The Apocalypse (26 page)

Hannah's eyes turned enormous, and her reaction came so quickly that she snatched the book from Isaac's hand before he could jerk it away from her. "You've got to be kidding me!" she exclaimed. "Jake told me about it, but I could never find it. No wonder." She narrowed her eyes suspiciously. "Did you read it?"

Thoughtfully, Isaac tipped his head. "About six years ago, yeah. But…I didn't read it when I found it." Hannah studied him closely, looking for any sign of
a
lie. Isaac just shrugged seriously. "I really didn't. I figured that it was no fun reading something of yours and rubbing in that I know yours secrets when you don't. Now neither of us do."

Silently, Hannah stared at him and finally blinked. That was more than just potentially offensive, particularly after her huge fight with Greg, but Isaac wasn't one who normally tried to insult her, so Hannah let it slide and pointed to the door. "Out. I want to read it."

Isaac got to his feet agreeably. "I definitely won't object to that. Imagine…Hannah Ayers taking an
interest
in reading. It's like a dream come true." Hannah threw a pillow at his back, but Isaac grinned in return. "Don't be too disappointed if your reading lasts all of ten minutes; you never were a frequent writer. Happy reading."

As soon as Isaac shut Hannah's bedroom door behind him, Hannah flipped open the diary. Almost immediately after that, she froze and closed it again. Did she really want to read it? What she'd told Greg was true—there was no use messing with an already good thing, and maybe she didn't want to know what was inside that diary. It had already been weeks, and Hannah couldn't remember anything about her former self, other than possibly a few snippets from the wreck. She should probably just accept the fact that her memory was gone and leave it alone.

Then again, she'd said all of that to Greg before she had something that was such a piece of herself in her hands. It was easy to be a hypocrite when something like
a
diary turned up. A diary couldn't lie to her! And, Hannah promised herself, after she'd read it, she'd be done trying to figure out the past. This would be it.

Slowly, Hannah opened the brown book, took a deep breath, and looked over the first page. Her name was doodled in childish writing at least twenty times on the first two pages. Turning the page, Hannah came to the first entry, written just after her sixth birthday.

That Jake is a big fat meanie! He made my birthday bad again. I was just going to blow out my candles on my pink cake, but he pushed it off the table! I had to share his ugly blue cake!

Smiling at her little kid penmanship and writing skills, Hannah turned the page. The next entry was from when she was eight years old—putting a two year gap between her entries. Isaac clearly hadn't lied—what a sweet thought—when he said she wasn't good at keeping a diary up to date.

We went fishing today at the big park. At first I thought it'd be fun because we'd be able to catch the fish and then make fish sticks, but I never even got to catch
a
fish! Jake caught all the fish in the whole lake! Even Isaac got a fish. It made me so mad that I stole them all and put them back in the lake. The boys were mad, but I don't care because the fish didn't smell like fish sticks anyway. And I didn't get in trouble either! So ha, ha, ha, Jake!

Hannah wasn't sure if she should be amused or not. She was starting to look like a mean little kid, even though she could sympathize with her youthful self since, seriously, it wasn't cool that Jake and Isaac caught all the fish. Reading on, Hannah came across a couple entries within the same year, when she was nine years old.

I hate that nasty Jake Allen even more than I hate that song 'MMMBop.' He thinks he's so smart! It all started when he won the fourth grade spelling bee. That wasn't so bad because I was the second place winner, and I still had a chance to win the school spelling bee. But then he went and won that too. Ugh! And then he had the nerve to ruin my piano recital! My grandparents were there, and even my dad showed up. He's never showed up for anything like that, but he came this time! But Jake got backstage and messed up the curtain while I was playing, and he made things fall backstage, and then he kept blowing
a
fog horn. I hate him more than anything!

Then, a month later:

Well, I got him back! That stupid Jake thinks he can pull one over on me? No way! Muahahaha! His grandpa bought him that dirt bike he's been wanting, which was stupid because it's not like we have any dirt around here. Well, we do have dirt, but we don't have places to ride dirt bikes in our city. Stupid boy. But now, even if we did have places to ride it, he couldn't because I deflated his tires. Ha, ha, ha! I'm grounded for two months, but it's definitely worth it!

Hannah was quite tempted to put the diary away. Just like she'd told Greg, her life now was clearly better. Since everything she read was negative, she now even had proof to back her claim up! The more she read, the more she saw that she was a mean little brat, which she didn't want to think of herself as at all. Even Jake was looking cruel, and he'd been nothing but nice to her!

Actually…in a way, that made Hannah want to read more. Maybe she and Jake had fought as children, but they must have made up and become friends as they matured. Otherwise, Jake wouldn't be so nice to her now. With that thought to cling to, Hannah accepted that the past was addictive, turned the page of the diary, and came across an entry from when she was eleven.

We had a class picnic at our old elementary school today. It was supposed to be at Helke Park, but you try keeping a bunch of us from running across the field to our old school—it's impossible. It was pretty funny because Ethan Sharpe got a pebble stuck in his ear. He was making fun of the time he got one stuck up his nose in third grade, and it backfired. I've never laughed so hard before in my life. But then I got mad because Jake pushed me off the teeter-totter, so I tackled him, and we both got detention. We agreed not to tell our moms though, since we're on probation after Jake climbed the tree to my bedroom window, egged it, and then fell from one of the lower branches. I don't know why I'm in trouble for that though. Sure, I put some slugs in Jake's bed, but I didn't make him get revenge on me! And it's sure not my fault that Jake got caught doing it. Idiot.

The next diary entry came from seventh grade, and she again had to agree with Isaac about her randomly-timed diary entries. It sort of seemed like she only wrote when she was in
a
bad mood, and that thought comforted Hannah. Maybe she and Jake had an inside joke where they would prank each other from time to time. Or maybe they were really good friends, and these entries were only written when Hannah was fighting with her best friend, Jake.

For some reason, she doubted that.

I am a total flipping genius! Yeah, yeah, yeah, Tisha's already told me that I'm probably not as smart as I'm making myself out to be, but I think I'm a genius! I should probably note that this realization came to me even after I caught Isaac and Jake reading my diary. It's a good thing that I don't write in this thing too often, since I would have been royally screwed if they'd found out something they didn't already know. Well, Isaac did, since he told Mom about my detention way back then, but it's not like she cared. Anyway! On to me being a genius! It recently came to my attention that Jake had a huge, huge crush on Lori Randolph. Seeing him all gentlemanly cracked me up because he's usually just a big ass. After biding my time, I put my attack into motion, and just when I figured he was about to tell Lori about his feelings for her, I kissed him. Yup, right in front of Lori. He was so, so, so pissed! Now Tisha's mad because I used my first kiss to give Jake his, but I don't care so much about that. What's a first kiss compared to the best act of hatred ever? Compared to me, Jake's an amateur. He might as well go ahead and admit defeat. Oh, and that I'm the better between us.

Torn between pride that she'd rightly guessed something and confusion that she'd been in a hateful war with Jake, Hannah had nothing to do but keep reading. When she turned the page, an entry from two years later, in ninth grade, came to her attention.

Someone should kill me. Kill me now! I've done lots of bad things in my life, I'll admit to that, especially since I'm rather proud of most of them, but this really takes the cake. This is worse than the time I poured a whole bottle of cinnamon on Mom's prized barbeque chicken when Jake was over for dinner, which…wouldn't have been so bad if he wasn't allergic to cinnamon. And it's worse than the time I let my neighbor's dog lick Jake's toothbrush. Heck, this is worse than the time Jake put laxatives in chocolate chip cookies and planted them in my kitchen! Oh yeah, even worse than that. You see, I realized something, and just writing it down on paper condemns my very existence if it's ever discovered. What's so bad? Well…I realized that Jake is really, really, really cute. I'm in love with his eyes.

Hannah read the entry twice and began to smile. So she was right yet again! Even though she and Jake clearly had a messed up childhood, Hannah's feelings had changed. That had to mean that they'd become friends or…maybe even more than that? Maybe they'd dated and—no. Jake would have told her about that. Hannah sighed and read on, finding an entry from the summer before sophomore year.

I officially hate myself. If I could do it, I'd send myself to hell right now—that's how terrible I am. Not to mention that I'm incredibly stupid for writing this down and recording evidence (though I do have the world's best hiding place). But terrible. That's what I am. Today, we went swimming—at the local pool. Isaac, Tisha, Jake, Ethan, and I walked over there, and that's when I noticed that more than just Jake's eyes are gorgeous. His whole freaking body is gorgeous! If I had a calendar of sexy bodies in my room, I'd want him to represent every month. And for that, I deserve to die.

A fond smile appeared on Hannah's face. It was true that Jake was gorgeous, and just thinking about him made Hannah feel all lusty. The brightness of his green eyes, the softness of his brown hair, the firmness of his beautiful body…oh, it made Hannah wish she could remember her first kiss. A follow-up kiss would be great too though, and she hoped she'd find one in the next entry, which was from the beginning of her junior year.

I'm in hell now. No, not a literal burning hell, but it might as well be. Yesterday was the first day back at school, and I can't believe it. Jake is in all of my classes except for one. All but one! But it gets worse. Half of my teachers seat us alphabetically, and, of course, that means that I'm sitting behind or beside Jake. Not only am I forced to bask in his beauty, but I can smell him too! Our arms have even touched
a
few times. My God, it's pure torture! It takes every ounce of self restraint I have to keep from jumping him. Naturally, he acts like he's tormented by my presence too, but, you know, I'm keeping the faith that he's faking it. Even though I know he's not; he really does hate me. But maybe our close quarters can change that. Here's to hoping for a miracle, anyway.

Some more truth—Jake really did smell incredible. Now, Hannah hadn't had too much trouble keeping her hands off of him, but her eyes were a different story. She just simply wasn't content unless she was looking at him, and after reading her diary, her hands were itching to touch him too.

Maybe she shouldn't have read her diary, after all.

Still, Hannah went on reading, finding an entry from only two weeks later.

I'm completely miserable, and it's not only because of Jake and his body anymore. No, it's partially because of our Health teacher—who is a big joke. There's a policy about head coaches having to be teachers, and since Coach Stratton is our head football coach this year, he needed a teaching position. How lucky I am to be in his class. Not! First of all, there are only two other girls in my class; one of them is pretty emo and always listen to her iPod, and the other one rarely comes to class. So I'm forced to endure a bunch of sexist remarks from all of the guys. Stratton is so male chauvinistic that it makes me sick! No one could expect me to keep my mouth shut about it, so of course I go off on him every single day about how unfair he is.

So far, I'm booked in detention for the next five weeks, and it's not even regular detention! No, after the first seven detentions, Stratton started making me stay in his room or going up to the football field during practice. I've done the stupidest 'punishments' too—from cleaning the entire classroom floor with a rag and floor cleaner (since he 'didn't have a mop') to mopping (yeah, apparently he found a mop two days later!) the field house, which reeks after a bunch of guys leave their dirty football practice clothes in it. Stratton's already approached me about complaining about him too; if I do, all of the detentions, as well as a personal note, will go on my permanent record, and I really don't think colleges would like to see anything he'd write about me. Or the detentions, but whatever. The only good thing is getting to admire Jake when he's practicing. I'm so fed up!