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“Why are you sleeping in the living room instead of at your place?” I asked my best friend as she tugged me down onto the couch next to her. “Did you and Leo have a fight?”
“No, no. Nothing like that.” Hannah’s long black hair was down and it fell forward to partially obscure her delicate face before she pushed it back. “I had a talk with Mark yesterday.”
“What?”
“He asked me to keep an eye on you while he was gone. He’s worried about you.”
“What? I don’t—”
“Cut the shit, Joy. Ever since the attack at our apartment, you’ve been different. I knew something was up, but I was hoping it was just the stress of the whole thing. That, with time, you’d get better, but you’re getting worse.” I tried to defend myself again, the stupid need to not appear weak making me want to argue my false strength, but Hannah didn’t let me get a word in. “You’re not sleeping. You’re compulsive canning—which I know is something you do while you’re stressed. You barely leave the house, and you jump at every and any noise. I’m worried about you.”
Even now, drowning on my own, I had too much pride to reach out to her. “I’m…I’m fine.”
“No, you’re not fine, and that’s okay.” Hannah held my cold hands in her warm ones, empathy filling her big eyes. “I want to help you be fine again. Whatever you’re going through, whatever’s eating you alive, you have to let it out. I promise, you can trust me. We’ve been through so much, Joy. Honestly, your behavior is scaring me. If you don’t knock it off, I’m going to kick your ass. You’ve been taking self-defense lessons with me from Leo, you know I can neutralize any threat. Like, I can kill a guy with a pencil four different ways.”
“A pencil?”
“Or a pen. You just have to jam it through your attacker’s eye, really hard, to pop it and get to the brain. If you can, try to wiggle it around so you destroy as much of the brain as possible.” I stared at her, and Hannah said defensively, “What? It’s true. If you want them dead, you have to scramble the brain. Like a zombie.”
“You’ve been watching way to much Walking Dead.”
It was weird hearing Hannah, my usually timid and sweet friend, talk casually about killing someone. So weird that I couldn’t help but snicker, then giggle, and finally outright laugh. The offended look on her face only set me off into gales of laughter until I was holding my sides and crying.
“If we’re ever at an office supply store, I’ll be sure to stay well away from you.”
“You should be afraid,” Hannah grumbled, though she was trying to hold back her own giggles. “I could kill you with this throw pillow.”
“I am,” I protested between snorts, standing and going over to a mission-style cupboard on the other side of the room to get some tissue to wipe my face.
“But seriously, what’s going on? Talk to me. If you’re having problems processing what those motherfuckers did to us, I can help.” She gave me puppy dog eyes that I was powerless to withstand. “Please, Joy, you’re my best friend, and it kills to see you so…not you.”
With a long, long sigh that seemed to come from the pit of my soul, I gave up trying to pretend everything in my life was perfect with a feeling of profound relief. Though Hannah might come off as fragile and delicate, she had a core of steel built up from withstanding years of neglectful abuse by her parents. It was probably one of the reasons she bounced back from the attack while my mind seemed determined to make me relive every moment of it on a nightly basis.
With hitching sobs—I was tired of crying all the time—I told her about my lack of sleep, my growing paranoia when I was out in public, and the panic attack I’d had in the parking lot of the high school. I left out the part about Nova threatening me. I went on about how I doubted myself about everything, how I wished I’d been strong enough to go after what I really wanted in life—a home and family—and how much I missed my abuela. The list of things wrong with my life continued on and on, jumping from topic to topic in a frantic way that probably made me sound like a crazy person. During my meltdown Hannah merely held my hand and rubbed it, her touch slow and soothing as she listened to me with tear filled eyes. I realized then how much I missed being touched with affection, and how fucking miserable I was without Ramón, so I told her about him as well.
When I let that last part spill out, Hannah froze and said slowly, “Excuse me? Ramón? As in Ramón Cordova?”
