Her Name In The Sky Part 17

Baker sits up and hovers over Hannah again. She kisses her with an anguished tenderness, her tears bleeding onto Hannah's cheeks. She kisses her way down Hannah's neck and torso, her lips bringing fire to Hannah's skin. She kisses Hannah's naval, then her hipbones, and Hannah clenches on the bed sheets, waiting.

Then Baker kisses her way down Hannah's legs, her wet lips picking over the skin, until her mouth is at the inside of Hannah's thigh.

"Are you sure you want to-?" Hannah says desperately.

"Please?" Baker rasps, lifting her head to meet Hannah's eyes.

They hang silently on each other's questions. There is nothing in the room but darkness and themselves.

Then Hannah feels Baker's mouth on her, kissing her in this last, indisputable place.

She falls back on the sheets and listens to the new sound in the room-the sound of Baker tasting her-and for reasons she doesn't understand, her mind starts to meditate on words from the Ma.s.s, from the Last Supper- This is my body....

She tangles a hand in Baker's hair and moves her fingers over the crown of Baker's head, asking wordlessly for more, turning her own head into her arm to stifle her gasps. Baker's mouth closes over her, tasting, eating, and Hannah finds herself praying, first in her mind and then aloud, her new voice begging and thanking, until she comes with the words Oh my G.o.d ringing around her.

Baker slides up Hannah's body afterwards, her breath fast and her lips wet. She wraps an arm around Hannah and kisses her on the mouth, and Hannah shares in the tasting of their covenant, of the fruit of their union. Baker kisses her again and buries her face into Hannah's neck, her tears still fresh on her face, and as Hannah strokes her hair, they fall asleep, naked in the darkness.

Chapter Eight: Broken.

Hannah wakes to a knocking sound. "Girls," a voice calls through the door. "Are you awake?"

The first thing she realizes is that she is naked. The second thing she realizes is that Baker is naked too.

They stare at each other with terrified eyes.

"Girls," Mrs. Landry calls again, knocking louder this time. The doork.n.o.b rattles as she tries to turn it, and Hannah and Baker wrench the sheets over themselves. But the door stays closed, and Hannah remembers, through her adrenaline rush, that Baker had locked it the night before.

Get in the shower, Baker mouths as she scrambles off the bed. Her eyes are as frantic as a wild animal's. Hannah rushes into the bathroom and turns the shower on. Then she hovers near the bathroom door, listening to the sounds from the bedroom.

"Oh, good morning, Mrs. Landry," comes Baker's shaky voice. "Sorry, I just woke up."

"Are you two alright in here?"

"Yes, ma'am, we're fine, I think Hannah's in the shower."

"Did you mean to have the door locked, honey?"

"Oh-no, ma'am. I'm sorry. That was my fault. I heard weird noises last night and it kind of freaked me out, so I locked the door. Sorry."

There's a short pause before Mrs. Landry speaks again. "That's alright, honey. Are you two ready to start packing and cleaning? We have to be out by noon."

"Yes, ma'am. We'll clean up in here and then we'll come downstairs."

"Great. Let me get your sheets while I'm here. I need to start on the laundry."

"Oh-no! That's okay, we can get them."

"No, that's alright, I have to do everyone else's, too-"

"Please, no, my mom would be so embarra.s.sed if she heard I didn't wash my own sheets. Really. I'll take care of them."

There's an awkward pause, and Hannah holds her breath at the door, the steady whistling of the shower the only thing she can hear.

"Well, alright," Mrs. Landry says hesitantly.

"Thanks," Baker says, her voice cheerful and overly polite. "We'll be right down!"

Then there's the sound of a door closing, followed by silence. Hannah opens the bathroom door a crack to see Baker standing limply by the bedroom door, her body slumped in humiliation, a long t-shirt covering her torso.

"Hey," Hannah calls softly. Baker doesn't turn around.

There's a bad energy in the room that makes Hannah's stomach clench. She stands still for a long second, her naked b.r.e.a.s.t.s pressing against the doorframe. Her heart beats fast in her chest.

She leaves the shower on and steps back into the bedroom, and still Baker does not turn around. Hannah walks up behind her and tucks in the tag on her sleep shirt. "You okay?"

Baker startles and turns to look at her, but she averts her eyes as soon as she realizes Hannah is still naked. She backs away toward the bed, her movements slow and graceless like she might be sick, and then she stands over the bed, gazing down at the sheets.

"Bake?"

Baker says nothing, just continues to look down at the bed. Hannah folds her arms over her b.r.e.a.s.t.s and crosses her legs together, suddenly very ashamed of her nakedness.

"You should get in the shower," Baker says tonelessly. She pauses. "Or at least put some clothes on."

Hannah feels a coldness spread up from her stomach and into her throat. Gooseb.u.mps rise on her skin. "Okay," she says, releasing the word into the room to see what happens. "But are you alright?"

Baker doesn't answer. Hannah takes a few steps toward her.

"Don't," Baker says, her body flinching.

"What's-?"

"Please just get in the shower."

Something in the room, some invisible line between them, has broken. Hannah can almost see it: a vine that had once connected them, had once wrapped them together, now lies, butchered, on the floor. She takes a step backward and feels her navel tugging on her broken half. It retracts into her, coils around her stomach, clogs her throat.

She retreats to the bathroom without another word. But after she locks the bathroom door behind her, she stands in front of the mirror and studies her naked body. She tries to remember every place Baker touched or kissed.

They clean their rooms, they clean the kitchen and the pool area, they load up their bags, and then it's time to leave. Hannah falls in line behind her friends to thank Dr. and Mrs. Landry, and she's not sure if it's her imagination, but Mrs. Landry seems to hug her with rigid arms.

They take a picture in front of the house-Hannah squeezes between Luke and Wally and smiles like she's the happiest 17-year-old girl on earth-and then separate between the two cars.

Hannah slides into Baker's pa.s.senger seat and listens to Luke and Joanie jabbering behind her. Baker scrolls through the music on her iPhone without asking Hannah to deejay like she normally does, and Hannah clutches her arms around her stomach, feeling hollow and sick. Then Baker starts the car and backs out of the driveway, away from the house, away from the upstairs bedroom, away from their barest selves.

They arrive back in Baton Rouge just before 4:30. Baker guides the car down familiar streets, past familiar banks and restaurants, and Hannah swells with a sudden hope that this anchoring, common place-this place their friendship is rooted in-will restore the two of them.

But Baker drops Hannah and Joanie off first, even though Luke's house would have been the more convenient one, and as Hannah grabs her bag out of the trunk and puts on a brave goodbye face, she realizes their shame has followed them all the way from Destin.

"Pizza for dinner tonight," her mom says while Hannah's gathering her dirty laundry into a pile. "Want any veggies on it?"

"Pepperoni," Hannah says listlessly.

"It's Good Friday. No meat."

Hannah hangs her head back. "The one time I want pepperoni."

"Why are you so moody?"

"I'm not moody."

"You walked in here with a dark cloud circling around your head. Did you not sleep this week?"

"I slept."

"Uh-huh." Her mom takes the laundry basket from her and cradles it under one arm. "Take a nap until the pizza gets here."

"I'm not tired."

"Then just lie down and relax. We're going to the Stations of the Cross after dinner and I want you at your best."

Hannah sighs and throws a rogue sock into the laundry basket. "Fine."

She fakes sick when her mom wakes her for pizza.

"I knew something was wrong with you," her mom says, feeling her forehead, "but you don't have a fever."

"It's a stomach bug or something," Hannah says, squinting into her pillow. "Or maybe cramps."

"Okay, well, just sleep, then. I'll wake you before we leave to see if you're feeling better."

She lies there in the dark until her mom comes back a while later.

"Still feel sick?"

"Yeah."

Her mom surveys her with critical eyes. "How about some ginger ale?"

"Yes, please."

Joanie brings it up to her a few minutes later. "You're such an a.s.s," she says, setting the gla.s.s on Hannah's nightstand. "Faking sick to get out of Stations of the Cross."

"I'm not faking."

"Should we write out your will before I leave?"

"Shut up."

"I want those purple heart earrings from Express."

"Go away."

"Jeeze," Joanie says, backing out of the room. "I'm gonna pray for you to get a better sense of humor."

Hannah lies on her bed for hours and hours, faking sleep when her family comes home from church, faking sleep again when her mom checks her around 11 p.m., faking to herself that everything is okay.

She sneaks downstairs around one in the morning, no longer able to ignore the hunger in her stomach. She finds leftover pizza in the fridge and eats it cold while she slumps against the counter. In the darkness, her house looks strange to her, like a pattern of shapes she doesn't know.

She opens the backdoor as quietly as she can and tiptoes out into the yard. Her bare feet brush against the gra.s.s, her arms shiver in the cool night air. She tilts her head back until she's face to face with sky and stars. When her neck starts to hurt, she lies down on the ground, gra.s.s and dirt molding into her back, and folds her hands together over her stomach.

Is it okay?

The question bleeds forth from her and she imagines it rising into the sky, delivered on wind and air and atmospheric pressure until it reaches G.o.d.

Is it wrong? Were we wrong?

She lies there, bleeding into the sky, until the sky starts to bleed red with morning.

She doesn't hear from Baker at all on Sat.u.r.day. Her texts go unanswered; her calls go to voicemail. She spends a lot of time lying in bed, pretending to read. But the words in her books mean nothing to her, and after awhile, she picks up her laptop and stares at Baker's Facebook page like she's praying to it.

"You are being such a lard," Joanie says when she steps into her room.

"I'm tired from the beach."

"Mom says to make sure you have a nice dress picked out for Ma.s.s tomorrow."

"Ugh."

Joanie shrugs her shoulders and eats the rest of the cookie in her hand. "Easter Sunday, champ."

Hannah sits through Easter Ma.s.s the next morning without actually absorbing anything that's going on. She follows along with the readings and the Gospel mostly out of habit, and the only thing that strikes her is a selection from the Gospel of John, which the lector reads in a solemn voice: On the first day of the week, Mary of Magdala came to the tomb early in the morning, while it was still dark, and saw the stone removed from the tomb.

So she ran and went to Simon Peter and to the other disciple whom Jesus loved, and told them, "They have taken the Lord from the tomb, and we don't know where they put him."

And Hannah understands that even though today is supposed to be about the Resurrection-about hope, and rebirth, and renewed faith-the only thing that makes sense is Mary Magdalene's confusion and despair.

The lines for Communion are much longer than usual, swelled as they are with the people who come to Ma.s.s only on Christmas and Easter. Hannah watches as the faithful process to the front of the church to receive the Eucharist, all dressed in their Easter Sunday best, some of the moms looking harried, some of the teenaged children looking annoyed. A familiar person comes into view in the long line on the right side of the church, and Hannah recognizes Nathan Hadley, dressed in a handsome Oxford shirt and with his kind eyes visible even from across the room. Mr. and Mrs. Hadley stand in line behind him, but Baker is not with them.

Hannah's stomach knots in on itself. An irrational part of her fears that Baker confessed everything to her family and they locked her in her room, too shamed by her transgressions to let her come to Easter Sunday Ma.s.s. Hannah's heart pounds hard when it's her family's turn to move along the pew and join the Communion line. She feels like the Hadley's eyes are on her, like the eyes of the whole congregation are on her, like they can all tell what she's done and what she's struggled with in her heart.

"Amen," she says when Father Simon raises the Eucharist in front of her. And then, for some reason, even though she was trained in how to pa.s.sively receive the Communion bread years ago, she reaches up to s.n.a.t.c.h the Host. Father Simon raises the Host higher, almost as a knee-jerk reaction to her grabbing for it. His face shows his surprise, and Hannah's face flushes with embarra.s.sment when she realizes her mistake. She lowers her eyes and cups her hands together, and Father Simon places the Eucharist on her left palm. She walks back to her pew with added shame, and it weighs her down through the end of Ma.s.s.