The Apocalypse (38 page)

Laughing lightly, Jake went into the kitchen, calling out to her, "What movie do you want to watch first?" He grabbed the pan of tater tots and removed two bottles of Coke from the refrigerator before returning to the living room. Hannah's eyes lit up at the sight of food, amusing Jake.

Hannah's hands instantly reached for a handful of tater tots, and she chewed thoughtfully. "Something funny," she said decisively. Jake almost smirked, unable to believe that he'd thought she would pass the job of movie-picking on him. "What comedies do you have to pick from?"

Jake gestured to the shelf of DVD's and watched as Hannah went to choose one. He couldn't help noticing that she seemed to be in a really good mood. "Feeling better?" he asked politely, his eyes remaining trained on her.

"Yup," she answered smoothly, plucking a DVD from the shelf. She spun and handed it to Jake, and he took it to the DVD player.

Just as he put the movie in, Jake caught himself. Puzzled, he turned to stare at Hannah, holding the case of
The Strangers
up at her. "This isn't a comedy."

Hannah scoffed. "Haven't you seen it? It cracks me up."

Jake blinked slowly and then shrugged. Leave it to Hannah to find a horror film hilarious. Returning to the couch, Jake sat beside Hannah and shared the pan of tater tots with her. As the movie played, he realized that his thoughts weren't really following the plot—if one wanted to call it that—of the film. Instead, he was thinking about Hannah and how odd it was to be sitting so casually with her.

This was certainly something that he would not have predicted. Ever.

Hannah's laughing caught Jake off guard. He turned to look at her and was further taken aback by the pure enjoyment illuminating her face. He cocked his head at the television, wondering if they were seeing the same scenes on the screen. The movie that Jake was watching showed intruders terrorizing a man and woman. More laughter from Hannah made Jake smile. Of course. Hannah really would be the one to crack up when watching a scary movie.

"You're insane," he commented lightly, not a bit insultingly.

Grinning, Hannah shrugged, leaning back against the couch more comfortably. "Whatever."

Jake realized that their shoulders were touching and that Hannah was leaned toward him. Cockiness tempted the corners of his mouth to turn upward, but his stubbornness kept his mouth in
a
straight line. He resumed his thoughts about Hannah and how odd it was that he was so comfortable with her. At the back of his mind, the information that he'd over-thought his time with Mercedes too was lurking, but Jake kept it pushed back—as much as possible anyway.

"Can we watch
Titanic
now?"

Hannah's question startled Jake, as he hadn't realized
The Strangers
had ended. Checking the clock, Jake noted that time really had passed that fast—that he really had been thinking about Hannah and trying to decipher his feelings towards her for a lengthy amount of time.

"Sure," he answered and moved to change the movie in the DVD player. After he'd set up
Titanic
for Hannah's viewing pleasure, Jake started back to the couch, freezing when he saw Hannah stretched out across the length of the couch. He raised his eyebrows, and she grinned cheekily back at him.

"My back was hurting from sitting up so long," she whined.

Jake rolled his eyes. He moved toward the couch and gave her a gentle pull, moving her enough so that he could lie behind her on the couch. If she thought she could make him move to the floor, she was crazy. Hannah could deal with as much discomfort as she wanted to inflict on him.

With his bawled fist providing a pillow for his head, which allowed him to see over Hannah's head, and his other arm stretched out against his side, Jake was careful not to touch Hannah at all. The couch was wide enough to accommodate both of them without any trouble.

At least it was until Hannah rolled onto her back. "Do you mind?" She tugged on Jake's propped arm, stretching it out behind her head, and used it as a makeshift pillow. He rolled his eyes in response, and Hannah smiled back at him, turning her head back to the screen. Gently, he sighed and started looking at Hannah's profile more than the television screen.

As hard as he tried to refocus his eyes back on the movie, Jake couldn't. He wished he knew what Hannah was thinking. Was she trying to toy with him at this point? Was the contact between them something that she was doing intentionally, or was it really just her being selfish about her own comfort? Had she been the normal Hannah, Jake would have immediately associated her behavior with selfishness (even though they wouldn't be in this position if she were the normal Hannah), but this new Hannah… Jake couldn't be sure what the motives behind her actions were.

It was driving him crazy.

Twenty minutes later, Hannah's face turned to face Jake. He nearly blushed, realizing that he'd been looking at her that whole time, wondering what was on her mind. He really hoped that her sudden movement wasn't because she'd sensed his stare on her.

"Tell me about us."

Jake blinked, his thoughts wiping clean. What the hell was she talking about?

Hannah rolled onto her side, making her body face Jake's. Curiosity lit up her eyes, making Jake notice just how really blue they were. A very stunning shade of blue, really. "What were we like?" Hannah asked, the sound of her voice helping Jake get his thoughts off of her eye color. "Did we watch movies a lot before my accident? Or…before I started dating Greg? I know you didn't like him… Did we spend as much time together when he and I started dating?"

Well, shit.

Cursing was becoming quite popular for Jake today. These were questions that Jake was not at all prepared to answer. Such questions had never been expected from Hannah, and now he wasn't at all sure what to tell her. The truth, of course, was
a
must, but how to word it…

"I guess you spent a lot more time with Hudson when you started dating," Jake answered slowly. "I didn't see you as much, that's for sure."

His answer seemed to satisfy Hannah, for she nodded. "Sorry about that. What about before then?"

To lie or not to lie… Jake had a hard enough time distinguishing the truth from the lies in his head about his feelings toward Hannah; there was no reason to add more lies to keep up with, so he'd tell her the truth. "We used to play a lot of pranks on each other," he admitted. "That was kind of our thing."

Hannah smiled unexpectedly. "Huh."

Although he wasn't sure what that meant precisely, Jake took her response as permission to elaborate. "When we were pretty young, I had a puppy. He was a stray, and Mom wasn't too crazy about letting me keep him." Jake smiled reminiscently. "I refused to let him go though. But you snuck out one night and kidnapped him. I looked all over for him the next day."

Obviously interested, Hannah asked, "What happened to him?"

Jake scowled playfully. "While I was searching for him, you were selling him to your friend across town." Hannah laughed, prompting Jake to roll his eyes. "I was pissed. So when you bought a hula hoop with the dog money, I broke it."

"Jerk."

"You started it."

"You're still a jerk."

Hannah reached her hand up and let it rest against Jake's cheek. Her touch was cool, but he didn't flinch away from it. "You cold?" he murmured softly, watching her face. A hint of a smile touched her lips, and, in response, Jake let his arm rest over her, falling across the small of her back.

"Thanks," she whispered, her enormous blue eyes staring into Jake's intensely. Hannah wiggled a little closer to him, putting their bodies completely in contact. She was so close that her breath tickled Jake's neck. "Tell me more."

"Mm…" Jake tried to think back in time, to think about anything other than how close she was pressed against him. The sweet scent of her perfume, combined with the intensity of her eyes, made that nearly impossible. "You used to tell me what I jerk I am on a daily basis." He managed to smirk, despite the desire to smile. "You've been slacking, Ayers."

She giggled, sheepishly tipping her head downward, resulting in her strawberry blonde locks brushing against Jake's neck. The smell of her shampoo flooded his head then, making thoughts even
harder
to form.

Jake watched Hannah. She hadn't lifted her head again, and it was a damn good thing, since Jake wasn't sure if he could fight the urge to kiss her. Where that urge had sprung from, Jake wasn't sure, but it was there all the same, causing more agony for his poor, muddled mind.

Hannah's gentle shiver had Jake cuddling her closer, sending Tisha's words back to his brain. Maybe
Titanic
wasn't quite as long as
Gone With the Wind
, but it was certainly giving him time to cuddle and snuggle with Hannah, just as Tisha had suggested. Hannah's arm slipped around Jake's waist, and he rubbed her back gently, figuring the friction would warm her.

He hadn't anticipated that the action would put her to sleep, but after ten minutes had passed without Hannah moving, Jake realized that she'd fallen asleep. Although it wasn't quite the movie marathon that he'd planned, at least he couldn't
act
on his desire to kiss her if she was sleeping. The plagued back of Jake's mind seemed to scoff at him as it coaxed his lips to press against Hannah's forehead.

Content, at least for the moment, Jake closed his eyes. Oh, he'd certainly plunged further into a black hole of hopelessness and despair. But, for now, there was little that he could do about it.

Clutching the brown book to her chest, Hannah left the door of her bedroom after making sure that it was indeed locked. She sat down at her desk chair, scooted close to her desk, and placed the brown book on the desktop. Opening the book, Hannah smiled contently when the diary fell open to a blank page, right after her latest entry.

It had never occurred to Hannah before to write in her diary. Why would she want to remember her feelings of confusion since the accident? To be perfectly honest, she'd gone through more than enough negative things, none of which she wanted to record and be able to remember years and years from now. Finally, however, there was something that she wanted to remember, and, based on the previous entries in her old diary, Hannah was confident that her former self would have wanted to remember it too. Although it seemed almost wrong to write in a diary that didn't seem to be hers at all, Hannah made up her mind to do so, assuring herself that the events really were something that any girl would want to treasure.

She briefly thought back to that day at the park and elementary school with Jake. That was the first time she'd learned about her diary, and Jake had been dead on about its contents; he'd correctly stated that the diary said Hannah was madly in love with him. Although he'd said it jokingly, it made Hannah wonder if her feelings for him had been obvious before the accident.

Carefully, Hannah began writing in the familiar handwriting that was already in the diary. It was funny how some things remained the same, like her appearance and handwriting, when she usually felt like a brand new person.

Yesterday was amazing.

Hannah froze and stared at her writing. The word 'amazing' didn't even begin to encompass the passion that she felt about the previous day. Maybe she needed a thesaurus to accurately convey her feelings.

Yesterday was marvelous—stupendous, astounding, phenomenal.

She stopped writing and reread her correction. Yes. Hannah had to smile to herself. Those adjectives definitely worked better than simply 'amazing.'

I suppose it started because Jake felt guilty; that's what I believe anyway. Or at least I think that's what I believed. I'm honestly not even sure, but I suppose the reasons behind it don't matter as much as the fact that it happened. For whatever reason, Jake informed me that he and I were spending a day watching movies together. Of course, just hearing that made my day. What better way could there be to spend a day? Just having Jake around makes an ordinary day ten times better.