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Her hair had been her armor, and now it finally felt like her defiance.
“I was a little worried you only wanted me for my hair,” she whispered.
He came around the kitchen island and brushed a wave out of her face, tucking it behind her ear.
“I want you for your Hannah-ness. You could put you in any package in the world, banish me to the ends of the earth, tell me you never want to see me again, and I would still want you. I know, I tried it. But don’t you want me to stop wanting you?” He cupped her cheek, and she couldn’t look away from his eyes, the green specks in the gray that only she knew were there.
She stared into his eyes for a long minute without answering. “I thought so, but I had convinced myself I could excise you from me, that I needed to find a Hannah without Blue, and I don’t think that person exists. If you took away all the parts of me that only exist because of growing up with you, because of loving you in any way, I would be Swiss cheese.” She swallowed, bringing up every ounce of her bravery. “And that’sokay. There are lots of things I have that are only mine, but there’s also…no me without loving you. I can’t love you without wanting you, and the idea of wanting you, if you don’t want me back, makes me want to scream.”
“Where does that leave us?” he asked, and she could see in his face that he was trying not to hope.
She put her hand over his on her face, and their fingers laced together as if they’d been built to. Inside, equal parts of her screamed to tell him they were forever no matter what and to run as far away from him as she could get. She knew he was waiting for an answer. She didn’t have one, except that she didn’t ever want them to be what they’d been when they’d split up.
She wanted something new, something they’d never been before.
“I don’t understand how we can ever be together. You can’t stay. I can’t leave. Nothing has appreciably changed about our future. Can you tell me how we’re going to make it work?” she pleaded.
“I can’t.” He shook his head. “But I can tell you that I want to figure it out more than I’ve ever wanted anything else, some way that makes us both happy, and I refuse to believe that’s impossible.”
She breathed in deeply, past the overwhelming panic, and told him the truth.
“I love you, and I want you, but I can’t try again unless we have some idea of how it’s going to work. I want to tell you that we’ll go with the flow and see if we can be in love as the people we are today, but I can’t. Levi, I can’t survive it again. I need a plan. Even if the plan doesn’t work, even if we have to throw it in the trash and start over, I can’t just jump in again.”
He blew his breath out and pulled one hand away to flatten his bangs, in the way he always did when he was nervous and trying to hide it. She clenched her hand to stop herself from fixing his bangs the way she’d done all her life.
“I am more in love with this version of you than I ever have been before, and I believe wecanbe something new as we are, today,” he whispered. “But I hear you saying that’s not enough.”
“It’s not thatyou’renot enough, Blue,” Hannah assured him, because she knew his brain gremlins. “It’s that I barely survived last time. Even if we would be better for each other now, and I think we would be, does it have a built-in expiration date, because there’s no way for us both to get the life we want? I can’t do that. And if we can’t answer that question, we’re not ready.”
He was still looking down at her, the hair falling in his face, his eyeliner smudged and one dimple trying to destroy all her good intentions. But then he nodded.
“Okay. Maybe we’re not ready. But will you do something for me? Will you believe, with me, that we might be someday? Will you not give up on us yet?” he asked, his eyes holding hers, his fingers tangled in her own, their hearts beating in unison.
“Yes,” she said, and his face split into a grin. “Yes, I will believe we might be able to make this wild love of ours work again someday.”
He jumped in the air, pumping his fist. He grabbed the back of her head and kissed her hard, just for a moment. “You’re not going to regret this!”
“Don’t make me,” she said.
“Oh!” Mrs. Matthews exclaimed, coming into the kitchen. “Hannah, I love your hair!”
Part 3
June
The Carrigan’s All Year Calendar
? Delilah’s bachelorette party
? Davenport wedding
? Pride Carnival
? BYO Antiques to Ruin class
? Prep for Bloomer Fest + MiniFordhamCon
? Book Club:Natalie Tan’s Book of Luck and Fortune
