Her Name in the Sky by Quindlen Kelly

Author:Quindlen, Kelly [Quindlen, Kelly]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Coming of Age, Lgbt, Young Adult, Friendship, Fiction
ISBN: 9781495335297
Publisher: Indie
Published: 2013-12-31T23:00:00+00:00

“I don’t think this has anything to do with what y’all choose to do in hot tubs,” Wally says seriously. “They’re being weird for some other reason.”

“You have to know, Hannah,” Joanie says.

“What?”

“Come on. I know we’re all close with each other, but you and Baker literally tell each other everything. I have a hard time believing you don’t know what’s going on.”

“Joanie, I told you already, I don’t know.”

Joanie takes on that challenging expression she used to get as a little kid, the one she’d wear when she and Hannah would sneak downstairs to watch the Disney Channel in the middle of the night. “You’re lying,” she says. “I can tell.”

“I’m not lying,” Hannah says heatedly.

“Hannah, your ‘best friend’ is sitting way over there, completely ignoring you, and completely ignoring us. So maybe it’s time you let some other people in, huh? We’re your best friends too, you know. Maybe it wouldn’t kill you to share the truth with us—”

“That’s not even—Jesus, Joanie—”

“Maybe we should all just take a breather—” Luke interjects.

“Just tell us, Hannah,” Joanie huffs. “God, it’s not like the rest of us are withholding information from each other—”

“Are you kidding me?” Hannah says dangerously, feeling her skin flush with fire. “Like you’re some paragon of truth-telling? Fine, Joanie, then why don’t you disclose all your secrets to the table? Maybe you could start with, oh, I don’t know, how you’re planning on dumping Luke right before he goes off to Alabama?”

Hannah wants to snatch the words back as soon as they leave her. A stunned silence spreads over the table, the kind that presses on and on until the point where nothing anyone could say would pull the conversation back from the edge.

Joanie sits frozen across from Hannah, her entire face aflame, her eyes wide in shock. Luke sits frozen next to her, his mouth half-open like he was just punched in the gut, no shadow of dimples on his face.

“I—” Hannah says.

Joanie’s eyes cut loathingly into Hannah’s. She breathes very fast, her face turning redder and redder, her expression murderous.

Luke pushes back from the lunch table. He swings his booksack onto his shoulders and moves to gather his snack wrappers, and Joanie grabs his wrist and pleads, “Luke—Luke, listen—”

He jerks his wrist out of her grip. “See y’all later,” he huffs, not looking at any of them, and then he stalks away.

Joanie turns to Hannah with her face full of a horrible wrath Hannah has never seen before. “I hate you,” she spits, scorching Hannah with her loathing eyes. She lunges aggressively for her sandwich and Diet Coke can, clenching her teeth against her anger and tears, and then heaves herself up from the table. “I—hate—you.”

Then she turns and runs after Luke, and Hannah sits dumbly in her chair, unable to process the wave of sadness that comes over her.

She and Wally don’t say anything for a long minute. Hannah is afraid to look at him, to face his disgusted reaction. They sit in heavy silence while Wally folds his napkin into tinier and tinier squares.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.