Chapter Eight

Hannah

“Adele, this book— It just killed me.”

“I knew it would.” Adele laughs. “In a good way.”

I clutch my chest. “Good, yes. But I don’t think I’ll ever be the same.”

“A good book will do that to you.”

Last week, after I finished The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, Adele got frustrated when Ben took too long to decide on the next book I should read. So she shoved The Poisonwood Bible into my hands and sent me out the door.

She was so right. Talk about a shift in perspective. Even better, Ben had never read it, so we went through it together this week and talked for ages on the phone every night. He loved the book, but I don’t think he was moved the way I was. Maybe he’s just seen more of the world than I have.

“So, Africa,” I say to Adele. “I feel like I could spend the rest of my life just reading about Africa.”

“There are other books,” Ben protests from behind the counter. “I have some ideas about your next read.”

“Of course you do, sweetie.” Adele pats his hand consolingly. “But Hannah’s got to get her feelings out about this one first.”

Ben frowns and Adele laughs.

“Let the girl like her book, Ben.” That girl, Alex, from the coffee shop across the street is spending her break in the store. She’s leaning on the counter, flipping through a magazine, and occasionally contributing to the conversation happening around her.

Ben frowns but he doesn’t say anything.

“There is no place on earth like Africa,” Adele says. “I was there, you know.”

“You were?”

She nods, and her eyes fill with tears. “In seventy-one, with the Peace Corps. We were in Zambia, not the Congo, like they were in the book. But the people… Oh, they laughed at us at first. And we did plenty to earn that laughter. But once they understood we really wanted to help, and once we understood there are lots of ways to help outside of training stipulations, they treated us like family. We did a lot of good. It broke my heart to leave. I felt like I was leaving part of myself behind.”

“Why don’t you go back?” I ask.

“I loved it, but it wasn’t easy. And I’m too old now. That’s a young person’s life. That’s an adventure for someone like you.”

I blink. “Me? Oh, no, I could never do something like that.”

Adele draws herself up and fixes me with her steady stare. “Why not? I wasn’t much older than you when I went.”

“I just never—I’m not…” How do I explain I’m not that girl? I’m the girl who can carefully monitor chemical compounds in a sterile lab, or track complex data across multiple spreadsheets. I’m not the girl who hikes into the African wilderness, joins a village, and changes the world.

Unless… Maybe I could be? I’d never even thought about it. I mean, I should have been amazing at chemistry, so who knows? Maybe the reverse is true, too. I might be great at things I should suck at.

“You can do anything you set your mind to, Hannah,” Adele says. “Here, give this one a try next.”

She passes me a book also set in Africa called Things Fall Apart.

“Thanks, Adele.”

“But I already picked out your book for this week,” Ben protests.

“Hold that thought, Ben.” Adele smiles and hands me yet another book. “And if you want to see a little more about Africa, take a look at this book about the Bang Bang Club.”

“The what club?”

“It was a group of photojournalists working in South Africa during Apartheid.”

“Ooh, I saw a movie about them,” Alex chimes in. “Lots of cute guys.”

There aren’t any cute guys in this book, but I spend twenty minutes lost in it just the same. It’s another world, like nothing I’ve ever experienced. All I know of the world outside of Ohio is what I see on the nightly news, and it’s nowhere near enough. There are people and worlds out there I’ve never even glimpsed.

But I want to be a chemist, like my dad. I want to work in a lab, creating medicines that save lives, like my mom’s. That’s making a difference. That’s changing the world. And yet, looking at these photographs of Africa in the nineties… Maybe there are a million ways to make a difference and a million differences that need to be made.

Could I make a difference outside of a lab? It’s a question I’ve never asked myself.

“These are amazing,” I murmur. “Chilling, but amazing.”

“If you like photojournalism, you should look at this one, too.” Adele deposits another book in my lap.

I didn’t know I was into photojournalism, but before I know it, I’m caught up in it. Civil wars in Bosnia, famine in Africa, floods in New Orleans, oppression in North Korea— The litany of human suffering and need goes on and on. Formulating drugs in a laboratory might be a noble calling, but what if it’s not my calling? What would that mean for me? For my dad?

“Have I lost you to Adele’s social causes forever?” Ben stands next to us with a wry smile, hands shoved in his back pockets.

“No, it’s just…these pictures.”

“Let her expand her mind if she wants to,” Adele says.

“She’s been reading my books for weeks. I think that’s pretty mind-expanding.”

I touch Ben’s arm to get his attention. “I’m not throwing over reading. I just got caught up in these pictures. I can’t stop thinking about them. And I can’t stop thinking about The Poisonwood Bible. And The Book Thief. And Owen. And Joe and Sam. What have you done to me?”

Ben smiles, and my heart thuds helplessly in my chest. “Whatever it is, I hope it’s just the start. So I know Adele just gave you a book, but how would you feel about reading something just because it’s funny?”

“That sounds great. What do you have in mind?”

“Something really good, but you have to read this one with me.”

“We read all of them together. I call you almost every night.”

“Oh, no, I think this requires pizza and reading out loud,” he says with a chuckle. “You busy tonight?”

Something flutters in my stomach, and my pulse races. I think I might have just died and gone to heaven because unless I’m totally misreading this, Ben wants to hang out tonight. Together. Like a date. This is a date, right? I have to fight to keep my smile to normal human levels. “I guess I’m busy now.”

“Hey, Alex, you want to come?” he asks, and something inside me curls up and dies. I’d forgotten Alex was here, but Ben didn’t. Why is he inviting her? Is this not a date? She glances up, surprised, and shakes her head.

“Oh, no thanks. I have a thing. You guys go and have fun. Sounds like Ben has something good picked out, Hannah.”

And she’s so damn nice about it that I can’t even be annoyed. She’s all but winking at me, telling me to go for it. And if I were a little bit braver, I just might.

We’re in my dorm room, we split a pizza an hour ago, and I’m lying back on my bed, propped up by pillows. Ben was lying across the foot of my bed, head and shoulders against the concrete block wall, but now he’s pacing the tiny open space between my bed and Jasmine’s, reading out loud from A Confederacy of Dunces.

“What is this book, Ben?” I’m laughing so hard that my sides hurt and I can barely breathe. Ben’s laughing, too, but desperately trying to get it under control so he can keep reading.

“This is A Confederacy of Dunces. Show some respect. It won a fucking Pulitzer Prize.”

The best part—the very best part—of reading this book together is that Ben keeps snatching it out of my hands so he can read his favorite parts out loud to me. And he doesn’t just read; he acts them out, with a crazy voice for Ignatius and everything. I’m dying. It’s the most I’ve laughed in forever.

“Come on, Hannah,” he scolds. “Pull it together. God.” He gives an exaggerated eye roll and holds the book up with a flourish. “Listen to this. ‘I am, at the moment, writing a lengthy indictment against our century. When my brain begins to reel from my literary labors, I make an occasional cheese dip.’ Can’t you just feel Ignatius’s soul cry out?”

I double over laughing, and finally Ben gives in, too, falling across my bed and laughing until his eyes tear up. Gasping for air, I pull myself upright and reach for the book, but my hand lands on his hand instead. My fingers curl loosely around his wrist, and I trace the sculptural bones just like I’ve imagined so many times. He’s still lying across my bed, just shy of my feet. He’s so close. I could lean down and—

Our eyes meet, and my whole body flushes with awareness. The air around us is charged, like if we kiss, it’ll spark. I want to find out. His eyes are wide behind his glasses, wary and surprised. And maybe something else. I can’t be the only one feeling this.

Then, quick as a flash, his gaze drops to my mouth and back up to my eyes. I’m not the only one feeling whatever this is. I can’t be. I’m not sure I’m brave enough to make a move, but he could so easily. All he has to do is lean forward. I’ll even meet him halfway. I start leaning slightly, just a hint for him to take—

Jasmine blows into our room with Sean in tow. Sean is enormous, and our tiny dorm room looks like a doll’s house with him standing in the middle of it.

“Oh!” she gasps, her eyes flickering between Ben and me. “I didn’t know you were home. Or had a guest.”

Ben scrambles off my bed so fast you’d think it was on fire. “That’s okay. I was just about to go.” He glances at me, not quite meeting my eyes. “I have to open the store in the morning, so…”

“Oh, sure. Um. This is Jasmine, my roommate, and her boyfriend, Sean. This is Ben.”

Jasmine extends her hand and puts on her CEO smile. “Nice to meet you, Ben.”

He shakes her hand, and then he and Sean exchange an awkward handshake, too. “Nice to meet you guys. Okay, I’m gonna head out. Enjoy the rest of the book, Hannah.” Now he does meet my eyes, just for a second, and he smiles slightly. Then he slips out the door like he was never here.

“So,” Jasmine says when the door closes behind him. “Bookstore Boy is cute.”

“Excuse me?” Sean says.

Jasmine pats his shoulder. “Relax. Bookstore Boy is Hannah’s. I’m just making an observation.”

I sigh and flop back on my bed. “Bookstore Boy is most definitely not mine. Did you see how fast he cut out of here? God, that was embarrassing.”

“Maybe because we interrupted him when he was about to make his move. Looked pretty cozy in here when we opened the door.”

I glance at Sean, blushing that he’s here to witness my humiliation, but his eyes are fixed firmly on the floor. He looks like he’d rather be anywhere else on earth than here listening to this.

“Yeah, except he had all night to kiss me.” And he almost did. Didn’t he? What would’ve happened if we’d had a few extra seconds?

Jasmine chews on her fingernail and frowns. “He was in this room with you all night—alone—and he didn’t kiss you once? And you’re sure he’s not gay?”

“Definitely not. He’s established that twice.”

“And there’s no girlfriend?”

My stomach churns. A girlfriend? No, I would’ve known…right? “He hasn’t specifically said so, but I think at this point it would have come up. I’m at the shop enough that I’d have met her or heard about her, right?”

Unless I do know about her. Alex is gorgeous, older than me, and she’s known Ben a lot longer. But I’d have noticed if they were together, wouldn’t I? And today after Ben invited her to come along with us, she said no and gave me an encouraging smile. That’s girl code. She was practically telling me to go for it— She wouldn’t have done that if they were dating.

“Guys can hide that shit if they want to, but since he’s not moving in on you, I can’t imagine why he’d hide something,” Jasmine says. “That’s usually reserved for the cheating scumbags.”

I flop back onto my bed, clutching A Confederacy of Dunces to my chest. The rest of the book is probably going to pale in comparison to the parts we read together. “Maybe I’m just wrong about all of this. Maybe he’s not into me like that.”

“A guy doesn’t end up alone in a girl’s dorm room on a Friday night, lying on her bed, if he’s not into her at least a little bit,” Sean interrupts.

Jasmine and I stare at him, and he shrugs one massive shoulder. “I’m just saying this was a situation. You don’t get there by accident. He had to want to on some level.”

Sean’s right. Ben’s eyes were wary as we looked at each other, but there was also interest. And the way he looked at my mouth… For a split second, he was thinking about it. “So why did he bolt out of here?”

Sean holds up his hands. “Who knows? Maybe the dude’s got some hang-ups or something.”

I groan and close my eyes. “Well, whatever it is, I’m pretty sure it means I’m out of luck.”

Jasmine sits on the edge of my bed. “You going to be okay? We just stopped by so I could grab my calculus book, but I can stay if you want me to.”

“No, that’s really nice of you, but I’m fine.”

Jasmine smiles and squeezes my knee. “Maybe you need to take control of this and make the first move,” she says. “Just putting it out there. Think about it.”

I wave them both out the door. I should forget about it at least for tonight, but when I lie on my bed and stare at the ceiling, I can’t help it— Ben’s stare haunts me for the rest of the night.