The Apocalypse (45 page)

Libby scowled. "I hear you talking, but I don't hear you explaining the conspiracy that's going on behind mine and Hannah's back."

The mention of conspiracies and Hannah's back made Hannah want to dissolve into a fit of tears. However, she refused to let herself go to goo like that; she'd be strong about this—she'd get a heart of glass, damn it, if that's what it took to heal from this fiasco with Jake.

"There isn't a conspiracy." Tisha rolled her eyes grandly, seeming mildly disgusted with Libby's aggression. "It was always Morgan who was supposed to keep an eye on the guys. She's smart and could have seen a strike from them coming, if any of them tried to talk Hannah into seeing Jake. Well, she was eavesdropping on Brent and Ethan this morning. Jake had decided to lay out of school today, and they went to hang out with him." Tisha paused and shrugged. "Morgan followed along and demanded to hang out with them, that's all. She was trying to see how Jake's doing after all of this mess with Hannah."

"How Jake's doing?" Libby scoffed, crossing her arms furiously. "Jake screwed Han over, and we're worried about him?"

Hannah frowned, not liking the situation at all. "Tisha…really, I wish you and Morgan had mentioned this earlier. I don't want anything to do with Jake. I don't care how he is or what he's doing or thinking or feeling. You guys should just leave him alone. That's what I'm going to do."

Tisha appeared thoughtful. "I had a feeling you'd say that."

"And you still went along with this?" Libby asked incredulously.

Hannah knew that Libby was only this upset because she'd been left out of the loop. Had she been involved with the plot and known what was going on, Hannah had no doubt that Libby would be acting just as calm as Tisha was. She was just mad that she was as clueless as Hannah.

"I've got Han's best interests at heart," Tisha explained, looking at Hannah. She pressed her hands together and placed them on the lunch table. "Do you want to know why Jake's not at school today?"

Curiosity piqued, Hannah almost admitted that she did want to know why Jake was cowering—if that was what he was doing—at home when she, the injured party here, was braving school. But Hannah refused to fall into that trap. Because, really, what if it was just a trap? What if this was Jake's last—or just next—stunt to pull Hannah back into his mind games?

Morgan wouldn't fall for that. Part of Hannah knew that and put some trust in the situation. Morgan was the smart one, and she was with the boys—with Jake—right now. She'd see through any lies that were told.

Hopefully.

But she hadn't seen through them before, when Jake had conned Hannah's friends into telling him information about her. Remembering that made Hannah remove the trust that she'd just given Morgan's judgment of Jake's character. Even the genius girl could be fooled from time to time.

"Hannah?"

Tisha was waiting ever so patiently on Hannah's response. A very tiny part of Hannah—the part that was still crazy about Jake—had hoped that Tisha would press on without waiting on Hannah to prompt her. But of course, the world conspired against Hannah Ayers, and nothing was ever that simple.

"I want to know!" Libby declared.

Ah, maybe the world could be simple, if Libby could prompt the response.

"I didn't ask you," Tisha replied calmly, as if knowing that Hannah was hoping for an easy way to get the information out in the open. "I asked Hannah. Hannah, would
you
like to know why Jake isn't here?"

"We all know that he doesn't have the balls to face her or us," Libby said obviously. Her hands fidgeted with the intricate up-do her dark hair was in, the same up-do that Hannah had deemed ugly earlier in the day. "That's why he's hiding out. He knows I'll pulverize him."

The thought of Jake writhing in pain on the floor briefly amused Hannah. Maybe there was something to that revenge that Libby kept offering to put Jake through. Wouldn't it be nice to see him tortured—if even just the tiniest bit—for all the emotional upset that he'd created for Hannah?

An eye for an eye, a life for a heart…

Jake's life, that is, for Hannah's broken heart.

"Tell me." Hannah made the decision on a whim. Glutton for punishment or cynical enough to want to doubt Jake's reasoning, Hannah wanted to know. "Why isn't Jake at school today?"

Tisha leaned toward Hannah, as though the reason was hurting even her. "He's not here because he's afraid of how you feel about him. Jake's heartbroken, Han. The poor kid is crazy about you, but you wouldn't let him tell you that." She paused, seeming nervous for a second, but then Tisha went on. "Now, I totally get why you were too pissed to let him explain. It was an easy thing to mistake and all, but, Hannah…Jake's crazy about you!"

Hannah stared at Tisha. That was it? That was what Jake was telling people now? He all of a sudden could stand Hannah, didn't hate her, and was worried that she had bad feelings toward him? He was lovesick and moping over her?

Yeah. It'd take a lot more than a severe bump on her head to make Hannah fall for that one.

Jake had told Hannah himself that he couldn't
stand
her. His words had been that he hated her and that he always would. There was no way that Hannah would ever be able to believe that Jake's feelings could change into some heated passion for her just like that. It would take an idiot to believe him.

Slowly, Hannah turned her strawberry blonde head to Libby. For the past several minutes, Libby had taken on the anger that Hannah was feeling, and she expected Libby to react to Jake's alleged feelings with fury. When Hannah saw Libby, Libby was staring right back at her, her forehead furrowed above her blue eyes.

"I don't know what to say, Han." Libby seemed to read Hannah's mind, feeding off of the serious doubt that Hannah had. "I really just don't know what to think about it at all."

Hannah looked at Tisha and raised her eyebrows. "You believe Jake?" Hannah asked, not bothering to hide her annoyance. "Really, Tisha?"

Earnestly, Tisha nodded, her blue-green eyes seemed to glow in a way that disgusted Hannah, who had had her anger rekindled. It was bad enough that Jake had the power to hurt her, but when he was given the power to make her friends look like a bunch fools that believed his lies too, it pissed Hannah off on a new level.

Oh, Jake was good. He'd fooled her friends, fooled her, fooled her friends again… For him to go through so much trouble, Hannah decided that Jake definitely had something up his sleeve—one last trick that he wanted to pull on her or something to that effect.

"I think—no, I know…I'm livid." Hannah stood up from her seat in the cafeteria, a perfectly controlled air about her. She inhaled slowly, angrily. "If you guys want to believe Jake, that's fine with me. But I'd rather burn the skin off my body than listen to Jake and his lies."

She turned around, desperate to get out of the cafeteria. There had to be
a
place where she could go and think happy thoughts by herself with no interruptions and with no pressure to think about Jake. It sickened her that her friends were catering to Jake, letting him play his twisted mind games, and Hannah thought maybe that was his latest game, to blindside her friends next.

Well. That wasn't going to happen. Hannah would take him out first.

Jake felt positively ill. It had been days since he'd talked to Hannah, and the feelings he felt over that were overwhelming. He was pretty sure that he'd never before gone more than a day without interacting with Hannah in some way throughout his entire life, and, for once, not even the coldest of his multiple personalities could deny that it just wasn't right not to talk to her. Even if his warmest personalities weren't crazy over Hannah, he still would have felt weird going so long without even so much as a glare from Hannah.

Pacing his bedroom floor, Jake looked at the clock. The display said it was seven-forty. It had been a long day.

Jake had woken up at his usual early hour and decided almost right away that he didn't have the audacity to go to school. As a senior, he felt he had the right to take a day off every now and then, and, since he hadn't before, Jake skipped out on his classes—and Brent and Ethan had skipped right along with him.

When Morgan Owens had showed up at his house, Jake had been shocked, but she'd explained easily that she was concerned about his wellbeing. Jake had almost scoffed until he realized that she was serious. Realization had then hit that that was why Brent and Ethan were there too; they were all worried about the effect that Hannah's anger was going to have on Jake.

"I saw it when you came to get help with Hannah from us," Morgan had said. "I knew that day that you were falling for Hannah, even if you didn't want to see it for yourself."

With Morgan saying stuff like that and Brent declaring that Jake was in over his head with Hannah, it hadn't taken Jake long to come clean—he confessed that 'sometimes his head got screwed up' and that he 'liked' Hannah 'way too much' but 'only sometimes.'

"Really, dude, it's been obvious," Brent had declared. "I could tell you weren't ready to talk about it though or else I would have made you own up to this a long time ago." He had then proceeded to smirk at Ethan and say, "And you owe me twenty bucks. I told you that Jake would fess up eventually."

It had amused and irritated Jake that his two best friends had bet over him. Mainly it amused him, since he knew that he would have bet on either of them if the situations were reversed.

Before the time his friends and Morgan had left, however, Jake was singing a new tune. He was sprouting a melody that openly admitted that he harbored romantic feelings for Hannah Ayers, his pride be damned, rather than insisting that his feelings for her were only confused some of the time. It, shockingly, wasn't as hard as he thought it would be to admit that Hannah had started to mean something to him; the harder part was admitting that he was lovesick over her being mad at him. After all, Jake had never been one to get moony or mopey.

"Take the offense," Ethan had suggested. "Maybe being bold with her never got me anywhere, but she likes you. Boldly let her know that you like her too."

Hearing that, Jake had flirted with the idea of going up to Hannah and kissing her, much like she'd randomly kissed him. It was cheesy, yes, but if it worked, then who really cared about that? But the fear of failure had implanted in Jake; he lacked what it took to make himself that vulnerable, at least at this point.

"Stalk her."

That had been Ethan's next grand idea. Listening to his friend helped Jake understand why Ethan didn't have a girlfriend.

"Bribe her with food," was the idea that Brent had tossed up. "Shove a cupcake in her hand, and while she's eating it, make her listen to you."

Brent's mindset worried Jake about how Tisha was going to handle him. Hopefully, Brent and Tisha would never get into an argument because, obviously, Brent's ideas for making up were not the brightest. Though Jake did admit that he'd lengthily considered the gist of that idea before rejecting it.

Ethan and Brent had bickered about the best way to get Hannah to forgive him. Everything from buying her an expensive gift (or a pizza), to taking her someplace special (or holding her hostage), and to seducing her (or sedating her) had been discussed. Their thoughts did little for inspiring Jake, but they definitely kept him entertained, which was something to be grateful for.

Unfortunately, Morgan had been utterly no help at all, at least not for coming up with
a
plan for Jake to use. She had been able to communicate to Hannah through Tisha (as had Brent) that Jake was going crazy with worry and attraction, but Morgan was just as clueless as the guys. Everyone knew how stubborn Hannah could be, and there was no way to pretend that Jake hadn't spilled negative information to her. He'd screwed up, and Jake was blaming himself mercilessly.