“Yes,” she sniffed. “And you know what’s so crazy? I knew it was wrong to trust Hannah. She acted too happy to hang out with me. I mean, who in their right mind would even want to be around me?”
Miss Bitty’s voice was tender. “I do.”
“Well, then you must be seriously fucked up, lady, because you’re the only one.”
CHAPTER 46
THE BEDROOM WAS cool and dark when Miss Bitty walked in a few hours later. Allie was wide awake under the covers, holding a snoring Piglet.
“Allie, phone call.”
Allie didn’t bother opening her swollen eyes. “I’m not here.”
“It’s Hannah.”
“Well, duh. It’s not like anyone else has ever called me.”
“I think you should take it.”
When she didn’t make a move to pick up the phone, she heard the old woman lay it on the bedside table. A moment later, the door clicked closed.
Allie sat up and reached for the phone. “What do you want?”
The voice on the other end was small and thin. “I want to tell you what happened. Why I did it.”
Allie waited.
“Allie? Are you there?”
“Go on.”
Hannah’s voice was quiet, almost a whisper. “I met Kayla and Stefanie a couple of weeks before I introduced myself to you. I was lonely and I really wanted friends, but you know how girls can be,” she said and paused. “Plus, people find me a little quirky and odd, and I know that . . . so it’s usually tough for me to fit in.”
Hannah has a hard time fitting in? She WAS quirky and odd, but still.
“Well, Kayla didn’t like me at first,” Hannah continued, “so I thought for sure I was destined to have no friends here. But then you came back to town and everyone started talking. Seriously—it didn’t seem like they talked about anything else for, like, a month. It’s all they ever even seemed to tweet about.”
Tweet?
“So when my mom said she was going to your house to see Miss Bitty I said I wanted to go, too, to see if I’d have the chance to meet you. I was curious about you, but I also wanted to tell the girls I’d met you, you know, so that they’d pay more attention to me. I knew it was such a loser thing to do, but I did it anyway.”
The line went quiet.
“Go on.”
“Then when I told them you actually came to my house they got more interested in me . . . and seemed to like me more. I joined the soccer team and thought I was getting closer to them. That they were really accepting me. I didn’t think I was hurting anyone. I mean, I liked them and I liked you. But then they dared me to go to the Murder House . . .” She paused. “Your house. That’s what they all call it. They dared me to go there with you and I knew they’d give me a hard time if I didn’t.” Hannah paused again. “Even though I didn’t feel right about asking you to take me there, I did it anyway because I didn’t want to lose them. I thought they were my friends. That’s why I begged you to go even though I knew you didn’t want to. And now I’m really sorry.”
“Why?”
“Why am I sorry?”
“Yeah.”
“Because that night I realized that you would make a better friend than they ever would. You and I are the same in a lot of ways. Kinda screwed up . . . kinda weird . . . and we don’t really fit in. Plus, in the back of my mind, I always knew they were using me. And even though I was kinda okay with that at first, I was getting tired of it. I also started to feel like a really mean person because Miss Bitty and Louis and Joe were all so kind to me. It’s like they trusted me to be good to you. And I wasn’t.”
The line went silent.
“I guess I’m a little insecure. I’ve always been different than the others and sometimes it’s hard. I guess I had something to prove to myself, so I tried to prove something to them. But that’s not who I want to be. It’s not.” She paused again. “Look, I don’t expect you to forgive me, but I wanted you to know that I’m sorry. Truly, I am.”
Long pause.
“Allie?”
“Yeah.”
“Well . . . I mean, do you have anything to say?”
“Okay.”
“Okay . . . what?”
“Just okay. I’m hanging up now.”
“Allie, seriously. I’m really sorry.”
“Yeah, me, too.”
Allie hung up, then pressed “Play” on her brother’s CD player. She rubbed Piglet’s belly and listened to “Lay, Lady, Lay” on loop as she sat in the dark and thought about the conversation.
As angry as she was, she realized Hannah had sounded genuine. Plus, it really took balls for her to admit what she did—and she hadn’t needed to. After all, she already had friends. It wasn’t like she was desperate or anything.
But do I even care now?
Yeah . . . yeah, I think I do.
Allie decided she would call her back. If anyone knew how important second chances were, it was Allie.
But she would wait. She would make Hannah suffer a little first.
At seven o’clock, Allie wandered out of her bedroom to find Miss Bitty. It was the time of night they usually spent watching junk television together.
Her eyes swollen and her throat thick with tears, she longed to be around the old woman. She needed to be with her and try to make everything okay between them.
As she reached the end of the hall, she saw light from the family room spilling into the hallway. Someone was in the room. When Allie turned the corner, she was relieved to see that it was Miss Bitty—and that she was alone. The old woman looked up at her and patted the couch. “Come, sit.”
The woman muted the television.
Allie decided to not give herself time to think. “Look, I’m sorry I yelled,” she blurted out. “Also for saying what I did about, you know . . . you being effed up.”
Miss Bitty smiled, but her eyes were red and swollen, too. “If I knew she was going to hurt you, I would’ve said something. I didn’t know, Allie. I could tell she was troubled, but that was all I knew. Honestly.”
Miss Bitty knew Hannah was troubled? As far as Allie was concerned, Hannah had put on a good show for the old woman.