do.”
“But...she'd want to come to the funeral, wouldn't she?”
When I didn't answer, Ju stood and walked to the fridge, opening the door and staring at the contents for a long time. I could tell her what was in there – half a pint of milk that might have gone off, some butter, mayonnaise, and some manky salad. I hadn't done any shopping for a couple of weeks. I suddenly remembered something.
“Did I tell you? Shaun told me they're planting a tree for her instead of a head-stone. Apparently it's something Hanna always wanted. Did you know that? I didn't.”
“No, I didn't. She never liked talking about that sort of stuff. Weird, isn't it? There was so much we didn't know about her, Freddie. I guess I just thought we'd have longer to find stuff like that out.”
Ju succumbed to another bout of tears, and as I hurried to her side to comfort her, I wondered how we were ever going to get through this.
Together. We're gonna get through this together.
I felt another irrational burst of anger at Hanna for doing this to us, closely followed by extreme guilt. My hormones were all over the place lately. I was supposed to have been having my op to transition this month, but I'd had to put it on hold until I could deal with life again.
My mobile on the table started to ring. I ignored it and after a while it rang off, immediately beginning again. Frowning I pulled away from Ju to see who was calling so persistently.
Five minutes later we were waiting for a taxi to the hospital.
“It's very unusual. I'm not sure we've ever seen anything like this here at this hospital, but there's always a first time for everything,” the nurse said. “It's a bit of a medical mystery, but you shouldn't get your hopes up too much. There's a long way to go from here.”
Well, it was far too late for that. We all had our hopes way, way up, and you could see it in our faces as we crowded round the nurse expectantly.
After Hanna's life support had been switched off her body had started slowing down, ready to shut down completely. I'd obviously left the room to be sick, and Mary and Shaun had followed not long after me, feeling it would be too much for them to hear the moment her heart flat-lined. So none of us had known that she'd held on, surprising all the medical staff waiting to take her body to the hospital morgue. Not wanting to say anything to her parents, they'd kept Hanna under close observations. Then one of the night-shift nurses claimed he'd seen her eyes moving under her lids, prompting an urgent scan this morning. For the first time since the accident, Hanna was displaying brain activity.
It was a miracle!
“So what happens now? When is she going to wake up?” Ju asked, and the nurse looked pained, holding his hands up in a placating manner.
“Please, try not to get too carried away. She might never wake up and this is as good as it gets, or...she might make a full recovery, but I stress might. We're just going to have to wait and see now.”
“Hanna's a strong lass. She'll pull through this,” Mary said firmly, as if the nurse had insulted her daughter. Realising it was pointless trying to talk any of us down, he sighed and left the room.
There was a loaded silence around us. Yes, Hanna was still alive, but we were back to waiting again.
If she ever woke up, I planned having a very serious chat with her about what she'd put us all through!
CHAPTER 27
HANNA – 3 MONTHS LATER
I was finding it really hard to focus, but it was Ju's birthday and she deserved the effort, even if it was making my head pound and my stomach churn. I'd offered to stay home so she and Freddie could go out and celebrate by themselves, but they'd both insisted I come out. Almost aggressively insisted, which was quite strange.
Stranger still was that Ju had suddenly decided she wanted to go bowling for her birthday. Bowling. For as long as I'd known her, she'd hated the very idea of lugging heavy balls down a lane to hit some sticks the other end, calling it the second most pointless 'sport' ever (golf being at number one.) In fact, it was something that we all used to agree on, and I'd kind of loved that we shared this mutual dislike for it. Or had. It was almost as if I'd woken up deep inside a parallel universe, where there were very subtle differences. Like my best friends both displaying an actual enthusiasm for going bowling.
And that wasn't the end of the strangeness. Ju, having passed her driving test last month, had insisted on driving us to a bowling alley about twenty seven miles away. I'd offered to drive so she could have a birthday drink, but she'd stubbornly refused. Who was I to argue with the birthday girl?
So here we were, seven balls (or rounds or whatever) in, and sporting possibly the lowest scores ever recorded. Julianne, surprise surprise, was in last place with nine points, as almost every ball she threw ended up in the gutter. I had seventeen points and decided if the aim of the game was to hit the rear corner edge skittles only, I'd be a definite winner. Freddie was steaming ahead of both of us with a huge score of twenty nine.
I had to wonder if they'd had a row and just didn't want to tell me about it, because they were both completely distracted and not interested in the game at all. To be honest, it was exactly how I'd always imagined it would be if the three of us were to ever come bowling.
Not.
Fun.
In.
The.
Slightest.
When we reached the end of the dismal game, I fully expected us to make a hasty exit from the lanes and at least head to the arcade for a game of air hockey or something. But to my absolute horror, they both enthusiastically decided on a rematch.
“Guys, listen, you carry on. I think I've hurt my wrist and I feel a bit sick to be honest. I'm gonna sit this one out and just watch,” I said, deciding enough was enough.
“That's okay, you can use the rolling machine thingy,” Ju said, pointing desperately at the contraption that basically did everything except aim the ball for you. Before I could answer, Freddie suddenly got excited.
“No! Hanna's right! She should definitely give this game a miss,” she said, staring meaningfully at Ju. They both exchanged a weird mix of widened eyes, little nods and finally, happy smiles.
“Right. Yes, we'll carry on playing and you can go and get us a drink from the bar,” Ju said, almost robotically. I frowned, wondering if Narnia was hiding in the cloakroom of this surreal evening.
“Er, they've got a waitress service here, I can flag one of them...”
“That'll take too long. Here,” Freddie came over to me quickly and pushed a handful of shrapnel into my hand. “Off you pop.”
It sounded like an order and they were both staring at me expectantly. Confused, I turned and walked toward the bar, passing three bored waitresses as I did. I had no idea what was going on, but their behaviour was causing a cyclone of energy in my stomach that was spinning me out slightly. At the bar I turned and caught them both staring at me.
What the hell is going on?
I hesitated, but Ju made ushering movements as if to say 'hurry up' so I carried on. I was going to have to say something when I got back. It was one thing after another tonight of weird, strange and bizarre, and the fact that Freddie had just given me sixty seven pence for a round of drinks was the icing on the cake. I dug around in my pocket for some change to top it up, and suddenly
felt a rush sweep through my body making all my hairs stand on end. Gasping slightly, I looked up...
She was beautiful. She was breath-takingly, heart-stoppingly, achingly beautiful to be more accurate. I was paralysed to the spot as my brain froze the moment in time.
“H...Hanna?”
“Sophie? I...what...” I was unable to speak, but I managed a small smile which couldn't possibly reflect the plethora of emotions going crazy inside me. She placed a hand on the bar, as if needing to touch something real, or needing support, or perhaps both.
“You're...are you...” she stared at me, her face pale and uncertain, before glancing anxiously around. “Are you a ghost?” she whispered, just loud enough for me to hear.
“What? No! I didn't die, I'm me, alive,” I said, wondering when stringing a coherent sentence together had become so hard. My words visibly hit her and she shook her head slightly. Not taking her eyes from me, she moved slowly to the end of the bar and ducked under the counter. I met her halfway and for a few long seconds we stood in front of each other, as if still doubting this was actually really happening. Then she stepped forward and took me in her arms, hugging me tight to her.
The moment our bodies made contact was like an explosion, or rather an implosion, of energy. I don't know that I'd ever hugged anyone so close before in my life, but it was like all my senses suddenly came to life, as if they hadn't really woken up with me in the hospital. And maybe they hadn't?
We pressed against each other, needing as much contact as was possible, but still it wasn't enough. She was just as soft as I remembered and as I breathed her scent deep into my lungs, I felt giddy and euphoric.
“I thought you were dead? I thought they turned your machine off?” she breathed into my neck, sounding like she wasn't far from tears.
“They did, but...it's a long story,” I murmured, pulling back so I could look in her eyes. “Why did you leave?”
