The Apocalypse

by Jack Parker

  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 figur
e 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."

  That one baffled Jake. "Why were you afraid?"

  Hannah gave him a dirty look. "Wow, Jake…wow."

  Jake's brow furrowed; he was confused about her worrying but decided to ignore that for now, since she apparently wasn't going to answer that. "So when you remembered everything, you weren't mad that I've been letting you believe we were friends?"

  "No," Hannah snapped, her anger reappearing violently. "I thought you'd actually turned into a nicer guy and were showing that you didn't really hate me. But you're never going to get over that childish stuff, are you? You're always going to hate me and try to sabotage me."

  "That's not true!" Jake snapped back. "I was never trying to sabotage you! I really did want to help you get your memory back—even if it was for the wrong reasons in the beginning. Don't I get credit for that?"

  "You lost any bit of credit I'd ever give you when you lashed out today." Hannah stared at him coolly, her fists bawling tighter. "You're an asshole, Jake. A bigger asshole than I ever knew."

  Jake scowled. "Yeah, I'm an asshole, but if you'd let me explain everything to you—"

  "What kind of explanation could you have?" Hannah asked coldly. "I was completely lost after the accident, and you were the only one who didn't make me feel worse." Hannah's eyes filled with tears again. "You let me believe that I could depend on you for anything. Y-you had me completely cr-crazy over you."

  The admittance softened Jake. Hannah had just admitted to liking him? Despite everything, she'd said it? The personality of Jake's that was just as crazy over Hannah returned, scared that Hannah was never going to forgive him.

  A couple tears rolled down Hannah's smooth cheeks, and she batted them away with her fists furiously. "I would have done anything y-you asked. Hell, fifteen minutes ago I probably still would have. But what do you care about that? All you've been able to think about are ways to get rid of me."

  "Will you just let me explain everything to you?" Jake demanded, his irritation arguing with his desperation.

  Hannah scoffed. "No. I don't want to hear it."

  Jake's shoulders tensed. "That's it? I get to hear your side, but you refuse to listen to mine?"

  Opening the passenger side door, Hannah nodded. "That's exactly right, Jake. Because at this point, I don't care about anything you'd have to say, so you can save it for the next girl you want to play." She slid off the seat onto the ground outside. "I'm going to go with my friends—just like you wanted."

  "That's not what I want!"

  Hannah shrugged. "I really don't care."

  Jake stared, stung, as Hannah slammed the truck door and stormed toward the girls waiting next to the skating rink's entrance. In a matter of minutes, Hannah would have informed them—and probably Brent and Ethan as well—of the disaster he'd just created, and he would have a whole group of girls, and possibly his two best friends, pissed at him.

  All of that worry about Hannah had almost been for nothing. If he'd kept up his normal behavior for one more day without getting nervous about her memory, Jake would not be living in his own personal hell right now. Instead, he'd be celebrating with Hannah over the return of her memory and maybe even the confession of her feelings for him.

  He bet those had disappeared now.

  It was crazy to know she would have put all those years of hate behind her and been friends—maybe more than friends—if Jake hadn't exploded at her. Had he kept his calm, maybe he'd be having the time of his life with Hannah right now, not thinking about how his life derailing was solely his own fault. It was crazy to realize just how little Jake really knew Hannah, even though he'd known her for his entire life. He'd completely miscalculated any reaction that she may have had to him after her memory returned. This one wasn't even in his paranoid mix.

  Well, shit.

  So much for dealing with Hannah carefully.

  Chapter 19

  Devastating Despair

  "You're standing in my space."

  Reagan Amburgey turned her head to
stare at Hannah, who was glaring right back at the girl. Wow, Hannah had missed this—the daily fighting over the sparse space between their lockers. Finally, Reagan tucked a strand of her black hair behind her ear and replied, "Someone turned into a bitch over the break."

  "Thanks, Reagan, but, honestly, I've always been a bitch." Hannah gestured horizontally with her hand. "Now I suggest moving over before I have to do it for you."

  Reagan did move a pace or two to the side, but she kept staring at Hannah, who was opening her locker, and the feeling of her eyes—heavy laden with black eyeliner and blacker mascara—staring into her aggravated Hannah. Had it really been weeks since they'd had a showdown? How had they managed that? Oh, if a fight broke out now, Hannah would make up for lost time.

  "Did the Ghost of Christmas Future visit you and say you could act meaner because there was no hope for happiness in your future anyway?"

  Hannah tensed and jerked her books for English out of her locker. "No. The Ghost of Christmas Past visited and let me know that I'd let you have it easy for far too long, skank."

  She slammed her locker's door and shoved past Reagan. The safety of her English classroom could not be reached fast enough. It was phenomenal how even the return of her memory didn't help Hannah feel at peace at school.

  All because of Jake.

  Hannah scoffed at the thought, refusing to let her thoughts turn to him. If she thought about what happened between him and her, she would probably be forced into hunting him down and ripping his head off. Of course, it wouldn't be much of a hunt, as Jake was in her first period class, but Hannah wanted to refrain from physical violence for as long as possible. She figured she'd snap and go postal on him eventually anyway. The longer she held out, the more intense her snapping would be.

  Although Hannah recognized many faces of friends and acquaintances as she walked down the hallway, she didn't acknowledge anyone. She barely even spared glances at anyone until she was in her classroom, sitting in her own seat—one that was far away from Jake's area of the room, where she had followed him before.