The Apocalypse (42 page)

The daggers that Hannah glared at Jake informed him that he still wasn't being tactful. "Don't push it, Jake. I really don't want to fight with you."

Jake flinched as he parked his truck. He really hoped that Hannah's wishes didn't change when she got her memory back, but Jake knew that the world was basically going to explode when or if—and it was the 'if' that stressed Jake out so much—Hannah's memory returned. Already he could hear the echoes of the echoes of her screeches at him. His shoulders slumped; he couldn't deal with those thoughts.

"I hope you mean that." The words flew softly out of Jake's mouth before his brain had time to stop them. "Really, I do."

"I do," Hannah stubbornly stated. Jake glanced at her and felt his shoulders slump more; she had no idea how troubled he was. "What's wrong with you?"

Okay, maybe she did notice that something was wrong. But if she could downplay the importance of her spending time with her friends, Jake could downplay the significance that his worries were having on his behavior. It seemed as though yet another personality had invaded his head, silencing the rest of them, because the only one he could hear now was the one obsessing over how to treat Hannah—how to let her down gently so neither of them got hurt.

That movie marathon had gotten him into this mess. Had he not spent so much lovey-dovey time with Hannah, he wouldn't be feeling this intensely about everything or worrying about how it all would change. Who had known that Jake realizing he had a crush—an unwanted crush—on Hannah would have him tripping out so much?

Contemplating suicide? Maybe. But not this.

"Seriously, Jake. You're acting weird."

Jake shot a glance at her, surprised to see that she was looking nervous. Hannah's forehead was crinkled with an emotion that he wasn't used to; it wasn't nervousness or even confusion—was it panic? No, not quite. Her eyes were alarmed, yes, but Jake could not describe or understand the emotion that her face showed.

"Sorry," Jake muttered, too intrigued by her expression to say anything else.

He heard Hannah sigh and saw her expression relax—if only slightly. He then noted the tension in her shoulders. She'd had the nerve to ask what was wrong with
him
? What was wrong with
her
?

Jeez. It was even worse than he thought, Jake comprehended as he grasped that she was genuinely as concerned for him as he was for her—they were already utterly damned for heartache!

"Are you ready to go in?" Hannah's voice sounded cheery, but the brightness was strained. She laughed a little. "I'm ready to fall all over the place."

Jake offered her a slight smile and removed his keys from the ignition. One of his multiple personalities chirped in his head, suggesting that maybe he just had cold feet where Hannah was concerned—fear of getting hurt the same way Mercedes had hurt him. That personality and its accompanying thoughts were dismissed quickly. "Honestly? I'm ready to see you fall all over the place."

Hannah smirked. "Thanks, Jake, thanks a lot." She reached to open the passenger side door but stopped suddenly, her eyes going wide. "Jake?"

He was taken aback by the fierceness with which she said his name. Following her gaze quickly, Jake almost gulped. "Surprise?" He forced a laugh and motioned toward Hannah's waving friends—Tisha, Libby, and Morgan—who were accompanied by Brent and Ethan. "I thought they could join us."

Malice lit up Hannah's insanely blue eyes, which she turned on Jake directly, stunning him. "Bullshit." Her arms folded over her chest. "You invited them to make me divide my time with you!"

Oh wow. She nailed it on the first try.

Actually, it had been part of his plan to distance himself from Hannah, which had been the reason he'd brought up her spending more time with her friends in the first place. He'd thought that if he could force her on her friends—unlike how he'd been able to in the past—then maybe Hannah would take away the temptation for him to always be with her. So while he'd been waiting on her arrival earlier, he'd texted their friends, inviting them along on a whim.

Whoops. He hadn't predicted such a radical reaction from Hannah.

He couldn't comprehend the need for the reaction.

"Jake!" Hannah wailed when he didn't deny her assumption. "You deliberately conspired against me!"

He owned a look of innocence, secretly perplexed by her demeanor. "What? Are we supposed to be mad at them or something? Why shouldn't they join in our skating fun?"

"No, we're not mad at them, but…" Hannah sighed, still furious. "You should have told me that you'd invited them!" Hannah was visibly distressed and upset; the observation furrowed Jake's brow. "God, Jake, why didn't you tell me they were going to be here with us?"

"I didn't know you'd be so against it," Jake answered bluntly, shrugging. "My bad, Hannah."

She sighed again, the intensity of distress more apparent. "You don't understand, Jake! I thought it was just us—you and me, alone!" Her lips twisted into a pout, and she leaned back against the seat sulkily. "Why the hell couldn't it have been that simple?"

Though confusion riveted him, quick anger surged into Jake, tensing his shoulders. "You don't have to be so whiney about it," he said flatly. "It's not like I invited people that we can't
stand
."

Hannah tossed him an indecipherable look. "As if that makes it all better. Jake!" Scowling, Hannah started muttering to herself, but Jake only caught pieces of her words. "…had to go and ruin everything…always happens to me…something always has to go wrong…so freaking unfair."

"Oh, stop bitching," Jake groaned. If there was anything he couldn't
stand
, it was self-pity. Since when had Hannah turned into such a whiner? "It's not the end of the world. Let's go already."

"No." Hannah's chin rose defiantly. "You still don't understand! And I don't even want to explain it to you now. All you've done is plot conspiracy theories against me, Jake Allen—involving them when it's absolutely mandatory that I speak to you alone."

"Hannah, I don't want you to speak to me alone." Several of Jake's multiple personalities suffered spasms and tried to shut him up, but his mouth couldn't be stopped; Hannah had made him too mad. "There are too many things that
you
don't understand, but I'm going to make them crystal clear for you right now. I can't
stand
you. I've hated you for my entire life, and—honestly—you've hated me for just as long."

Hannah stared at him, her mouth hanging slightly ajar. Her eyes were widened though not large, and they stayed trained on Jake's belligerent face.

"Conspiracy theories? I'll tell you about conspiracy theories." Jake didn't seem capable of stopping himself. "You've been living in one ever since the accident happened. If Isaac hadn't persuaded me to be nice to you, there's no way in hell that I would have put up with you as much as I have for the past couple weeks."

Hannah swallowed. "You were only n-nice to me because of I-Isaac?"

"Yes," Jake scoffed, not seeing the pain that had appeared in her eyes. "And it still wouldn't have ever happened if you hadn't been so clingy. Your grandma thought I could help you get your memory back since I was the only one you wanted anything to do with, but all I wanted was for you to get back to normal and get off my back."

When Jake stopped talking, he was suddenly aware of the silence in his truck—suddenly aware of exactly what he'd just said. At that moment, all of his multiple personalities left his head—perhaps fleeing to higher ground—leaving him with a blank mind and no idea what was even going on anymore. He stared at Hannah, increasingly unprepared for her reaction, whatever it was going to be.

A single tear fell from Hannah's right eye. "Y-you know what you don't understand, Jake?" Her voice was soft, almost tender. "You don't get why it was so important to me to see you today."

Jake didn't answer. Now his mouth refused to open.

Wryly, she smiled. "I remember everything, Jake. Everything. I wanted you to be the first person I told." Hannah slowly shook her head. "Isn't that funny?"

"What?" Jake's mouth recovered quickly—more quickly than his head had. His head was still trying to figure out what to question first—when her memory had returned, why she hadn't told him immediately, how he could make up for what he'd just said… "Aw man, Hannah… I…I'm sorry."

"You're sorry?" Hannah demanded, abruptly angry. Her eyes teared up instantly. "You're not sorry for shit! You just came out and admitted that you still can't
stand
me! You've been pretending this entire time, remember? I don't mean anything to you!"

Something stabbed at Jake's chest. For
a
moment, he wished it were something tangible and deadly. "Hannah, you—"

"I heard what you said." Her voice was frighteningly steely. "It's incredible to me that you've still been hating me this whole time. Do you have any idea how important you've been to me throughout all of this?" Hannah's hands bawled into fists, and Jake thought maybe she'd hit him. He'd deserve that. "All the encouragement you've given me… You're sick. Completely and utterly sick."

Jake's eyes dropped. There wasn't much he could say back to that.

But it didn't matter because Hannah apparently hadn't finished yet anyway.

"I can't believe I fell for it." Hannah's eyes, if possible, turned a cooler shade of blue, freezing Jake on the spot. "I can't believe I actually thought you'd be happy for me. No, you're happy for you, because now you don't have to put up with me any longer."

"It's not like that anymore." One of Jake's personalities came back—apparently one that was afraid of losing Hannah, just like he'd lost Mercedes. "I swear to God, Hannah, it's not like that anymore."

An incredulous, strained laugh came from the back of Hannah's throat. "I've believed a lot of stupid lines from you lately, but that's definitely not one I'm going to fall for."

Shock hit Jake. It really did happen—it really was possible to tell too many lies and lose credibility. It was possible to lie to yourself about your feelings, feed the same lies to the person you had the feelings for, and then be deemed unbelievable when you tried to tell the person the truth.

"I'm finished with this," Hannah announced, her voice cracking. "I'm done."

Jake reached out and caught her wrist. "You've got to let me explain. I didn't mean it! I thought I did, but I didn't."

"No, now you're just pissed because you cracked and admitted the truth," Hannah rolled her eyes. "What now, Jake? You can't have me eating out of your hand? You can't get off from playing your twisted games with me?"

Jake's mouth dropped open. "That's not what happened at all! Yeah, for quite awhile, I was mad at you and resented that I had to be nice to you, but at some point, that stopped. I don't feel that way now."

"You can't
stand
me, remember, Jake?" Hannah shook her head some more. "You've got what you want now. I'll leave you alone, and I'll divide my time between my
real
friends—the people who actually do care about me."

Reminded of their argument earlier and the warning signs that she was yet again the old Hannah, Jake unwillingly asked, "Why didn't you tell me earlier that your memory was back? You've had plenty of time today."

"And deprive you of the chance to tell me how you really feel? I don't think so." Hannah made a face of pure disgust. "I was waiting for the right time. I was going to tell you as soon as I saw you, but you started in right away with that business of pushing me off somebody else."

"Only because I was afraid of how you were going to react when your memory did come back." The irony left a bitter taste in Jake's mouth. "I thought you'd be pissed at me and accuse me of jerking you around."

"Accuse you of exactly what you've been doing?" Hannah smiled a fake smile. "Not even I thought you could be that disturbed." Her face contorted, giving way to another expression Jake couldn't understand or describe. "I kept baiting you even earlier, trying to give you opportunities to ask me about last night. But you didn't take them." Then Hannah frowned. "And, for the record, it's not exactly easy to just come out and tell someone that your memory is back. It may sound easy, but I've been totally stressed trying to figure out how to tell you. All because
I
was afraid of how
you'd
react."