Chapter 36

Things were fairly uneventful for almost a week, which seemed like a major victory of some type, considering how the past few months had gone. I was making progress in my tutoring, thanks to Kat, and had pulled my math grade up to a D. I wasn’t going to be winning any awards, but I wasn’t failing any classes, which meant I wasn’t in immediate danger of Mom banning me from playing anymore.

Rhonda was still standoffish, eating outside by herself or skipping lunches. I’d offered to still be her friend and had asked her to join us at lunch a couple of times, but so far she always said ‘no.’ She wasn’t actively avoiding me anymore, and we exchanged pleasantries, but there was still a wall there. In her room, I’d offered to be her friend still, but since then there’d been nothing. Maybe it was because I’d also said I would never date her again, but whatever the reason, she’d decided to not take me up on my offer.

I’d almost thought we’d make it through the last few weeks of the semester okay. Everyone was starting to prepare for midterms and making plans for the Christmas break. Hanna and her mom would be gone over Christmas. Apparently, they went skiing every year together since her dad left and wouldn’t be back till just before New Year’s.

Since Mom still had to work pretty much, I’d already asked Willie about playing more, but that also wasn’t happening. The crowd for the Blue Ridge thinned out over Christmas for whatever reason, and Chef always reduced music to just Saturday nights the week before Christmas.

Instead, I decided to use the time to work on my own songs. I’d ended up meeting with Mr. French a couple of times already, and he was really a big help so far. I’d found out that he’d been a musician when he was younger too, traveling with a band and everything, before going back to college and getting a degree in music education. I was almost done with my first song and had started working on two more, and I was actually pretty happy with the results. They still needed work though, since they weren’t quite catchy enough, but I was getting the hang of it. I thought maybe by January I might try playing a few once at the Blue Ridge, to see what the crowd thought of them.

All that came crashing to a halt by Monday. Hanna had been taking me to school in the mornings like normal. Her mom had called me Sunday night and told me that Hanna wasn’t feeling well, which meant I had to find another way to school. Luckily, Kat agreed to come pick me up. I actually felt bad asking Kat, since I knew she wouldn’t really be able to say no, because of her condition. It felt a little like taking advantage of her, although my conscience apparently stopped just short of forcing me to ride the bus.

My concern grew once Kat actually picked me up. She was acting weirdly, refusing to speak and answering only in head nods. I’d done some reading on her condition after talking to Dr. Rothstein, and found that sometimes, when the stress got too bad, the person could go non-verbal. I’d never seen Kat do that before and I couldn’t figure out why it was happening. I did know from my reading that what I shouldn’t do was confront the non-verbal episode, but just accept it. What bothered me was that it could have been caused by me, since maybe she also felt I was taking advantage of her, somehow eroding whatever there was between us.

It wasn’t until I got to lunch that I started to get an idea of what was going on. As soon as I got to the lunch table and set down my backpack, everyone looked at me like I was some kind of monster, making me pause before sitting down.

“Nope. You need to go sit somewhere else,” Jordan said, pointing towards one of the empty tables.

“What? Why?”

“Megan saw you come to school with her. We thought you were Hanna’s friend. How could you do that?”

I was completely lost.

“You’re going to have to back up a whole bunch of steps, because I have no idea what anyone is talking about. Megan saw me with who? Why does everyone look pissed at me?”

“She saw you with Katherine this morning, getting dropped off at school. After everything Hanna’s done for you, you just go and stab her in the back. Maybe my sister wasn’t an idiot for dumping you after all,” Jordan said.

“Hanna’s mom said she wasn’t feeling well and couldn’t take me to school, so I asked Kat for a ride. She’s been tutoring me and we’re friends. I’m not sure what’s happened and I’m definitely not going to take shit over something I don’t know about.”

I turned and walked out of the cafeteria, out to the bleachers where Rhonda and I used to eat lunch. I wasn’t hungry anymore and stuffed my sack lunch in my backpack, since once I got over being pissed I knew I’d be hungry again. I was still sitting on the bleachers, seething, when I heard someone coming up the metal steps and looked up.

“Hey,” Cameron said, sitting next to me.

“You’re not joining them in being pissed at me?”

“No. I mean, they’re usually nice and all, but I only sit there because you invited me, remember. If I had to pick, I’d pick you over them.”

“I don’t suppose you know what’s happening?”

“I do, although only from what Megan and Jordan were saying. Apparently, there was a party on Sunday night, and Hanna caught Katherine and Marcus kissing, then Megan saw Katherine driving you to school this morning. Hanna apparently isn’t doing well and stayed home. I don’t know; they haven’t been dating that long and I didn’t get the impression they were that serious, so it seems like a little bit of an overreaction to me.”

“It’s not. They’re not serious, but there’s more going on than just that.”

Jordan and Megan probably knew about what happened to Hanna last year, which explained why they were so ready to jump to Hanna’s defense. They were also Hanna’s friends long before they were mine, and we weren’t all that close, since all we did was eat lunch together, so it made sense they’d immediately side with Hanna. It still pissed me off, but I got it. What I was most worried about was Hanna. After everything that happened to her, she was extra sensitive about trusting people, and this could wreck all the progress she’s made so far.

“Do you have a cellphone?”

“Yeah.”

“Can I borrow it?”

“Sure,” he said, handing it over.

I dialed the Blue Ridge and was happy to hear Chef’s voice answer.

“Hey, it’s Charlie. We have a problem with Hanna.”

“What’s the problem?”

I explained about the party and about her friends seeing me with Kat. Chef knew about Kat’s condition, or at least some of it, and came to the same conclusion I did.

“You’re thinking someone put her up to it?”

“Yes. I know Kat well enough to know she wouldn’t have done that on her own. She’s terrified of making the first move, she knows Marcus is with Hanna and she knows Hanna and I are friends. She would have done the math and figured out how that was going to play out. It explains why she seemed so scared this morning. I’m worried about her too; she’s probably tearing herself up.”

“You’re right, but I’m not sure where I can help with this? What you need is to talk with both of them, explain what’s happening.”

“I know, but I can’t do it on my own. If Hanna’s heard that Kat gave me a ride this morning, she’ll refuse to see me, and I’m stuck here. Getting another ride with Kat will make things worse.”

“I can drive you,” Cameron said.

I gave him a nod and thought up an idea, “Chef, when I was down, you made me come in and work it out. Can you do the same with Hanna? At least get her up there and focused on something else. Don’t explain about Kat, I want to be the one to do that, but I need to at least get her to listen to me long enough to explain. That’s where I need help. I can get a ride down there after school.”

“Yeah, I can do that. You know this might blow up in your face. That girl is just started getting things back together, and she’s got a lot of trust issues. It’s not my place to tell you...”

“I know what happened,” I said, interrupting him. “She told me on Thursday.”

“She did?” he said, sounding genuinely surprised. “That’s a really big step for her. She hasn’t told anyone outside of her mother and me, as far as I know.”

“I think a friend of hers knows, or at least figured it out. She’s ready to take my head and mount it on her wall.”

“Still, telling you is a big step.”

“I know, it also means if she feels like I betrayed her, it’ll be that much worse. I need to talk to her today, but this can eat at her some more. I don’t want her to backslide.”

“Me either. I’ll get her up here.”

“Thanks Chef. See you this afternoon.”

“Thanks for the loan,” I said, handing the phone back to Cameron.

“I don’t suppose you’re going to tell me what’s going on?”

“Sorry. I know it sucks to hear part of something, but it’s not my place to share their personal stuff. I appreciate you being here, man.”

“It’s okay. You helped me, right? I guess it’s my turn.”

“Let’s get to class.”

I saw Kat a few times that afternoon, but gave her a wide berth. For one, most of those times she was with Aaron, which was an entire situation I wanted to avoid, but also because I was going to have enough trouble getting Hanna to listen to me without Megan or someone else reporting back that they’d see me with her again.

I nearly sprinted out of the school when the final bell rang and was pacing by Cameron’s car when he finally showed up. He didn’t really know what was going on, but after seeing our lunch group basically throw me out and hearing part of my conversation with Chef, he got how important this was to me. He didn’t say anything on the drive over, which was probably for the best, because I wasn’t really paying that much attention. Instead, I went over what I was going to say to Hanna and what I thought she might say back. My biggest worry was that she wouldn’t bother listening.

She could be stubborn when she was hurt, and from what she’d said, when her world fell apart last year she’d basically cut off everyone in her life outside of her mother and Jordan.

“Good luck,” Cameron said when he dropped me off. “You sure you don’t want me to wait and take you home?”

“No. If I have to, I can get a ride from someone here.”

“Okay. Well, I’ll see you at school tomorrow, hopefully at lunch with everyone else.”

“Hopefully,” I said, shutting the door and heading inside.

Chef saw me coming and nodded at the back door, which wasn’t surprising. I imagined Hanna didn’t want to be here and would have wanted to stay away from other people as much as possible.

“No,” Hanna said the moment I stepped outside and she saw me. “I don’t want to talk to you. Was this his plan? Get me here so you could confront me. Figures. You’re his new wonder boy, of course he’d side with you.”

“Hanna, do you really believe that? You know Chef. He only ever does what he thinks is best, not what anyone else wants him to do.”

“I still don’t want to talk to you.”

“Good, because I want you to listen. You don’t have to talk.”

“Why should I?”

“If for no other reason, because I once helped out your cousin. If you don’t like what I have to say, I’ll leave you alone from now on.”

“Fine. Whatever,” she said and I thought she’d stop and just listen, but the cork had come out of the bottle. “Why would you do that? You hate Aaron and broke up with Rhonda because she kissed him, and here you are bringing his girlfriend into our group. Then, if that wasn’t bad enough, you’re hanging around with her after she takes Marcus from me.”

“I didn’t know what happened until lunch, otherwise I would have come to see you instead of getting a ride from Kat. Your mother told me you weren’t feeling well.”

“There’s nothing I would have wanted to see you about this morning. It’s still your fault she’s around. You became friends with her, knowing who she is.”

“You’re right; I did become friends with her knowing who she is. The problem is, you don’t know who she is. There’s more going on here than you know about. Normally I wouldn’t talk about someone else’s issues unless they told me I could, but I’m going to make an exception now. You need to understand that she had no choice in kissing Marcus. This isn’t her fault, and just to preempt the next thing you’re thinking, it’s not Marcus’s either. Hearing a full description of what happened, it sounded like he was surprised by it, and pushed her away as soon as she kissed him.”

“He did. I’m not blaming Marcus for this. I’m blaming you. What do you mean? She had no choice to kiss him. What, she just fell down and landed on his lips?”

“Like I said, you don’t have all the information. Kat suffers from something called Dependent Personality Disorder. It’s a condition that makes it almost impossible for her to disagree with someone, give her own opinion, or not do what people she feels are in charge of her tell her to do. I think it’s important to know that the main reason someone develops this disorder is through either a large trauma or extended abuse. Haven’t you ever wondered why she barely speaks and is constantly backing down? It’s because any confrontation, any at all, sends her into severe panic attacks.”

“What, so someone told her to kiss Marcus, and she just did?” she said, clearly not believing it.

“Yes. I know it seems far-fetched, but it’s true. If you don’t believe me, ask Chef. He brought in a psychologist friend to sit with Kat. She’s as much of a victim here as you are, I promise you. I’ve gotten to know her and I can almost guarantee she didn’t want to do it. She just didn’t have a choice.”