Page 133 of Promise Me Nothing
I shake my head. “No fucking clue.”
I get dressed quickly, grab both of our phones, and leave my house with one purpose in mind.
Find Hannah and make her listen to me.
Convince her to forgive me for all of the ways that I’ve clearly fucked this up.
My first stop is Bennie’s, but I’m not surprised to learn that she got another server to pick up the shift she had picked up from Eleanor.
Lucas calls and says she’s not at home, though her bike is there, which means she couldn’t have gotten far.
“Unless she took a cab somewhere,” Lucas interjects.
“Where the fuck would she go?” I say over the phone.
“Uh, I don’t know,” he says, sarcasm dripping from his voice. “The airport? The bus station? A hotel? Back to Phoenix? The last thing she wants right now is to talk to either of us. So one of us should probably wait here for her.”
My stomach plummets at the idea that she might have left. For good. I can’t imagine she would do that though. Hannah isn’t impulsive. She’s measured. Thoughtful. Careful. A decision like that would take time to make.
Though I can understand how overhearing your brother and your boyfriend talking about all the ways they lied to you might cause some uncharacteristically irrational behavior.
“You stay at your house. I have to keep looking. But call me if you hear from her or see her, okay?”
He agrees, and we hang up.
And then I go on a completely fruitless search, knowing I’m not going to find her on my own.
The Wave.
Harbor’s.
Mary’s.
I check the sand dune.
Even the yacht club.
I call all of my friends, let them know we’re looking for her.
As the hours continue to pass with no sign of her, I head back to Bennie’s at the Pier, my mind resigned to the fact that I won’t be able to fix this just by trying to track her down.
But my trip back to Bennie’s isn’t in search of Hannah.
It’s to talk to Ben.
He meets me in the loading bay and hands me a beer, clinks his bottle against mine before taking a seat next to me on the grimy steps leading up to the dock.
It’s amazing how quickly and desperately I feel in need of my brother’s advice.
The one man that I’ve considered a coward for years.
The man who seemed to be afraid and alone all the time.
Knowing how affected Hannah is probably going to be by what she heard, I need the wise words of a man who has had to deal with painful and bitter issues in relationships. The advice of a man who has truly hit rock bottom before, and seems to have found his own unique way to recover.
Because really, as Ivy’s other brother, he might be the only one who will understand both my love for Ivy,andhow much I love Hannah.
“That is… quite an unfortunate turn of events,” he says to me after I finish relaying to him the entirety of the morning.
