Buick, Hannah didn’t think she’d ever eat again. Her stomach felt perpetually twisted, filled up with longing for a boy she wouldn’t see for over nine months—nine months—and in the car when Julia said, “What’s your problem?” Hannah could only wave her away. She’d kept Wyatt a secret all summer, even when she was bursting to talk. Julia and Hannah had both made friends, spent their summer half-apart, half-together. It was amazing how little Julia asked her. If Hannah hadn’t known better, she’d have thought her sister didn’t care. What did she think she’d done all summer?
Hannah wondered if she’d ever feel that kind of love again. She missed Wyatt with every last cell in her body, sometimes felt like she was going to shrivel up, become a husk of herself.
They exchanged emails. Long newsy letters and sometimes just I miss you. It had been on the tip of her tongue to tell Julia, but she didn’t want to let Wyatt down. Couldn’t let him down.
She didn’t tell Tracy and Beth either. Just kept him to herself like her own delicious secret.
She turned fifteen on June 1, and she was counting down the months. Fifteen sounded so much better than fourteen. Surely they’d go public then?
She had a cell phone, a cheap flip phone, and he’d call her late at night.
“I got my license,” he whispered. She’d closed her bedroom door and was curled under the blankets in her bed, listening to his voice. Her mother was working, Wes was passed out on the sofa, and Julia was watching television in her room, the volume turned up loud. Hannah was blessedly alone. She remembered this exact scenario in the spring, before she’d met Wyatt. Everyone had scattered like dandelion seeds, and she’d felt hopelessly lonely. Then, “Let me come see you.” His voice was hoarse.
“Really? Why?”
“I just want to kiss you again. I can’t wait nine months. Just one time, sneak me in.”
“It’s a three-hour drive,” Hannah protested, the danger pulsing under her breastbone. What if Wes let himself into her room and found Wyatt? He’d only done that once all winter and spring. Then Wyatt would know about what he had done. What would he possibly think of her?
“So what? I’ll bring my dad’s car. The off-season is hard on him. He sleeps a lot.”
They planned it, talking every night until the day of. She bought a hook-and-eye lock for her door at the hardware store and installed it herself. She’d always been afraid to install a lock. That her mother would question her or, the biggest fear, that Wes would punish her mother for it. But for one night, she could risk it to keep Wyatt safe.
Hannah could hardly concentrate in school, could hardly pay attention to Beth and Tracy until they waved a hand in front of her face: “Yoo-hoo, is anyone home?” She raced home, changed her clothes, bra, and underwear no less than three times, and sat on her bed and just waited.
At nine, Trina left for the bar, and Wes snored softly on the sofa. Julia had gone out with a friend—to the library, she’d said, but Hannah knew that was bullshit. Her sister was filled to the brim with secrets too.
Hannah’s cell phone rang once, twice, then stopped. His signal. She crept downstairs to the front door and flicked the porch light.
When she opened the front door, his smile took her breath away. He kissed her right there on the porch, so eager their teeth clashed together, and they both laughed. She shut the door softly and tiptoed right past Wes, who hadn’t moved, his eyes still closed, The X-Files playing on mute in the background.
She hadn’t thought ahead to this part: to Wyatt seeing Wes, her little dump of a half-double house in Plymouth. Wes, his gross mouth open and the stink of his feet on her ratty plaid couch. Wyatt didn’t even flinch, just nudged her and grinned shyly. It made her blood rush.
In her bedroom, Hannah jumped on Wyatt, her body suddenly, virulently on fire, a pulse between her legs, her hands running along his back, his backside, his legs. Hannah had never wanted so much in her life. He laughed at her, sweetly, his fingertips skimming her cheek, the nape of her neck. Innocent places that frustrated Hannah. Their kisses grew from giggly to deep to frantic.
“I didn’t come here to get laid,” he gasped into her neck. Hannah didn’t even feel like she could talk. No one had