The Apocalypse (44 page)

"Same here," Libby agreed reassuringly.

Hannah parted from her friends swiftly, heading for her computer class. The truth was that she didn't want to torment Jake because her heart couldn't
stand
it. Jake couldn't help who he liked or disliked—that was the mature realization that Hannah had come to. Just like she couldn't help disliking Reagan, Hannah understood that Jake had his reasons for not liking her.

Damn him for that.

After shopping with Tisha the other day, Hannah had felt fatigued and decided to take a nap. When she woke up, it was like waking up another person—only she was the same person, complete with all of her memories from before the accident. It had been a weird adjustment, making room for amnesiac Hannah and 'regular' Hannah in her head. The two versions of herself differed pretty substantially, but post-amnesia Hannah identified with both of them. Her head kind of felt like a mad house.

That night, she'd spent most of her time thinking about Jake. Before the accident, Hannah had known he was a good guy because he'd helped her out with the drama with his old football coach; he'd been legitimately nice to her and stood up for her. With that forgotten, amnesiac Hannah had fallen for Jake because of the way he'd treated her so nicely.

Hannah scowled. Fake nicely, she amended mentally.

She'd actually believed that her accident had softened Jake's heart and made him forget about their past hatred. How could she have been so stupid? He hadn't been falling for her—he'd been plotting against her, looking for the opportunity to give her the biggest blow he'd ever given her. In
a
way, Hannah wanted to congratulate him for hurting her more than he ever had before—probably more than he knew.

But that would have required speaking to him. And Hannah was prepared to ignore him for the rest of her life. No more fighting with him, no more rivalry with him, no more associating herself with him at all.

Maybe she didn't want to get revenge on Jake because she thought he'd stop hating her if she stopped giving him reasons to.

Maybe she was crazy.

Or maybe she was too preoccupied with thinking about Greg Hudson.

The sight of her exboyfriend in her computer class was what made Hannah think of him again. She could remember exactly what had happened the night of the accident. Truthfully, Greg hadn't
lied
much to Hannah; he'd bent the truth quite a bit, but it didn't seem vindictive at all—especially not compared to the lies Jake had told her.

The truth of the matter was that he and Hannah had argued that night, and their argument had in fact been about going to Winter Formal. As he'd told her eventually, Greg had wanted to split a limo with friends—but those friends had included Jake, and Hannah had absolutely refused. Secretly, she hadn't wanted to see him with any date that he might take, but the reason she gave to Greg was that she hated Jake too much to ride in the same car with him. Apparently, Hannah was not a good liar because Greg had called her on it, correctly accusing her of having feelings for Jake.

Amnesiac Hannah had been right: her feelings for Jake had been pretty obvious to some people.

Greg and Hannah had gotten into a huge fight. He'd accused her of flirting with Jake all the time, and Hannah had yelled that Greg was just mad that Jake, who he despised, was always at Hannah's house. Distinctly, Hannah remembered ugly accusations getting slung around—most of which hadn't made any sense at the time, not even to Hannah, who did her half of the slinging. But the ordeal was enough to assure Hannah that she and Greg were better apart than together.

Still…she felt like she needed to make nice with him.

"I hear you've got some good news," Greg said when Hannah sat down at the computer beside his. She hadn't been sitting near him in the days after the accident, but now she took her place at his side again, smiling slightly. He'd correctly guessed the reason she had done so too. "All better now?"

She half smiled. "Yes and no." Crazy how her mind being all better made her life all screwed up. She gingerly tapped the cast on his arm. "How many more weeks?"

"Four." Greg shrugged. "Not too bad."

Hannah thought it sounded wretched, but she couldn't summon much pity. Greg was a nice guy, and Hannah had enjoyed the time they'd spent together, but she knew that half the reason she had dated him was to distract her from Jake—and to piss Jake off, since the boys didn't like each other. Somewhere in the unsuccessful distraction, Hannah had developed feelings for Greg, who had been a fairly good friend of hers. She wasn't sure if her feelings were crush-like, but she did care about him a lot as a friend, and dating him—since their relationship had been a casual one—had be fun, not a chore. It had even given her less time to fantasize about Jake.

"I feel like I should apologize to you," Hannah said suddenly, evading his eyes. Apologies were not her strong point. "You know…for everything."

Truthfully, Hannah didn't know what she was apologizing for. It just sounded like the right thing to say—especially since she'd used him on some level, started a fight that had ended up breaking his arm, and yelled at him when he'd tried to hide the real reasons for their fight. Greg was a sweet guy.

He smiled at her gently, if not a little bit warily. "You do remember us breaking up, don't you?"

Hannah blinked. Never mind—he wasn't a sweet guy. "I wasn't apologizing to you to make you want to get back together," she explained tightly, frowning. She sighed in exasperation. "Bye, Greg. I hope your arm gets better really fast."

She stood quickly and moved to
a
different seat at a different computer. There went her attempt at doing a nice thing. Even the nice guys were against her now! For a moment, Hannah entertained herself with the thought that Ethan Sharpe would still love her, but…he was one of Jake's best friends. No doubt, even he hated her too now.

The bell rang, and Hannah's teacher lectured about something that Hannah didn't listen to. In her bad mood, she had no appreciation for schoolwork, least of all computers. Didn't everyone know how to operate that particular piece of technology? What the hell was she even doing in this class? It was as much of a waste of time as all the time she'd spent with Jake for the past few weeks.

Jake. Even when she was avoiding thinking about him, she thought about him.

Finally, she gave up and let herself think about him. Hannah's attempts to block Jake out of her mind were only resulting in a headache. That wouldn't help her foul mood. But maybe thinking about Jake would.

After the incident at the skating rink, Hannah had gone to her friends, crying, and asked to leave. Already furious before she said anything else in explanation, Tisha, Libby, and Morgan had given her an escape. Once at Libby's house, Hannah had erupted with the story retelling her fight with Jake—she even confessed her unfortunate love for him, which hadn't shocked any of the girls much.

That was further proof of how obvious Hannah's feelings for Jake had been. Evidently, Hannah was the only one who had never noticed that her act of hatred for Jake had been so transparent. Why had no one ever told her that? No one other than Greg, anyway, during that epic fight.

The girls had buttered Hannah up with all the chocolate they could find. Healthy Libby's house didn't have much to offer, but Morgan and Libby had gone on a 'carb run,' leaving Hannah to cry to Tisha before they returned with a bundle of junk food that had been devoured by all four girls within a few hours. Never had Hannah been so grateful for her friends; they still cared for her, even if she'd avoided them lately.

During their binge, Jake had called Hannah's cell phone four times, and when she'd returned home—with Tisha in tow—Isaac had informed her, extremely suspiciously, that Jake had called the house phone six times and only stopped after coming over to see for himself that Hannah wasn't
home
.

The weekend had passed without further event, allowing Hannah some time to cool off. She supposed that she should let the poor boy speak to her, since he'd gone through so much trouble to contact her, but she didn't know if she put herself through that kind of drama. Would he ever understand how ecstatic she'd been when her memory came back? Jake Allen, the boy she'd been so crazy about her entire life, had been treating her as if he really cared for her! Hannah's heart had practically soared out of her chest at the prospect that they could finally have a close relationship, maybe even more than just a close friendship.

And then Jake had dashed her dreams.

Fortunately, the blessed end of Hannah's computer class put a merciful end to her thoughts about Jake before she could start crying again. It wouldn't do to go to her third period U.S. History class teary—it was a class she shared with Jake, after all. But when she got there, Hannah found that Jake was missing in action yet again, and he also skipped out on their shared Calculus class. Suspicion grew in Hannah when Morgan wasn't in their physics class, and when that class was dismissed, Hannah was on the warpath on her way to lunch.

Libby was the first one that Hannah spotted in the crowded cafeteria. "What's going on?" Hannah demanded, staring into Libby's eyes threateningly. She knew she may be just being paranoid about absolutely nothing, but she couldn't help it. "Something's up."

Real incomprehension stared back at Hannah. "I have no idea what you're talking about," Libby swore, "but whatever you're talking about sounds like something I want in on. What happened?"

Briefly, Hannah told Libby how she hadn't seen Jake all day, and—actually, come to think of it—she hadn't seen Morgan at all either. If there were a superlative for Least Likely to Ever Miss Class No Matter What Went Wrong, Morgan would have earned it, hands down. The truthfulness of this was reassured to Hannah when Libby looked just as concerned.

Tisha floated to the girls' usual lunch table, a content smile plastered to his lips as she texted on her phone. Hannah knew it without asking; she was texting Brent. Since Hannah also hadn't seen Brent today, she put two-and-two together—Brent was with Jake, and Tisha was texting Brent, so Tisha knew was the guys' problem was. So much for best friendship; Tisha was holding out on her!

"Tisha."

The stylish girl looked up from her phone. There was a guilty gleam in her eyes that Hannah hadn't seen earlier in the hallway. "Hey, Han. Hi, Libby. Anything good for lunch?"

"Texting Brent, are you?" Libby asked, obviously having reached the same conclusion that Hannah had. "How is he?"

Tisha smiled weakly. "He's good."

"And where is he exactly?"

Hannah's eyes narrowed. "I haven't seen him or any of his friends around today." She and Libby exchanged a glance. "Did they have a party or something and not invite us?"

Tisha blinked. "Wow, so Morgan talked to you guys already?" She paused and shrugged nonchalantly. "Huh. She didn't mention that she'd already caught you up on everything."

"Okay, now we've got a problem," Libby snapped, her hands flying to her hips as her bright blue eyes narrowed into smaller slits than Hannah's. "First of all, where the hell is Morgan? And what the hell is she doing? Why the hell haven't you been telling me or Hannah what the hell is going on? Where the hell is Jake and company, and—don't lie because you know I always call you on your bullshit—what the hell is he doing with Brent? Get the hell on with spilling before I get the hell on with beating the truth out of you."

Tisha gave Libby
a
curious glance. "Excessive much?"

The glare from Libby's eyes nearly made Hannah cringe. "Do not play games with me, Tisha Wilson!"

"You're overreacting. A lot." Tisha sighed deeply and put her cell phone down on the table. "Do you really think that Morgan and I weren't going to tell both of you what's going on? Please, give me some credit. I've only just now gotten all of the details."

Hannah, torn between wanting to know and wanting to walk away, leaned her forearms on the table's top. "Will you just talk, Tish?"

"Ethan called Morgan last night," Tisha began easily. "I guess he thought she was the safest one of us to talk to. Anyway, he asked her how you're doing, Hannah—it's suspected that Jake asked him to, but that hasn't been confirmed."