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I’m not surprised by Reed’s take on the situation. He’s never valued honesty in his romantic entanglements. On the contrary, they’re all messy and complicated and toxic as fuck. Funnily enough, I’m constantly the one encouraging Reed to let down his guard and give honesty a try. And yet, at the end of the day, it turns out I’m more like him than I ever thought possible. These past months with Hannah, I’ve been meting out bits and pieces of the truth-elephant—a leg here, an ear or trunk or tail there—without ever revealing the whole animal to her. Why’d I do that?
Because you were scared. Because you didn’t want to risk losing Hannah if she found out the full truth too quickly, before deep trust had been established.
At the end of the day, I wasn’t protecting Hannah by keeping certain details to myself, like I told myself. I was protecting myself.
Reed pats the side of my leg. “Give her time and space and she’ll forgive you in a week.” He holds up the paper—the one I’ve been dying to show Hannah for months now, ever since the magical night at the planetarium in Seattle. “God can be a cruel motherfucker at times,” Reed says. “But even a cruel God wouldn’t be so cruel as to create the male and female versions of the exact same dork, if he didn’t want them to hook up and make a dork-baby to continue the species.”
“This is your way of comforting me?”
Reed laughs. “Chin up, Peter. She’ll forgive you, eventually. Sooner rather than later. I’m sure of it. And as we both know, I’m never wrong about anything.”
39
HENN
Five days later
I stare at Hannah’s diamond engagement ring—the one I didn’t get to give her in Maui when all hell broke loose. And when I’m done torturing myself like that, I move on to torturing myself by staring at my phone again and willing Hannah to reply to my many texts, voicemails, and flower deliveries.
“Stop pining over her and watch the game,” Reed barks. “It’s getting good. We’re closing the gap.”
We’re sitting on his couch, facing his TV. I’ve been staying at Reed’s new, hilltop mansion since we left Maui together five days ago, and he’s clearly grown sick of my misery and despair.
I’ve got earbuds in again. Today’s song playing on repeat is "Birdhouse in Your Soul.” Yesterday, I had Milli Vanilli’s whole album on repeat. The day before that, the soundtrack to Lala Land. I figured listening to music that reminds me of Hannah would take the edge off my torture. But when it only turned up the dial on it, I kept at it because that’s what I deserve. To be tortured. In fact, I’ve decided to keep torturing myself like this until Hannah forgives me.
I thought I’d hear from her after sending that salmon dinner for three to her mom’s place last night. Before that, I was sure she’d respond to the balloon bouquet and box of cupcakes. Or any of the flowers. But nope. So far, I’ve received no response from Hannah, other than one text five days ago that told me she’d landed safely in Seattle and would be staying at her mom’s place. “I’d appreciate you giving me space to sort out my feelings and thoughts,” she wrote. And I wrote back, “I’ll respect your wishes, but please know I love you and I’ll do whatever it takes to earn your trust again.” Little did I know then the space I was promising to give her would extend for five days with no relief in sight.
I’ve now realized I stupidly thought I could control everything in my real life as expertly as I control everything in my virtual life. That’s where I went wrong. And that’s what I’m dying to tell Hannah.
As the birdhouse song reaches its conclusion again, I check my screen, in case I’ve missed a call or text from Hannah. Still, nothing.
“Maybe she’s not staying with her mom, after all, so she hasn’t gotten any of my deliveries,” I say. “She wouldn’t be staying with Maddy at the dorms, I don’t think. But maybe she went to a hotel.”
“Well, that’s easy enough to figure out,” Reed says, much to my surprise. I wasn’t really talking to him, even though he’s sitting next to me on his couch. I was basically thinking out loud.
“Huh?”
Reed motions to my phone. “Hack her and check her location.”
I roll my eyes. “I can’t do that.”
“Sure, you can. That’d be like falling off a log for you.”
“Yes, I can in terms of ability. But I shouldn’t in terms of ethics. At some point, I’m going to need to look Hannah in the eyes and promise I only did it once and will never do it again. And I can’t very well do that if I went in and hacked her again after she freaked out about it in the first place.”
