She grabbed pictures from other sites. Pictures of other people’s breakfasts, other people’s coffees and sunsets and friends. She used them al , along with the two selfies she’d just taken, and created a profile on the site used most often by Sam and his friends.
She used the laughing cleavage shot for her profile pic, then started liking and commenting on the boys’ posts. Quickly, much faster than she’d expected, she had results. Two friend requests from two of the boys, and a few likes. Hannah shook her head, smiling a little.
“Jesus. It’s almost too easy.”
Sean was shaking his head, half-smiling, but she could see that he wasn’t relaxed. Something was bothering him.
“What?”
“What do you mean, what?”
“You think it’s beneath me to use my feminine wiles?”
“Hannah, far be it from me to get between you and your feminine anything.”
“Okay, but something’s definitely on your mind.”
He sighed, gave her one of his sideways glances. “I know you lied, Hannah.” His hands clutched the steering wheel. “About your mom. There’s no cancer trial at University Hospital.”
“You checked up on me?” Hannah asked faintly. Shit. Shit shit shit. Not this. Not now.
“After what happened at Greensvil e, Camila had some crazy ideas. I thought they were out there. But . . . I cal ed the hospital.
They told me there’s no cancer trial.”
Hannah reached for words and found none. The silence went on too long.
“Maybe it’s true that your mother’s sick, I don’t know, but she’s not being treated here. You must have other reasons for transferring to UVA.”
Hannah fought the urge to tel him everything. She might have, if it had been her story to tel . If she could have trusted him. But maybe she could tel him something. Some measure of the truth. “My mother is an alcoholic,” she said flatly. “She’s been an alcoholic al of my life, since I was a very smal girl. She goes through stages where she has it together, stages where she fal s apart. It’s hard. Ever since I was a little girl, I’ve taken care of her. I needed to get away. I needed to be by myself. So I took the transfer.”
Sean drew in a breath and let it out. “Is that the truth?” he asked.
“Yes.” Oh God. She’d intended to lie, to cover herself, but . . . was there some truth to what she’d just said? Had she left Orono, at least in part, because she couldn’t handle home anymore?
“Why the cancer story?”
“Because if I say cancer, people leave me alone. If I say I’ve left my alcoholic mother to fend for herself, people want to know more.
And I don’t want to talk about it.”
He looked away. “Then I’m sorry. I should have respected your privacy. I’m sorry for pushing. It was a shitty thing to do.”
Hannah nodded, swal owed her guilt, and they fel silent for a while. “I liked your mom,” she said. “She seems . . . it seems like she loves you a lot.”
“She’s pretty great,” Sean said quietly.
“My dad died too,” Hannah said. “Before I was born. I never got to meet him.”
Sean glanced at her. “That’s rough, Hannah.”
“Do you remember your dad?”
“Some. I have some real y clear, specific memories. Like, on my tenth birthday he gave me this whole talk about how doubledigit birthdays are real y important—that was a good one. The day I knocked the TV off the table and broke the screen. Man, was he pissed. I won’t forget that one in a hurry. And then other memories are a bit more confused—a kind of mishmash of lots of different days, you know, playing bal in the park down from our house, that kind of thing.” He was smiling.
“That sounds nice.” It was a while before Hannah spoke again.
“Your mom, she doesn’t seem angry about your dad dying. When she talks about him, she doesn’t seem angry.”
“Wel , she used to be, for sure. For a few years. But I started to get into trouble in school, you know, and I guess she realized that I was pretty angry too. Maybe a smal part of that was me realizing I was gay and not knowing how to handle it, but mostly it was that I was so angry about Dad. That’s when she started talking to me more about everything. About how carrying that kind of anger around wil poison your whole life. So we agreed to try to let it go, and for the most part we’ve been able to.”
Hannah nodded. “That’s good.” It was impossible not to compare his life with her own. Al her life she’d blamed their problems on her father’s death and Laura’s trauma. Things might have been different if they could have let some of their pain and anger go. Hannah shifted in her seat. It occurred to her that once things had been different. Before the diary, before she had found out the truth, the only person she’d been angry at was her mother.