8
Carter
I walk into the club and take my seat at the bar, mentally preparing myself to see her half naked again dancing for other men. When I see Troy, I nod my head at him and he walks over, handing me a piece of paper. I unfold it and it says, “Hanna” with what looks like a phone number.
Instantly, I see red. “Do you always give her number out?”
His jaw tightens as if I’ve insulted him. “No, she asked me to give it to you. She said she thought you might come in and wanted you to call her.”
I nod my head at him and walk out and sit down in my car.
I stare at the phone number for the longest time before I pull out my cell phone and type it in. As soon as she answers, I get straight to the point. “Why’d you give me your number?”
She starts to answer, and then I hear a little voice in the background that sounds like, “Mommy, Mommy.”
I pull it from my ear and look down at it, like I have a snake in my hand that is about to attack. Did I hear that right? Did someone call her Mommy?
Hanna’s voice is muffled as I hear her say, “Hold on one second, baby. Aunt Janice will be here in a minute.”
I sit there stunned. Aunt Janice? Hanna doesn’t have a sister. Is she married? Is Janice her husband’s sister?
My heart squeezes in my chest, and I barely resist hanging up and going back inside for a beer. But her words stop me. “Can you come over? I need to talk to you.”
Blunt is the only way I know how to be. “You don’t have a sister Janice. So I’m assuming it’s your husband’s sister and you have a child together. I’m not coming over to see your family.”
She huffs loudly in the phone and I hear background noise like she’s running around opening cabinets, closing them. “I’m not married. Look, I tried for two years to see you to talk to you to explain. I can’t keep doing this.”
I interrupt her. “YOU can’t keep doing this?”
Her voice softens instantly. “I’m not going to fight with you. I’m going to text you my address. Come if you want.”
And then she hangs up.
I sit there and stare at my phone for I don’t know how long. I know I’m going to go and when her text comes through, I put the address in my phone and realize she lives across town. I drive slowly, trying to get my racing heart to slow down.
When I pull up to the dilapidated apartments, I cringe at the trash strewn throughout the parking lot. I look at my phone and the address on the building in front of me and I’m at the right spot. I get out of my car and walk to her door and as I lift my hand to knock, the door opens.
“Hey, come on in.”
I walk in, trying to prepare myself for a little Hanna to walk out. I look around at the bare walls and the minimal furniture, but I don’t see any tiny person. “Where’s your kid?”
She flinches at my tone, but she answers me regardless. “My friend Janice is watching her. Have a seat.”
Hanna
I try to hide my insecurities. I know he thinks this place is junk, but it’s the most I can afford. I don’t even address the questions I see in his eyes as he looks around the room. I get straight to the point. “Do you remember when we graduated?”
Just mentioning it, his eyes darken, and I realize that he’s remembering our graduation night where he took my virginity and then had me two more times through the night.
“I’m not talking about… that. Do you remember the next day?”
He just shrugs his shoulders, and I can see he’s apprehensive about where this conversation is going, so I remind him. “Your family left our graduation to go to a family birthday party in Ohio. We had the house to ourselves. You got up and started making breakfast and when we sat down to eat, you grabbed my hand.” I pause and try to gather my wits about me. “You told me that you were quitting baseball. That you were going to stay in town and work for your dad at his tool shop.”
He shrugs his shoulders, like he doesn’t understand where I’m going with this. “Yeah, I remember.”
“Well, I freaked out.”
“Okay…”
“No, I mean I literally freaked out. I didn’t know what to do,” I confess to him.
He shakes his head. “I don’t understand.”
“I couldn’t let you give up baseball. You loved baseball. It was your life, and I knew that as long as we were together, you wouldn’t have left.”
He sits up straighter in the chair, his eyes going wild as he’s taking in what I just said, as if he’s trying to work a puzzle in his mind. “Hanna…”