Page 43 of Unfinished

The only reason I wasn’t fighting this Oscar guy was because both Hannah and Ashley were blocking him from me. Who did he think he was touching what belonged to me?

“You could have handled this like adults,” Bas said, and Ashley looked at him.

“So she should have gone over, ripped into the redhead and said, ‘get your hands off my man,’ then what? No, she let him choose his own actions and avoided a very public fight,” Ashley said, “So, tell me Bas, what part of that wasn’t acting like an adult?”

“Leaving with another guy,” Bas said.

“I think you mean leaving with a friend. We haven’t seen each other since last summer, when we spent every single day in high school together, the three of us. Choosing to leave after Liam made it clear he didn’t care if she was around or not by ignoring her all night,” Ashley said.

I looked at Hannah and I practically saw the wall building between us. I was pissed at my mom for trying to put Hannah on the spot and Hannah was right about how my mom would see it if we refused the dinner invite. I ignored Hannah and then, when she walked off with Ashley, I let Melissa flirt with me, and I didn’t really have any excuse as to why. Hannah didn’t do anything wrong here until Oscar showed up, at least.

When I looked at Oscar, he shook his head at me with a grin. The same type of grin I would give if I was trying to steal someone’s girl. They say they’re only friends, but I saw how he was checking her out on the beach.

“Hannah,” I started and she looked at me, “Can we talk?”

“Look it’s been a long day, let’s call it a night,” she started walking to her own Jeep that Ashley drove here for the party, but I followed her.

“I’m not letting you walk away till we talk!”

“What, Liam?” Hannah turned on her heel to face me, her voice hard, “You had all damn day and night to talk to me, but ever since your mom called you’ve pretty much ignored me. You had plenty of opportunities to talk to me.”

“Come on, I didn’t want to fight over that invite.”

“You said no to dinner. I disagreed but it’s your family, so I’m not saying anything more on it because it’s not my fucking place. You made an assumption that I would fight you on this. Then you went with that assumption and ignored me to avoid an imaginary fight. Now you’re picking the god damned fight you tried to prevent in the first place. What do you want me to say?” Hannah threw her bag into her Jeep and turned back to me.

I was speechless because I didn’t really know what to say to her. Her interpretation of the entire night was pretty dead on. In trying to avoid an argument I was having in my head, I ignored her and then let Melissa flirt with me. When I didn’t respond, she climbed up into her Jeep and started it. She pulled out of the spot and took off.

Hannah didn’t even mention Melissa flirting with me because that wasn’t what she was mad about. She was mad that I ignored her and then picked a fight with her.

What did I do? I fucked up. We were a few weeks out from leaving and I let my jealousy and issues with my mother ruin all the trust Hannah had in me. Getting Hannah to trust me isn’t something that’s easy to do. When her mom left her, it shattered Hannah’s ability to trust and I fucked that all up. Fuck! I ran off to my Jeep, jumped in and tried to follow her.

Still, the caveman in me wasn’t going to let this go easily. If she thought she’d walk away from me, she was wrong. I'd always fight for her.

Driving down the road, I spotted her Jeep a couple of cars ahead. She turned, and headed away from her home. Where was she going? I continued to follow her, leaving space between us until Hannah pulled into the parking lot of another beach further south than the one we were at today. There were a few cars in the lot and I parked a bit away from her. Was she meeting someone here?

She got out and took the staircase down to the beach. I watched her over the ledge and she walked out to the beach and sat down on the sand. I waited for a while to see if anyone would join her, but no one did. I walked down the stairs then to where she sat. She looked up at me but then looked back out to the blackness of the ocean. I dropped down to sit next to her.

“I’m an ass. I’m sorry for ignoring you today,” I murmured.

“Why did you ignore me?”

“Because you are right about the dinner. I don’t want you to be right, so if I ignore it you’ll magically be wrong about it.” There was no other option than to be completely honest about my behavior and she huffed a laugh.

“It’s not about being right or wrong. If you don’t want me to be around your mother yet, I understand that and respect your decision. It’s not like I want to meet with your mother when I already know she dislikes me.”

“I want to protect you for as long as I can from the vapid and horrible side of my world. I'm not like them. The people I call friends aren't like that either. I don't want the actions of my mother or her side of the world to reflect badly on me.”

She sighed heavily and some of the tension she had in her visibly dissipated as she breathed out, "I get it."

“I’m sorry I let Melissa flirt with me. I should have told her to leave.”

“Oscar really is just a friend, we’ve been friends so long and he has a boyfriend back at Ohio State,” she said and I nodded, feeling even more stupid about my damn assumptions.

“I wanted to punch him,” I admitted and she laughed softly.

“Caveman,” she whispered.

“I’m fucking up, so of course, I want to go all caveman to impress you so that you’ll stick with me.”

---