“Hey…” I narrowed my eyes when I stepped up to the table. Every girl stared at me with ridiculous grins. “What’s going on?” I asked cautiously.
“You never told us you knew Noah Greyson, Hannah.” Jill smiled.
My stomach flip-flopped. I was pretty sure whatever this was had to do with why Meg warned me to stay off the internet. Whatever this was. “Well.” I pursed my lips and exhaled through my nose. “Yeah… just um, kinda…” I could feel my cheeks heating, so I took a large gulp of water.
“Mate, he’s looking for you.”
My heart pounded. “I mean, um, I don’t know what you’re talking about, so…” I took a step back, then another with everyone’s eyes in the break room glued to me.
“He just posted a video that has over two million views asking people to help him find you.”
I froze in the middle of the room and closed my eyes. “Shit,” I whispered. “I come all the way around the world, and I still can’t get away from him.”
“Why in the world would you want to get away from him?”
“It’s uh…” I swallowed, unable to get any more words out. He was looking for me… why? Why in the world, a year and a half later…
She stepped up beside me and placed a hand on my shoulder before she leaned in and whispered, “You should watch the video when you get off.”
______
I didn’t call Meg when I got off. One it was late in the US and two, I didn’t want to listen to it. Instead, I headed straight to the beach and stripped out of my sneakers on the way to the shore. I hiked the legs of my scrubs up as far as they would go. The warm, wet sand formed under my feet, creeping between my toes before a wave sent clear water rushing midway up my calves. My phone felt like a nuclear reactor in my pocket, dangerous and deadly. It was a portal to a black hole I’d only recently dug myself out of. Regardless of that, I still shoved my hand into my pocket, wrapped my fingers around my phone, and pulled it out. The setting sun caught on the screen. What’s on that video? Do I really do this to myself?
I naively thought moving away from Rockford would solve everything. It didn’t, but I’d be lying if I said it didn’t make it easier to forget.
Everything in Rockford reminded me of Momma, of Noah. Everywhere I went reminded me of the two people I’d lost, and why do that to yourself? There was a whole world out there. It made no sense for me to stay in a place that wouldn’t allow me to let go. And someone once told me Australia was as far away from Rockford as you could get… but, evidently, it still wasn’t far enough.
As hard as it was for me to leave Daddy and Bo, I just couldn’t stay. Momma told me to live my life, but still, sometimes, when I looked out over the crystal blue waters and found myself smiling, I felt guilty, worried about whether they’re able to smile too.
Sighing, I took a few steps back and sat in the sand with my phone in hand. I typed in the first three letters of his name before “Noah Greyson” popped up in all its glory. I may have blocked him from my life, but still, I’d had enough moments of weakness and regret in the past that my smartphone knew what I was doing.
The first headline: Noah Greyson Pleads with Fans to Help Him Find His Lost Love.
The phone dropped from my hand to the sand. My pulse hammered in my ears. It was as though, for the briefest of moments, the world stopped spinning. Like a moment in a movie where everything was freeze-framed. “You’re kidding me. His lost love?” I mumbled.
He walked away from me that day at my parents’ house. He never called or texted. We may as well have been strangers after that day. He didn’t love me!
I’d spent the better half of a year trying to convince myself he didn’t care. Replaying and rehashing every moment we shared that I could remember. I just didn’t want to believe I could have been so gullible.
I closed my eyes. I remembered what he felt like against me, how his big hands felt on my waist. The tickle of the stubble on his face against my thighs. But…how many girls knew what those things felt like too? Dear friends. I wasn’t just a friend, but I wasn’t his lover, I was something in-between.
Before I knew it, I allowed all the emotions I kept under lock and key to surface. First came the hurt, followed by the anger. The regret. The wish that I had kept myself guarded. But above all, the thing that absolutely devastated me was that I couldn’t let him go. No matter how hard I tried, no matter what I told myself. I could dig up as many lies as I wanted. A hundred girls could tell me he said the exact same lines to them and it wouldn’t matter. There would always be a piece of me that held on to the belief that even if he’d told a hundred girls the same thing, he only meant them with me. I would never forget the bliss of having him inside me, that pull that existed between us. My heart bore scars from letting myself belong to someone I didn’t even know. But in my defense, for those few weeks, I believed he was my fate.
How could one person be so destructive without even trying?
My Messenger rang, the bubble picture of Meg’s pageant queen smile popped up on the screen, and I swallowed back the emotions, focusing on the whitecaps rushing to the shore. “Hey!” I tried so hard to sound upbeat.
“Shit, you looked, didn’t you?”
“I didn’t have to. I walked to the break room and a group of nurses had some video pulled up. They all stared at me like I had two heads.”
“Damn. So… what did you think?”
“I didn’t actually watch it, but one of the girls said he was looking for me.”
“Yep. Something like that.” The line fell silent. “You should watch it.”
“Nope! That ship has sailed.” I drew a line in the sand with my toe.
“Watch it, Hannah. I’m not gonna lie, I cried, and you know how I feel about the fuckface.”
I rolled my eyes. “I just don’t get why, after all this time, he would pull some crap like that.”
“Who knows, he’s a guy. They lack all sense of logic.”
“I don’t know…” I leaned over and wrote his name in the sand before swiping my hand over it. I dredged up the hate I’d taught myself to harbor against him, because there are some people in life you must learn to hate simply because it hurts too much not to. “It’s probably some dumb PR stunt.”
“At your expense?” She laughed. “I mean, don’t get me wrong, I think he’s an asshole, but he’s not that kind of asshole.”
“We don’t even know who he is anymore.”
“This is true…” She yawned.
“Go to bed.”
“You promise you’re okay?”
“Yeah.” I nodded even though she couldn’t see me.
“I miss you, Hannah Banana.”
I smiled. “I miss you, too.”
Somehow, I made it home without watching that video.
I laid down on my bed without reading one article, but I couldn’t fall asleep. The time ticked by. One AM. Two AM.
I paced my room.
I opened the doors to my balcony and listened to the tide rush in.
I watched the sunrise over the ocean, recalling how Noah told me we only had so many to see. And that’s when I realized, no matter how far I ran, I couldn’t escape the sunrise. I’d always have one thing that reminded me of how it felt when I believed he loved me.
40
Noah
People on the sidewalk stopped and snapped pictures as I passed by. I just kept walking with the phone pressed to my ear while Grandma berated me about the video I’d posted. “Boy, you done gone and lost your mind.”
I couldn’t help but laugh because she sounded a little like DMX. “I’m fine,” I promised as the glass doors with the Capstone Records logo slid open.
“I’d be ill as a hornet if I was her. Asking the entire intraweb to find her.”
“It’s the internet, Grandma.”
“Whatever web it is, I’d be angrier than a three-legged dog in heat.” I pressed the button to the elevator. “No privacy. Bless her soul, if you find her tell her
I said to whack you upside the head for me, you hear?”
“I’ll be sure to do that, seeing as how I’m a masochist and all.”
“I don’t need to know about any of that devil stuff.”
I rolled my eyes. “Look, I gotta go talk to Debra about some tour stuff, but I’ll check on you later, okay?”
“Well, alright. But you know, you should’ve just sent her some roses and chocolates. That’s real romance. Hunting her down like you’re dogblasted J. Edgar Hoover ain’t.”
“Alright, Grandma. Love you.”
“I love you too, you hoodlum.”
Within two hours of me posting that video three people that worked with her had sent me a message. I won’t lie, I smiled just a little when I found out she was in Australia of all places—the farthest away from Rockford you could get.
The elevator doors dinged open and I stepped out, following the dark hardwoods down to the office at the end. I tapped on the door and it pushed open an inch. Debra sat behind her massive mahogany desk with the phone pressed to her ear. She glanced up and waved me in before smoothing a hand over her gray dress suit.
“It’s fine, George. It’s fine. We’ll have the copyright department go over the rights and we’ll be in touch with the lawyers. Stop worrying!” She slammed the receiver down on the phone base and sighed. “Since when have men become such divas? What do you need.” She wasn’t even looking at me when she grabbed a stack of papers and started thumbing through them.
“I, uh...” I rubbed the back of my neck. “I need to take some time off.”
She laughed, still thumbing through the papers. “Funny. What do you need?”
“Three days off.”
Her eyes fluttered shut on an agitated groan. She slammed her hand over the papers before glancing up with one of her signature fake smiles. “You can have three days off when the tour is over in, oh…”—she checked her computer and squinted—“three months.”
“Debra, just three days.”
“You’re serious?” She glared at me without saying a word for a good two minutes, every once and a while drumming her manicured nails on the desk. “You’ve lost your mind.” She tossed her hands into the air. “That is the only thing I can think of.”
“I’m asking for three days!”
“In the middle of a tour.”
“Actually, it’s more like the tail end…”
Her nostrils flared like a bull and her entire body shook. “You can’t just…”—she frantically waved her hands around—“flit off whenever you want.”
I sunk down into the chair and groaned. “It’s an emergency.”
She arched a brow. “No, it’s not.”
“It fucking is!”
“Noah, everyone in the free world has seen your video…” She pointed at me. “Amazing PR move by the way, sales have skyrocketed—but that’s beside the point, you have shows. Sold out shows. You can’t leave to go find her.” She grabbed a piece of paper from the edge of her desk and scribbled something on it. “She’ll be wherever she is when you get through touring.”
“Jesus.” I pushed up from the chair. “You don’t own me.”
“No, I don’t. The label does. Congratulations on being famous, sweet cheeks.” She held the piece of paper out. “Here, go fill this and just relax for the next three months.”
I walked to the desk, snatched the piece of paper from her hand, and stared down at the little blue prescription form.
“What the hell is this?”
“Xanax. You need some.”
“You aren’t even a doctor.”
She rolled a shoulder and smirked. “I am as far as Capstone Records is concerned.”
I balled it up and tossed it at her. “I don’t need that load of shit.” Then I left the office, fuming all the way down the elevator and into the lobby.
“Hey, Noah,” some girl said as I stormed toward the exit.
I grunted and shoved the doors open, walking in an angry daze to the parking lot. “I just want three days. Three days. One day to get there. One day to see her. One day to bring her back,” I mumbled to myself before climbing into my car and driving off.
______
“Now boarding priority for Delta flight 248 bound for Perth, Australia.”
“Tell me I can’t have three fucking days,” I mumbled as I pushed away from the wall. I pulled my ball cap down when I stepped up to the attendant desk and scanned the ticket on my phone.
“Enjoy your flight Mr.…” there was the pause, the moment a fan tried to maintain their professionalism. “Mr. Greyson.”
When I glanced up and smiled, her cheeks reddened. “Thanks,” I said, staring at the boarding pass on my phone. The loud hum of the generators on the jet bridge were almost like the sound of home these days.
Once on the plane, I quickly found my spot and stowed my carryon away before falling into the comfy first-class seat. I pulled one of her letters out of my pocket, staring at the words: I loved you.
A lady with box-dyed black hair and a leopard print shirt waddled down the aisle and plopped in the seat next to me. I tucked the letters safely away. “So you’re my flying buddy today, huh?” she said with a grin.
“Looks like it.”
“It’s my first time to Australia. I’ve always dreamed of going.”
Great! She was a talker. “Yeah, it’s a nice place.”
“Oh, you’ve been?” She gave me a quick once-over. “Oh, you must be going home.”
I narrowed my eyes. “No, just going to visit.”
“Oh, well.” She shimmied down in her seat before popping her purse open and pulling out a pack of gum. “You had this look on your face like you were going home. Something in your eyes.” She took a piece of gum, then offered me a stick.
“I’m fine…thanks.”
Sighing, she dropped her purse to the floor as a stewardess came by followed by a few passengers. “You know,” the lady said. “You look awfully familiar.”
“Yeah…I get that a lot.”
She studied my face. “Uncanny resemblance to somebody.”
I shrugged.
“Well, I won’t bother you too much.” She bent over and pulled a magazine out of her bag, flipping it open. On the back cover was an advertisement for my latest album. I sunk down in the seat and pulled my cap over my eyes waiting for the damn plane to take off.
41
Hannah
The next morning, I sat on my couch, clutching a cup of coffee to my chest after only two hours of sleep. I glared at my phone as notification after notification popped up on the lock screen. I wanted to kill him for saying my name on that video.
I swiped out of my lock screen. I was alone. I didn’t have work that day, so if the video caused me to have a mental breakdown, at least I could go crawl back in bed. It was obvious this wasn’t going away anytime soon, so I might as well get it out of the way.
I searched his name and took my pick of links to follow, waiting as the video loaded. The little circle seemed to spool forever. Finally, the play button popped up and, with a deep breath, I pressed it.
The camera shook as Noah steadied it. “Damn, it’s windy out here,” he said. Wind rustled across the speakers, catching his dark hair. I could just make out what looked like an empty arena behind him. “I have a favor to ask y’all—” His gaze strayed down, and he grinned. “Hey Sarah, hey Jen. Thanks, Katie. Alright, so you know I suck at these Facebook live video things, but…” He exhaled before rubbing his lips together. “There’s this girl I need to find. I met her over a year ago, and man, she just kinda stole my heart, even though I didn’t think I had a heart to steal.” He looked right at the camera and my heart held back a few beats. My throat tightened. I could smell him, taste him… the memory is a sadistic little demon sometimes. “She’s the girl I write all my songs about. I guess…” An uneasy laugh slipped through his lips and he rubbed the back of his neck. “I guess I thought—I hoped that maybe she’d hear them and realize how
much she meant to me. I don’t guess she has though. She’s the only thing that’s ever made me happy, and I just kinda”—shrugging, he shook his head—“let her walk away. Or I walked away. I don’t know, all I know is I let her go when I shouldn’t have. I still think about her every day. Every night before I go to bed.” I set my coffee down, my heart banging against my ribs. “But I can’t find her. I went back home to Rockford, and she’d left to do some traveling nurse thing.” My vision blurred behind tears. He wasn’t even looking at the camera. “So, if any of you know a pretty girl with dark hair and brown eyes that looks like she belongs in a country video, named Hannah Blake, that’s my girl. Tell her I need to talk to her. Tell her I should have fought for her…” He looked at the screen for a second, I guess reading over the comments most likely clogging up his feed. “Every song, Tammy. Every song was written for her. If you know her, let me know.”
The phone shook before the video froze and went into another recommended video of some kid dancing in a diaper. I let go of the breath I didn’t realize I was holding, then I dropped the phone to the couch and swiped a hand over my mouth. Every song he’d written felt like it was us. When his album came out, it ripped open a new wound, but I convinced myself those songs were about every girl he’d been with. I’d convinced myself I was just another girl lost among the numbers. I had to, but now… I swallowed and inhaled a shaky breath before I picked my phone back up and stared at it. I could just find his number and call him. I could unblock him from Facebook and shoot him a message.
It shouldn’t have been so difficult, but when I went to unblock him, my finger hovered over the button. Noah hadn’t done anything terrible to me, and that’s what had made it so hard. All the memories I held of him were sweet, beautiful, and maybe that’s why they hurt so badly. He didn’t hurt me, I hurt myself because I fell for someone I had no business falling for.
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