So I walk down the street by myself in Gersday. I am eating a strawberry soft-serve ice-cream cone. I don’t have a family or any friends. At the end of the street is Hannah. She has a bluebird on her shoulder. She’s wearing her leather jacket with the safety pin holding the sleeve together, and she hasn’t brushed her hair.
Halfway down the street, Tasha walks out from an alleyway. She’s pointing her finger at me and yelling horrible things in that insufferable Tasha voice. Then she pulls out a gun.
Shit.
Snow White, I demand you bring my ass back to reality.
When I look up from the table, I see the real Hannah talking to me. I realize she might be yelling. Her face is contorted with anger. I can’t hear her.
She grabs her jacket and her phone and walks out the door, slamming it behind her. I tried to read her lips. I think they said I’ll be back in a minute.
I sigh. I check my phone. I sigh again. I check my phone again.
I text Joe Jr. Call me! Then I erase the text before I send it.
I walk around the motel room. There is nothing to do except watch TV. And I don’t watch TV, so I walk around more.
I go outside and look into the night. I make a mental note that if the pool was open for swimmers, I could jump from the balcony railing and land right in the middle. I wonder how many people have done that before.
Then I go back inside.
I am tackled by my own thoughts.
I try to find some pity for Tasha. I don’t have any. I try to steal some from how I feel about my mom, but there isn’t enough to share it.
I scream, “Fuck this shit!” and kick the chair over. Then I go looking for Hannah.
I check the motel property first. Vending-machines area, fitness center, lobby—not there.
I start to walk along the dark highway, and I realize about ten minutes into the walk that this is stupid and Hannah could have been kidnapped or something, so I jog back toward the motel. When I get there, I get my car keys and start driving.
I see a few people walking down the highway, and it makes me nervous. It’s a Saturday night. I don’t know what kind of a place this is. Is it the kind of place where girls who smell like berries could go missing?
I drive around for a half hour. I do not go to Gersday because in Gersday, Tasha has a gun and is trying to kill me. I do not go to Gersday because Gersday is the problem between me and Hannah. I can’t go there anymore. I have to be here if I’m going to take showers with a beautiful girl, be in love with a beautiful girl, and run away with a beautiful girl.
Snow White can’t be my guidance counselor. The roads will no longer contain pecans or chunks of bubble gum. I can’t fly on the trapeze.
I finally find Hannah walking down a country road about a mile away. She has her earphones in and is rocking her head. I slow down and drive next to her and she gives me the finger without looking at me.
“Come on, Hannah,” I say. I know she can’t hear me.
“Hannah!” I say.
She keeps her finger raised, then she takes a left onto a smaller road and I miss the turn because she does it at the last minute.
I yell, “Damn it!” and turn the car around.
She’s walking down the middle of the road when I get there. She won’t get out of my way. I beep my horn. A lot. Little beeps, long beeps. She raises her finger again and keeps rocking out to whatever is playing in her ears. The road narrows. I stop and look around and realize that the road is about to become a path. I leave the car and follow her on foot.
She starts to jog. I start to jog. It’s starting to feel creepy. I just want her to stop, but I know I can’t physically reach out and stop her. We start to jog side by side. It’s dark. We both trip a few times.
“Come on!” I yell.
She keeps jogging.
So I reach over and tug on the earphone wire and pull it out of her ear. The other earphone follows. She reaches down and unplugs them from her phone, so I’m left holding the earphones.
“Hannah, come on! I’m sorry! Okay?”
She stops.
“I’m really sorry,” I say. “I get it. I totally get it, all right?”
“You don’t get anything.”
“Just come back to the room,” I say.
She walks toward a streetlight that’s beyond the path. I can’t figure out why a streetlight would be in the middle of what seems like wilderness.
“I trusted you,” she says.
“I know.”
“I don’t have anyone but you.”
“I know.”
“Stop saying you know!” she yells. “You don’t know!”
“Okay. I don’t know,” I say.
She throws her hands up. “Jesus!”
We walk—her two paces in front of me—through the last of the shrubbery and into the light. We have arrived at some South Carolinian version of paradise. There is a river with a series of perfect waterfalls. The streetlight illuminates a state park type of sign with a paragraph of information on it for tourists. She doesn’t seem to notice paradise. She just sits down on the concrete, pulls out her book, and starts to write in it. I feel my face get hot.
“Hannah, I want to talk to you.”
“Sorry, Gerald, I’m eating ice cream in my happy place right now.” She keeps writing.
“Not fair.”
“Nothing is fair,” she says.
“I meant not fair that you used that against me.”
“I know. And nothing is fair. So whatever,” she answers, scribbling wildly.
My skin gets hotter. I sit down right across from her and stick my face in her face. “Hannah, let’s talk. Stop writing. Come on. This is stupid.”
She looks at me and even though she’s glaring, I can imagine her in the shower, only two hours ago.
“You want to know what’s stupid?” she asks. “What’s stupid is me thinking a f**ked-up kid like you could ever be my boyfriend. What’s stupid is me thinking a f**ked-up kid like me could ever be anyone’s girlfriend.”
I don’t know what to say.
“So you want to talk?” she asks. “Talk.” Then she goes back to writing in her book.
“I’m really sorry,” I start. “I know I’ve been hard to talk to. I know I’m an ass**le and stuff. I mean, I know I can’t do that anymore. I have to stay here. I can do that. I don’t want to be anywhere else.” I want to tell her I love her, but I don’t.
She keeps writing.
“And all that shit that happened to me, you don’t know all of it, okay? There’s more than you know and it’s weird and f**ked up and who doesn’t come from a place that’s f**ked up, right? I just—” I stop, and watch her writing. She’s not listening. My face gets hotter. “I just want you to listen to me,” I say, and I snatch the book from her.