My Heart Insists This Isn’t Real
My smile is so big it hurts. I look away from Abby on the screen of my phone to inspect the new pedicure I did with Jewel and Joy earlier—a concession for ditching me for a date night with Joy’s parents, who showed up unexpectedly from out of town. My pink toes are perfectly painted with sparkles. I considered calling Seth to come and hang out with me, but since we’ve been with one another constantly, I thought he might be looking forward to hanging out with Trace.
“My goodness, Hannah, you’re glowing,” Abby says.
I finally look at her, my cheeks heating. “I am. I’m so freaking happy.” I flop on my bed and wiggle around excitedly.
Abby laughs. “Damn. I’m slightly jealous.”
“If I weren’t me, I would be too.” I laugh. “I didn’t think it was possible.”
“What?”
“Being this happy.”
“It’s possible,” she says, but her smile fades.
“What is it?” I ask, feeling a touch guilty as I reach for the socks Seth gave me.
“I’m good.”
“Really? Because your face says otherwise.”
“You know me too well. You are always so freaking perceptive.”
I put on the socks. “What’s going on?”
“Nothing. I just think I’m at this point where existing in the motions of how we want things to be, and how they are, aren’t lining up right.”
“Like for school?”
“Sort of. I just find myself wondering about things like being in a relationship again. And seeing you so happy makes me want that for myself. It’s been a long time since I felt that.”
“When was the last time?”
She’s silent a moment. “It isn’t like I haven’t been happy, but there’s something empty about feeling like people don’t see you.”
“When was the last time you felt seen?”
“Senior year,” she says. “I felt completely free to be me, then.”
“With Gabe.”
She nods. “And you, and Seth, and our friends,” she adds. “I miss that. I have great new relationships here–” She stops. “Dating sucks. There are so many fake people.”
“Do you miss Gabe?”
“When I see you this happy because of Seth, yes.” She laughs. “Truthfully, I miss him every day.”
“You don’t talk at all?”
“No. Social media shit. That’s it.”
“Why don’t you slide into his DM?” I smile at her and wiggle my eyebrows.
She grins. “It doesn’t change the reason we ended things in the first place. He’s in LA and I’m here.”
“People make it work. You’re older. He’s older.”
“He’s seeing someone.”
“He’s probably seeing lots of someones. Have you stalked his Instagram?”
She laughs. “Of course!” She scrunches her nose up, then says, “I mean, I think there’s a new someone. Like maybe a serious someone. She’s been in his IG stories a couple time.”
My eyebrows arch over my eyes. “Oh, so you’ve been that attuned to his IG stories huh?”
Her brown skin deepens with a soft blush.
“Is that why you’re being reflective about him?”
“Yeah. Probably.”
“Why did you break up?”
“It was just tough keeping connected with 2500 miles between us. Seemed like more of a kindness to one another rather than feeling mistrustful and eventually angry and bitter.” She pauses, and I can see she’s thinking about it. “It isn’t that I want to return to what was. I just think maybe there’s a part of me that will always wonder, always feel that tinge of jealousy that I wasn’t the one.”
I make a noise as I ponder that statement. “Based on that logic, aren’t I moving backward by being with Seth?”
She shakes her head. “No. I don’t think so. You’re both older and wiser now.”
“And you aren’t?”
“Okay. Okay. I see what you did there.” She offers a slight grin and plucks at something off screen.
“Seth is forward for me. We have a past, but whatever we’re making is looking ahead. I don’t think exploring an older relationship means you’re going backward, especially if that relationship has unfinished business, you know? And if that’s something you want to discover, why not?” I pause, listening to the sound of knocking at the door. “Hold on,” I tell her as I climb from my bed. “I think Jewel might have forgotten her house key.”
“So, you don’t think it would be weird for me to reach out?”
“I don’t think so. Would you want to talk to Gabe again?” I ask as I slide through the hall, pondering sock Olympics and deciding I’ll tell Seth that I practiced.
“I would always want to talk to Gabe.”
“Then talk to him. There’s nothing wrong with reaching out. You were always friends,” I say as I unlock the door.
As soon as I open it, I realize I forgot to check to see who it is. It isn’t Jewel.
“Hey,” Sebastian says. He’s leaning against the frame with a strange grin on his face.
My stomach curls. “You need to go.”
“I just saw that guy you’ve been fucking around with at a party. Drunk as fuck.”
I know it’s a lie and move to close the door, but Sebastian catches it with his hand.
“Hannah?” Abby’s voice says from the phone.
“Let go of the door, Sebastian.”
“Hannah?” Abby repeats. “Are you okay?”
“Not until we talk.” He slams the door against the wall, knocking me back, and my phone flies from my hand. It skitters across the floor as I slip and fall, then scramble to my knees. I have to get my phone.
“This isn’t okay,” I say, the tone of my voice is high and loud. “I want you to leave.”
“I said I’m not fucking leaving until we fucking talk.” His voice is louder, and he slams the door shut, rattling the picture frame and mirror on the wall.
I scramble on my hands and knees, desperate to reach my phone, but I’m suddenly yanked from the ground by my waist, my phone sliding across from my grasp.
“Let me go!” I yell. “Let me go!” I struggle against his grip.
“You’re going to listen and hear me out.” He growls the words, his arms shackles securing mine across my chest even as I kick, connecting with his shins. He doesn’t release his grip.
“Let me go!” I scream at him. “Let me go!” I’ve never felt more powerless.
Despite my struggles, he carts me to my room, kicks the door shut, and tosses me on my bed. His torso heaves with his anger, his face dark with it as he leans against the door.
I scurry from my bed to retreat as far from him as I can. “What the hell, Sebastian? What are you doing?” I’m hopeful for a logical explanation, for the means to talk him down, but I can’t get my friends’ warnings out of my head.
Don’t be a fool, Hannah. This is bad.
Sebastian runs a hand through his hair, his brow collapsing over his eyes as he points at me. “You don’t speak.”
“Don’t tell me what to do!” I scream, a sob bursting through with the words. “Let me out of here, now. My friend is on the phone. You don’t get to do this.” My heart beats a terrifying rhythm in my throat.
You don’t know what someone will do. What lengths they will go to.
“No!” he yells, his hands in his hair, creating a mess of the strands. “Let me think!” He takes a step toward me, and I press my back against the wall. His giant body is between me and the door. His anger is palpable, unruly, irrational.
This isn’t happening. This isn’t happening, I recite in my head.
Sebastian begins pacing, walking back and forth in front of the door. “I don’t know what you’re thinking. Him?” I know he’s ranting about Seth, even if he hasn’t said his name.
Think.
Think!
Think!
I need to get out of here.
I picture my phone sliding under the couch. No landline. I need to get out the front door.
“And Marco said you stayed over there. What the fuck, Hannah! How could you? Do you realize how stupid it makes me look?”
Sebastian is cataloguing all the ways I’ve fucked him over with Seth, all conveniently missing the fact that he’s the one who broke things off with me. But I don’t say anything. I’ve already said it and he’s refused to hear it. I already know it won’t matter. I retreat into myself, trying to make myself smaller.
“Look at me!” he yells.
I open my eyes.
His face is horribly dark and filled with rage as he clamps onto the fact that I’ve been “slutting it up with this prick,” that somehow, I’ve made Sebastian “a cuck”. His gaze locks onto me as he stalks the short space across the room. I zero in on the door behind him and dart to the side.
He catches my shoulder and slams me back against the wall.
My breath comes in shallow bursts, making it difficult to catch enough air to draw strong breaths. My thoughts are a jumbled mess. “Stop!” I scream.
He holds me against the wall with his hands on my shoulders, bending down so he can meet my gaze. “I told you, you are mine. Not his. Not anyone else’s. I messed up. How many times do I have to fucking tell you? You pushed me to cheat with Chelsey. You made me think I need to look somewhere else, Hannah. Don’t you fucking see?”
“No,” I say and drive my knee up to connect with his groin.
Only he turns his hips, and I catch him in the thigh. He grunts, then yells. “What the fuck?” His anger explodes. “Fuck!” he yells and throws me across the room. I land with a bounce on my bed, then slide until my shoulder slams against the wall.
I scramble across the mattress, but not quickly enough. Sebastian is there, pushing me down. “Why are you making me do this?” he yells. “If you’d just listened!”
“Get off me,” I scream and struggle, terrified that maybe I’m past the point of no return. Tears pierce the back of my eyes. I kick out and catch him in the leg.
He swears and throws an open hand, catching me on the side of the head. “Calm the fuck down.”
The sting of the hit ripples across my skin. At one time, I might have rolled into a ball and acquiesced, but I picture that climbing wall, and I picture Seth’s smile, and I imagine Seth reminding me that I’m strong. So instead, I rage and swear, kicking, and screaming. “Get off me!”
“I swear to fucking god, Hannah. I’m going to teach you fucking lesson about what happens when you don’t listen–” Sebastian throws another hand, this time with a closed fist. It blasts my nose, cheek, and eye, and feels like I’ve run into a wall. My vision recedes, tunneling toward dull blackness, then blinks back to awareness, tears leaking from my eyes. I can’t find my thoughts. My body is sluggish. My stomach revolts with a twist, and I moan. “Leave me alone,” I slur, copper coating my tongue. I reach up and touch under my nose, leaving my fingertips glazed with blood.
“Look what you made me do,” he says, the shock in his own voice making it sound slow in my ears. “Oh my god. Hannah. I didn’t mean–”
I moan again and twist, a sob wracking my body.
He doesn’t release me.
I flail about, unfocused and without purpose. Just movement because I need to keep fighting. I won’t go in the hole again. I won’t be a cracked glass jar. Never again. “No!” I cry and roll, trying to get away from him.
Sebastian yanks me across the bed onto my back, shakes me, then pins my hands to bed above my head. “Stop, Hannah. Stop!” he yells.
And I cry. “Stop, Sebastian. Stop.”