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  Not one person seemed to notice that a scrawny kid who’d weighed 140 at the end of last season had climbed to 180lbs. of pure muscle in a few months. Didge and I had been juicing, taking steroids to stimulate strength and growth. No one knew, and we swore each other to secrecy. Apparently the stuff had messed up my fertility.

  Hanna’s mom kept getting worse. Her quality of life diminished. Hanna finally conceded she couldn’t save her. I never told Hanna why we didn’t get pregnant. The risk was too great.

  Chapter 5

  Hanna

  Today my pack rolled in dead pelican guts on our beach walk, one of the hazards of living near the ocean. I had to borrow soap from a surfer and use the beach showers. I told them they disrespected their alpha by partaking in such low life behavior. They splashed and played delighted.

  Back in hell exhausted, I fell upon my bed contemplating my existence. In the background a mix CD of Springsteen classics relayed mournful stories. My mom loved Bruce. She liked his early work best…poetic, deep, heartbreaking stuff. Her favorite song was If I Should Fall Behind. When the doctors gave her six more months she told me she wished she had met a man that song applied to before she died. Didn’t happen.

  For the funeral, I compiled classic Springsteen hits for background music. Tanner advised that maybe I should keep it light. “Hello, Bruce”, I said waving the track list. Early Bruce is not light. I decided to keep the music contained just around the television that would display a video picture collage looping during the funeral. I removed the songs Fade Away and The River from the play list only keeping Born to Run and Thunder Road. Lyrics about breaking free took the mourners from tearful shots to more carefree days.

  I woke up from another dream startled. The taste was back. Not pennies. The blood was either from me biting the inside of my mouth or from grinding my teeth. The dream of my mom faded. I still didn’t know what she was trying to say. Reaching for my cell, I started to text Tanner.

  The stepsister I now shared a room with barged in. I contemplated going to the media room that I often thought of as the lowest level of hell. Discounting this idea because there was a chance my dad and stepmom might be occupying the area I stayed put. Watching them engage in lovey cuddling on the couch would be excruciating.

  “Do you mind?” I asked as she hit the power button on my stereo.

  “Yes, load that crap onto your IPod and put in earbuds so the rest of us don’t have to suffer.”

  I started to retort but stopped myself as I heard Stepmom stomping up the stairs before she turned the handle on our door, popped her head inside. “Everything all right Lainey?”

  “Yeah Mom.” Lainey rolled her eyes at me as her mother departed. She was nosing around my desk, picking up all my supplements. “Folic acid, some multi-vitamin plus iron with half the label torn off, flaxseed oil, omega 3 oils from cold pressed fish. Why would your dad believe a health nut like you was pushing?”

  “I inherited most of my brain power from my dead mother.”

  She grunted and plopped down on her Polo comforter. Though in his presence, she gushed and often preened my father’s huge ego I could tell deep down she resented him. “How do you like my school?”

  I scrutinized her. This was my third week. I shrugged unwilling to respond.

  “You really hurt your chances of getting friendly with anyone decent by lunching with Della.”

  I shrugged again. “What’s wrong with Della?”

  She ticked off her reasoning, “She’s fat, slutty, a total loser.”

  “Are these your deductions?”

  “If the shoe fits.”

  7th Grade 6 years earlier

  I slipped in beside Tanner at the long cafeteria tables. Now that we were in junior high we only had four classes together. We’d hung around each other so long our classmates just accepted that we sat together at lunch, on the bus ride home, and sometimes got off or on the bus at each other’s houses.

  “Mrs. Ferrell put Benny in my cooking group in home economics.” My tone conveyed my disgust.

  “He likes you,” Tanner replied with a shrug.

  “No, he doesn’t. He likes being mean.” I ignored Tanner’s comment. He said that about every boy who did anything mean to a girl. I was just glad I wasn’t one of the girls who had been pantsed recently. Peyton got her gym shorts pulled down before PE and she had on Wednesday panties on Friday. She just laughed it off. I could never do that.

  “Yes, he does. He told me in shop class.” He smiled and slipped me some grapes from his tray.

  Present

  In the lunch room, Della and I chose a spot near the window. Peripherally, I saw a table of classmates staring pointedly at us.

  “What do you think that is about?” Della motioned with her head towards them.

  “Does it matter?” Once it had, now all I saw when I looked their way was teenage gossips.

  The cafeteria chair on my left scraped as it slid back. “You went to Sacred Academy, right?”

  Is she asking or confirming? She was smug. I ignored her, didn’t answer.

  “That yearly ritual thing, you look familiar.”

  I cringed. “There is no ritual thing. It’s something the football team makes up to look cool.” I imagined the images, the ones I wished I had never seen.

  “Made up, huh? I heard they made the mistake of posting it and the site was hit so many times it crashed,” I watched the way her full mouth moved as she spoke. She would have been a target.

  I went back to my food. As if entitled to a response, she harrumphed and followed with a hair toss on her return to her gossiping clique.

  I was all day dreamy and not in a good way for the last three classes wanting to text Tanner about what happened at lunch. We’d been together the last night at his house. I’d wanted out of hell and would have slept most anywhere else. When I’d left at 5 a.m. he was still in bed, flat on his back wearing nothing but a frown.

  When I got to my father’s residence, I snuck back in my room. Gator was sleeping in my bed since I wasn’t. The boxer pjs and tank top I drove home in seemed a bad choice. My face was red and swollen from crying.

  “What’s wrong?” Lainey asked. I wanted to believe she cared.

  “Nothing.”

  I showered and dressed, made myself go to school only to replay every moment of the time I’d just spent with Tanner.

  We’d gone to bed. In the safety of darkness, I tried to broach the subject of Tanner’s cheating. “Do I still turn you on?”

  “You turn me inside out you turn me on so bad,” he whispered and mistook my question as an invitation. He scooted closer and spooned me up against the wall I was pivoted toward. He reached across me to pull my hand from my stomach, unclenched my fist and linked us together, palm against palm.

  I began to shudder as I cried. “Sshhh...It’s going to be okay,” he whispered in the dark.

  I flopped over so we were front to front. I could see my mom, or at least her urn. I’d given it to Tanner for safe keeping. I didn’t feel comfortable leaving it in the storage unit and it seemed cruel to take my mom’s remains to the place her husband and his mistress resided. We’d spread some of her in the ocean from his surfboard not long after her death. I didn’t disperse all of her that day.

  “I decided where I’m spreading the rest of her.”

  “Where?” he asked softly kissing my neck.

  “Glacier, Montana.”

  “Why there?” he mumbled.

  “Because we went there on a family trip the first time she got sick. We stayed at this Swiss looking lodge in the park. On our last night, Mom got very quiet and reflective as she looked through the digital images on the camera of our trip. Then she turned to us and said, ‘Long after everyone is gone, and life has removed any trace of us from this place it will still be here. I want to be here too.’”

  He pulled me closer. There were no gaps between our bodies. We made love. Once again I betrayed myself.

  Chapter 6
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  Hanna

  Another morning in hell, I readied for school. From the kitchen, I heard the shower come on upstairs and five minutes later Lainey joined me helping herself to a bowl of Fruit Loops.

  “Where are the rents?” she asked.

  “Still in bed.”

  “You look much better than yesterday,” she said as she studied me.

  “It’s the booze and pills.”

  “You would know.” She dug at my vulnerable spot.

  “Thanks.”

  The smell of fruity vitamins wafted off the multi-colored circles in my bowl. I looked up and held her gaze.

  My dad came in, smiled and kissed my cheek. An involuntary sob welled up in my throat and water pooled in my eyes. He backed away, rubbing a hand over his mess of dark hair.

  The ice queen he married shortly followed lighting up his blue eyes in her wake. Through my tears, I studied her closely. My mom’s brown hair had glints of gold, her hazel eyes were warm and inviting, her skin - when she hadn’t been ill - was the color of a golden tan that she maintained without the sun. She was a vision. His new wife did not compare.

  Dad attempted to fuse us together. “How about dinner and a movie tonight?”

  Plans were made, as if I could overcome what had happened between us and become a part of his newly blended family.

  When I came out of the bathroom at Del Taco, I saw the back of someone’s dark head talking to my dad. I froze as I met Tanner’s eyes.

  He rose. “Hi Hanna,” Tanner greeted me.

  I hesitated then managed to reply, “Hi.”

  The booth was a half moon. I slid into the spot next to Lainey. Tanner followed on the outside.

  “What dorm did you sign up for?” I realized Lainey was talking to Tanner, amiably.

  “I haven’t yet.” She was smiling the look of an interested girl as he answered. Tanner seemed to magnetize my enemies. “We put in for the same co-ed one. Different floors of course.” He squeezed my shoulder.

  I watched Tanner look across the room. My stomach churned in a horrible way not due to bad Mexican food. Two lecherous smiles were aimed in my direction, without batting an eye I pushed Tanner towards them. “I think your friends are trying to get your attention.”

  Tanner

  Hanna…something was off with her. Something besides her catching me having dinner with two guys she hated, Didge and Benny.

  “Who was that with Hanna?” Didge asked.

  “Her stepsister.”

  “Hot.”

  “Not even close to as smokin’ as Hanna, though,” Benny spoke the words I should have.

  “Yep, I bet there are guys lined up at her new school waiting to get with your girlfriend,” Didge joked.

  I clammed up on that one. Blind, I was not. I saw the same girl they did, but I was the only one with privileges. I knew damn well I was the only one.

  The summer before sophomore year.

  Like so many times before I’d climbed up the trellis on her house to talk. That particular night Hanna had snuck some bottled booze from her parent’s stash. She had two, I guzzled three. We had been talking – about school, Trevor, my parents - when we grew silent listening to an argument between her own.

  “Why don’t you want me?”

  “I do. It’s just I’m tired.” Her dad’s voice deepened.

  “You’ve been tired for two months.”

  “Well, nagging me about sex doesn’t exactly turn me on.”

  “I’m in remission. I finally feel good about myself. I just think it’s odd that you don’t want what most other men want.”

  We could hear him sigh.

  When her mom spoke again, it sounded strangled, definitely like she was crying, “It seems to happen every five years. The first time it was that incident when I found that secret credit card you were using to dial 900 numbers for sex talk. The second time you hooked up with that woman you worked with.”

  “I did not.” His tone of offense sounded false.

  “The counselor even said that men do not whisper and laugh late into the night on phone conversations that are innocent.”

  “I develop a platonic relationship with a female work buddy and you get all insecure.”

  “She fucking told me you were like her work husband. Women don’t say shit like that to the wife of a guy she secretly calls in the dark.”

  Hanna’s mom rarely swore, at least not around us. I felt Hanna stiffen in bed beside me. I wanted to crawl away, take her with me and not let her dysfunctional parents ruin our innocence. Trapped in bed with the girl I wanted to be my girlfriend. I stayed put.

  “So who is she?”

  “Who?”

  “The woman this time.”

  “I think your meds are making you paranoid.”

  “I’m not paranoid. Ask any man or woman out there. A husband who won’t sleep with his wife more than four times a year is getting it on the side.”

  “I just have a low sex drive.”

  At fifteen, I had an erection several times a day. I wondered if this low sex drive thing was something that hit all men his age.

  “You’re really hurting me.” Those were the last words her mom said.

  Hanna got up and raised her window disappearing over the ledge. We snuck off to the beach.

  “Are you scared about going to high school?” I whispered just to say something. We were going from junior high seventh through ninth to the big leagues. My parents chose a private school for tenth through twelfth grades. Lucky for me Hanna and a lot of our other friends were following.

  “A little,” she answered. “How about you?”

  “Terrified. Sophomores are like the bottom of the barrel. I’m afraid of getting picked on, I’m afraid of hard classes, I’m afraid to grow up.”

  “You’ve got a 4.0. Hard classes are not difficult for you.” She smiled over at me.

  “Keep smiling. You’re all grown up, Hanna. At least the guys think you are. What if you were me? It’s like I still look thirteen.”

  “Please, like that matters. You can date younger girls. I’ll date older boys. We’ll make fun of them all on our weekly movie night.” Hanna and I only had a study hall and lunch together. This was a big departure from having a bunch of classes together since 7th grade, and all day together before.

  “Are you going to ditch me in high school Hanna?” I asked.

  The boardwalk creaked as we walked on the aging wood. When we hit the sand, we headed south where the homes were sparse and people were few.

  There was a bonfire on the beach in the distance. Noise and smoke filled the air. We were at a stretch along the shore where there were houses being built, perched up in the sand dunes, at a height the owners considered safe from tidal surges. I started to slow down.

  “Do you want to rest?” Hanna asked and the lights around me were just orbs in her hazel eyes. The moon was full, and glowed across the ocean before it broke light on cresting waves.

  “Yeah, maybe a minute.” I took off my shirt and laid it on the sand. We plopped down missing grace replaced by alcohol. “So you didn’t answer me. Are you going to ditch me in high school Hanna?” I asked again.

  “How can you ask me that? What if you find some cool guys to hang out with, are you going to ditch your best friend because I’m a girl?” she slurred.

  “If you weren’t a girl this would be easier,” I mumbled.

  “Why?” she asked seeming not to understand.

  “It just would,” I muttered.

  We both sighed. I mustered all my courage, leaned in slowly and let her lips meet mine. As our tongues danced together, a heady rush began to flow between our bodies. The pressure of the kiss changed. Sounds of the night grew louder - waves crashing on the beach, a dog barking in a distant neighborhood, echoing voices of a party long forgotten. We rolled around on the sand drunken with new sexual courage.

  She let my hands explore her, under her shirt, beneath her waistband. Her fingers tightly circled my w
rist as I maneuvered my fingers within her, her shorts sliding from her bottoms in the process. I moved over her, aching to be between her legs.

  She struggled, the friction only adding to my desire. My board shorts were untied - lowered. Gripping her hips in my hands, I ground and pushed. On a strangled gasp, I let my pelvis thrust her into the giving sand. Quick spasms rocked my body.

  I rolled off her. Me – embarrassed, her – unreadable, we didn’t meet the other’s eyes as we yanked and clawed to right our clothes as if that action could rewind what had just occurred.

  She rose. Her breath rasped as she began to walk, as if tears were blocking her airway. Stumbling after her, I followed close behind.

  The dark, sandy access path back threatened me. As the prickly sensation of fronds of palmettos brushed my legs, and animals scurried in the brush the realization of what I’d done registered.

  We emerged on the sidewalk that led us away from the sound of the waves, across the six lanes of A1A. I walked her home, never touching or talking. In her yard, she climbed up her trellis to the still open window and disappeared without a word.

  Chapter 7

  Hanna

  I rummaged through a box from my old home looking for a file folder. Recycling I inverted three used ones that had been labeled: thirty days overdue, sixty days overdue, and the last chance ninety days overdue.

  It wasn’t that we had lived a frivolous existence, my mom and I. We hadn’t, far from it. Our house was middle class but in a good neighborhood near the beach. To get by after Dad left, Mom took out a second mortgage. We could barely pay the first. We didn’t go for extravagant vacations, entertainment, fine dining, any of that. My mom had worked her whole life until the first bout of cancer hit her. Then she and Dad decided it would be best if she didn’t work. He made over a six figure salary and had fantastic insurance.