Casting Shadows on Skeletons

“When you proposed to me, I was caught off-guard,” Hannah stared down the neck of her bottle at the liquid inside, avoiding the eyes of the ex-boyfriend beside her. “I hadn’t even thought that far ahead. I was thinking of college and whether I could go out partying and still be sober enough for lectures. I was looking forward to sharing a dorm with Taylor, and meeting new people, but then…then you asked that questions and she went away.”

“If you needed time to think, I’d have given you time to think,” Peter leaned down into her peripheral vision and smiled comfortingly. “It’s not like I was asking you to come with me the chapel right that second. I told you when I got down on one knee that I loved you and I didn’t care if there were other girls out there or at college, you were the only one I could see myself spending my life with. We could have waited until after we were done with our studies. Life to me meant life. I’d have waited.”

“I know. I could tell you were being sincere when you said it,” Hannah admitted with a sigh. “That’s why it had to end…I didn’t even mean to say ‘no’. I just said it because I was so surprised.”

“You didn’t mean to…” Peter echoed her words. “Does that mean that you wanted to say yes?”

“No!” Hannah half-shouted almost immediately. Her cheeks reddening as she glanced around the bar at the eyes on her, she dropped her voice almost to a whisper. “I don’t know, maybe, I…part of me did want to marry you. I wish I could lie and say it never crossed my mind, but it did, and I knew you loved me and that you’d make a fantastic husband, but…I just couldn’t.”

“I deserve an answer,” Peter demanded, trying not to be so forceful as to anger her into walking out.

“You don’t understand, I can’t,” Hannah’s eyes glistened wet. “Taylor would hate me.”

“Hate you?” Peter shook his head, confused why she was bringing Taylor up at a time like this. “Why would you care about Taylor after you banished her to Italy?”

Hannah finally turned to look at him again, incredulous. “Me? Banish her? Why would I send my best friend away?”

“Because after I proposed to you, and you rejected me, Taylor called and we met up. We got drunk and had sex,” Peter explained, an eyebrow raised, no longer acting. “How could you forget?”

“You fucked Tayor?!” Hannah exclaimed, again alerting half the bar. “I forgot because I didn’t fucking know. This is news to me.”

“I thought Taylor had told you and you’d gotten angry, especially because it was so soon after our break-up,” Peter straightened up as he searched her face. “But…you’re genuinely surprised, aren’t you? You really didn’t know…”

“I really didn’t,” Hannah confirmed. “I have no idea why Taylor left. She didn’t even say goodbye…and that hurt more than anything…even more than losing you.”

“Still, that happened afterwards, so there’s no way us having sex could have kept you from saying ‘yes’,” Peter deduced, rubbing the small uncut hairs on his chin. “So, what reason can't you tell me because it would Taylor mad?”

Hannah took a deep breath, resigning herself to having to reveal the truth, and readying herself to do so, because admitting what had really happened meant dragging up a lot of hurt and sorrow. It meant scratching at the surface of a question that, even after all these years, Hannah still wasn’t certain she knew or wanted the answer to. But Peter did deserve the truth, and the truth wasn’t something Hannah had been able to give away freely of late.

“The truth is I was always going to break up with you that night. I loved you, but so did Taylor.” Hannah swallowed to hold back the tears. “She came to me a few days before, weeping and telling me that she felt like shit. When I finally dragged it out of her, what was wrong, she told me that she had developed feelings for you.”

Peter recoiled. “Are you trying to tell me that Taylor made you break up with me?” he asked, finding it hard to believe that the friend he’d known from childhood would do such a thing.

“No, not at all. She didn’t even want to tell me. This had been going on for months and she’d tried to hide it, tried not to say anything, to make the feelings go away, to spend less time with us, less time with you, everything she could think of to move on and get passed the feelings she had for you. But she couldn’t and it made her feel like a bad friend, to both of us, harbouring those feelings, as if she were just waiting for us to break up,” Hannah clarified, taking a gulp of beer and staring at the bottle again. “I couldn’t just let my best friend wallow in her heartache. I told her if she felt that strongly about it that she had to go for it. I told her I would end it. She protested, of course, but I insisted.”

“And then I proposed,” Peter breathed as if he’d found the final piece of a puzzle. “And you broke up with me for Taylor.”

“I told her afterwards what I’d done, but not why or how,” Hannah continued, the releasing of this information having no such freeing effect on her. “She seemed kind of upset that I’d actually gone through with it, but I told her it’d be more pointless if she didn’t take advantage of the opportunity I’d given her. She called you, hoping you two would hook up.”

“Yeah, then I went and told her that I’d proposed,” Peter moaned, knocking his fist against his temple. “After we had sex, I told her what happened, and she bolted. I thought it was just because we were friends and we’d made it strange, but she must have thought she’d ruined both of our chances at happiness with each other. Shit. I’m the reason she left for Italy.”

“You idiot,” Hannah growled. “What kind of asshole fucks a girl then tells her about this ex who rejected his marriage proposal as pillow talk?”

“The drunk kind.” Peter pushed his current beer away and rubbed his head.

“Well, now you know the reason why,” Hannah concluded, rising from the barstool. “And I think I’ve depressed myself enough for one night.”

“Wait,” he said, reaching out and grabbing her wrist in a panic. He had no idea whether Ashley and the others were finished erasing the video from Hannah’s devices. Loud and clear, he said, “I need to know if it’s finished. Just give me a message if it’s done.”

Hannah stared at him for the longest minute before her whole body seemed to slump and her expression softened. Biting her lip, she interpreted his words, “…you want to get back together…”

That’s what she had gotten from that? Peter tried not to look shocked, as if those vague, indefinite statements had definitely been a way of asking her to get back together. Thankfully, his phone vibrated within his pocket, and with his free hand, he opened his jacket, looking inside at the message.

ASHLEY: Problem with security. Please stall a little longer!

“Is that your side-chick?” Hannah teased, the way she always used to do if he got a message while he was with her. It instinctively made him smile, remembering the way things had once been.

“Yes,” he answered without thinking. Shaking his head, he corrected, “No, it was nobody. But yes, I want to get back together.”

“I don’t know. I don’t think it’s a good idea.” Hannah frowned, as Peter slid his hand down from her wrist into hers. “My life is a mess at the minute. It wouldn’t be fair to drag you into it. Maybe…in a few months…if this all blows over…maybe…but then there’s also…”

“It is anything I can help with?” Peter interrupted her train of thought, curious whether she would voluntarily admit everything to him. “Or maybe just a good ear?”

The blonde haired young woman stared at his face, contemplating whether she could actually tell him, trying to anticipate his reaction and response. In the end, she clearly decided that even he, her ex-boyfriend who had once proposed to her, couldn’t be trusted as she straightened up and squared her shoulders, slipping her hand out from his.

“No,” she said with a tight shake of her head. “It’s nothing really.”

“So, this is it? You wanted to marry me and didn’t because of your friend’s feelings for me, and now you won’t get back together because it’s bad timing? There’s always going to be reasons not to do this, and other circumstances happening in your life, Hanners. Don’t you think you owe it to yourself to do something you really want to do?” Peter said, vaguely wondering how he was going to get out of this relationship once Ashley and the others were finished. “There isn’t anything I can do to convince you?”

Hannah’s thoughtful pout stretched into a smirk. “Well, there is one thing I want to do, and it might even help convince me. What do you say to a game?”

Peter swallowed. His ex-girlfriend always liked to play games, but there was one in particular that she always favoured and always won, and the hungry gaze she was devouring him with told him that it was exactly the game she wanted to play. But, for the sake of the mission, Peter had to agree.

“We’re going to go back to my apartment and fuck,” Hannah declared, as if reading the rules to monopoly. "If you can make me cum first, we can get back together. But, if I win…”