Her Name In The Sky Part 22

"Right now?"

"Yeah," he says. "If you want to."

They walk the streets of Clay's neighborhood, accompanied by the whispers of water sprinklers and nighttime insects. Wally ambles along with his hands tucked into the pockets of his drawstring pajama pants, and Hannah holds her hands in her sweatshirt and reminds her heart that it should be here, with Wally, and not back at Clay's house.

"I like you," Wally says suddenly, after they've wandered down a couple of streets. "I've liked you for a really long time."

They reach the outskirts of the neighborhood, cross a quiet street, start a path toward the LSU lakes. Hannah wrestles with her instincts again, trying to think of an appropriate response to his admission.

"I guess I want to know," Wally says, kicking a pebble along as he walks, "do you like me back? Or am I just the friend you occasionally make out with?"

They reach the edge of the lake. She senses him looking at her, but in the darkness, it's hard to read his expression. They sit down on the earth and stare straight ahead at the lake-a dark ma.s.s reflecting the light of the moon. At this late hour, with only the two of them sitting calmly in front of the water, everything in the world feels predicated on hope, on possibility, and Hannah thinks, for the second time that night, Maybe this can be enough.

"I like you, too," Hannah says, and as soon as she speaks the words, she feels calmer, safer, like she's finally fitting into the world. For now, in the quiet peace of this night, she and Wally are the only two humans who exist, and it's easy to imagine that she could always feel this way. He's Boy, she's Girl, and maybe her teachers have been right all along, and maybe the churches have been right all along, and maybe Wally has been the divinely anointed one for her all along, ever since the beginning of time.

Wally kisses her there alongside the lake, and Hannah feels safe, and like she finally belongs.

They walk back to Clay's house with a looser quietness between them. Wally holds her hand and occasionally brushes his warm arm against hers, and Hannah's body and mind feel calmer, even relaxed.

When they walk back into the house, they find their cla.s.smates asleep on various parts of the floor. There is one lone light turned on near the staircase, and Wally leads Hannah toward it, both of them moving silently through the landmine of sleeping people.

"Looks like it's just guys down here now," Wally says. "Can I walk you upstairs?"

"No, I'll be okay," Hannah smiles.

He kisses her goodnight, and she tries to take that feeling of safety up the stairs with her.

She shines the light of her cell phone as she tiptoes up to the second floor. When she reaches the landing, she nearly b.u.mps into a shadowy figure about to descend the stairs.

"Who's there?" the figure asks, and Hannah realizes, with a jolt, that it's Baker.

"It's me," Hannah answers. She raises her cell phone to shine its light on Baker. "What are you doing?"

Baker stands rigidly, as still and silent as a long-forgotten phantom. "Nothing," she says, her voice shaking. "Getting some water."

Hannah studies her in the weak light from her cell phone screen. She looks like she might have been crying. Her overlarge pajama shirt hangs loose and limp on her body. Just when Hannah's about to ask if she's okay, Baker opens her mouth and looks like she's on the verge of crying out, or begging for something, or spitting up something bad that she accidentally swallowed. For one heart-stopping moment, Hannah thinks Baker is going to let her in again.

But then Baker shuts her mouth as abruptly as she opened it and brushes past Hannah. She hurries down the stairs, her head bowed, and Hannah watches her forlornly, resigned to this new dynamic.

She finds the linen closet at the end of the upstairs hallway, just next to Ethan's old room. She grabs a dark cotton sheet and a thin flannel blanket, grateful to have something to warm her tonight.

She's walking past Clay's room when his door opens, startling her so that her heart lurches in her chest. "Whoa!" Clay shout-whispers, jerking back from the doorway. "Who is that?!"

"It's Hannah," she says, raising her cell phone to cast the dim light on herself. "I was just getting some blankets."

"G.o.d, you scared the s.h.i.t out of me, Han."

Hannah doesn't apologize. She shines her cell phone light on him instead, noting his naked torso, which glistens with sweat, and his messy hair. He is wearing his boxers and nothing else.

"What are you doing?" Hannah asks.

"Nothing," he says hastily. "I was just brushing my teeth and everything."

"Oh."

A sick feeling spreads in Hannah's stomach-a kind of instinct that hints to something she doesn't want to know.

"Come on," Clay says. "Let's go to bed. I don't want to wake up my parents."

Hannah hesitates. That sick instinct fans out around her whole body, slipping up into the pipeline of her throat, making her think she might throw up.

"Your boxers are on inside-out," she whispers.

They stand in uncomfortable silence. "Oh," Clay says, fiddling with the waistband of his boxers. "Yeah. I pulled 'em on kind of quickly. Thanks."

He hurries away from her and sneaks down to the first floor. Hannah shuffles like a zombie to the second floor guest room, where she curls up in a ball on the floor, clutching her blanket around her.

Mrs. Landry cooks French toast for everyone the next morning, seeming to work with an infinite number of eggs and bread slices in order to feed all the hungry teenagers in her kitchen. Hannah feels like she's watching a modern interpretation of the Miracle of the Loaves and the Fish. Clay monitors the coffee pot, pouring mugs of dark roast for all of his many friends, his hair tousled and his eyes glazed with tiredness.

"He was up late," Wally says, following the direction of Hannah's gaze. "He didn't come to bed until after you and I got back."

"I know," Hannah says. "I b.u.mped into him upstairs."

"Wonder what he was doing."

"I don't know," Hannah says. She picks apart the French toast on her plate and tries to focus on the here and now, especially the feeling of Wally holding her hand under the table. She squeezes Wally's fingers and commands herself to stop watching the hallway that leads to the stairs.

But it doesn't matter anyway: despite the sc.r.a.ping of silverware and the loud voices of the cla.s.smates around them, Baker never wanders into the kitchen.

Joanie comes into Hannah's bedroom when she gets home that morning. She folds her arms over her chest and watches Hannah unpack her overnight bag and hang her dress on the door of her closet. "How was it?" Joanie says, her voice full of acid. "Did you have a wonderful time?"

"It was fine," Hannah says tiredly. "Not that exciting."

Joanie's voice quivers with anger when she responds. "Yeah, well, it was probably better than watching Dateline re-runs with Mom and Dad and trying to ignore all the pictures people were posting online. Oh, and trying to forget about the beautiful prom dress I had hanging in my closet-"

"I get it, Joanie, I'm sorry. I don't know what else to say other than that."

"-Not to mention Luke still hasn't talked to me at all, and yesterday was his parents' wedding anniversary, which is one of the main reasons he wanted to go to prom so badly. So he could forget about it."

Hannah's heart sinks. "I'm sorry."

"You're going to have to come up with something better than that," Joanie says, her face contorted with bitterness. She spins on her heel and storms away.

That week at school is a tough one. Baker continues to avoid Hannah; Clay speaks to her only sparingly; Joanie ignores Hannah altogether; and Luke, when Hannah tries to apologize to him, simply blinks at her a few times and then wanders away. Only Wally, with his concerned eyes and his warm hand wrapped around Hannah's, continues to talk to her.

It makes it harder and easier for her to make her college decision. She sits on the floor of her bedroom, barefoot and wet-haired from the shower, and fans her college decision letters in front of her. She eliminates three of them within minutes, and then she's left staring at her letter from Emory and her letter from LSU.

She reads through their admissions literature again. She browses their websites for hours, reading about libraries and campus life and student groups. She downloads course catalogs and lies on her stomach while she scrolls through cla.s.s listings.

None of it matters. She knows, instinctively, which one she's going to choose anyway.

Her mom lifts her eyebrows in surprise when Hannah treads downstairs with the college letters in her hand. "Did you decide?" she asks, setting her reading gla.s.ses over her nightgown. Hannah's dad, sitting in his beaten up old armchair, lifts his eyes from his book.

"Yeah," Hannah breathes.

Her mom's mouth lifts as she prepares to smile. "What's it going to be, honey?"

Hannah bites her lip. "What do you think I chose?"

Her parents study her for a moment. Her mom tilts her head with her mouth upturned in a thoughtful smile. Her dad sits very still, his gray eyes unblinking as he reads her with his engineer's mind.

"Emory," her dad says.

Hannah smiles. "Yeah."

They stand up to hug her, and she holds her Emory letter tight to her chest as they wrap their arms around her.

"So have you heard the news about your best friend?" Joanie says after school on Wednesday. She struts up to the car, her hands tucked under her booksack straps, and waits for Hannah and Wally to break off their conversation.

Hannah squints in the sunlight, shocked that Joanie is willingly speaking to her. "What news?"

"The news about Clay and Baker and their little four a.m. tryst."

Hannah's stomach turns over. "What?"

"Joanie-" Wally says warningly.

"Yep," Joanie says c.o.c.kily, flinging her bag onto the pavement. "They done the deed, condoms and all. Kind of cliched in my opinion, having s.e.x on prom night, but whatever gets them off, I guess."

"What are you talking about?" Hannah says desperately.

"Emily Zydeig just told me. Apparently Clay had to ask Walker for some condoms. Clay was trying to keep it quiet because Baker didn't want anyone to know, but it sounds like everybody's hearing about it anyway."

Hannah looks desperately at Wally. He doesn't meet her eyes. "Did you know about this?" she asks him.

Wally's jaw clenches. Hannah can't look away from him, not until he refutes what Joanie said, not until he gives her a sign that this whole conversation is an elaborate joke.

He doesn't look at her, though.

"Oh G.o.d, Hannah," Joanie says disdainfully. "Stop being so G.o.dd.a.m.n dramatic. It's just s.e.x. Lots of people are doing it. Except you, apparently."

"Stop talking, Joanie," Wally says harshly.

Joanie falters under Wally's glare. Hannah feels dizzy in the silence, her stomach quaking with that sick feeling. "How did you know?" Hannah asks finally.

Wally meets her eyes. "Clay talked to me about it. He asked me to keep it in confidence."

"So you kept it from me, too?"

"It wasn't mine to tell." Wally looks pointedly at Joanie. "It wasn't anyone's to tell."

The three of them wither in the silence. The sun beats down on the crown of Hannah's head, burning through her hair. She's not sure what to do, where to look, so she stares at the black asphalt of the parking lot, her thoughts and emotions rocking around her body like a ship tossed about in a storm.

"That's pretty crazy," Hannah says at last. She swallows and forces herself to smile at Wally. "I feel pretty dumb, not knowing about it-"

Wally opens his mouth uncertainly.

"I've gotta go," Hannah says, backing away toward the car, aware of a spreading hollowness inside of her. "Big paper due tomorrow. Come on, Joanie."

"Han-" Wally says.

"See you tomorrow," she says, her voice catching in her throat. She shuts herself in the car, waits for Joanie to do the same, and then drives away from the St. Mary's parking lot.

Joanie narrows her eyes at Hannah on the drive home. "What's wrong with you?" she asks, her voice coming out aggressively, and yet tinged with a small trace of doubt.

"Nothing," Hannah says, punching the radio dial.

She drops her booksack on her bedroom floor. She locks the door. She leans her head into the wall.

Clay and Baker and their little four a.m. tryst.

She mouths the words to life again. She mouths them a second time. She mouths them over and over and over until the badness inside of her finally leaks out.

She cries against her bedroom wall. She cries out in broken breaths. They are half-formed cries, not fully imbued with the magnitude of the suffering she feels. They are all air-broken, disrupted air-and no voice. But she cannot lend her voice to her suffering. Joanie might hear.

She touches her palms to the wallpaper. She brushes her cheek against the filmy surface. Her tears bleed into the paper. Her tears. These offerings from her body. She can smell them and taste them.

Chapter Ten: Shards of Gla.s.s.

If Hannah thought she knew what pain was before, she was wrong. Every part of her-her body, her heart, her soul-aches with suffering. She has the sensation of being crushed in on all sides, compressed until she can hardly breathe, until she wants to do nothing more than run away as far as she can go.

She wonders about this suffering. Was it designed by G.o.d, a lesson to turn her away from her sin? Is it absolute proof that she can never be with Baker, and she should just stop trying?

Wally wants to understand. She can tell by the way he looks at her with those open, concerned eyes. They talk at her locker and he silently implores her to tell him what's going on, but she can't.

Ms. Carpenter wants to understand, too. Hannah knows by the way Ms. Carpenter watches her pack up her things at the end of cla.s.s. "Everything good with you, Hannah?" she asks, her angular eyebrows drawn together in concern, but Hannah just half-smiles and insists that she's fine, she's fine.

Late at night, after her parents and Joanie have already gone to sleep, she drives to City Park and sits in her car beneath the canopy of trees. She looks up at these trees and marvels at their existence, at how they just are what they were created to be, how they tower proudly on their wooden trunks, how they sway in the breeze and move their leaves like piano keys, and she prays that she can be like them, that she can innately grasp her existence and live it out without questioning.

Am I wrong? she asks. Just tell me if I am.