Page 113 of High Season
2004
THE DAY BEFORE THE BIRTHDAY PARTY
After the bonfire, Hannah didn’t leave her room for three days.
She said she was ill. Her mother pressed the back of her palm to her forehead and agreed that maybe she was feeling a bit hot. She promised to call up the families that Hannah had agreed to tutor, and left soup in a Tupperware container in the fridge.
Hannah did not eat the soup. The nausea was not entirely a lie. Her stomach was clenching, turning in on itself. The thought of food was impossible to bear. She pulled the covers up over her head. She inhaled the sour smell of herself, the faint traces of smoke that still lingered on her skin and in her hair. Her heart seemed to be beating much faster than usual, and she couldn’t slow it down.
Every time she dozed off, she awoke to the sear of shame. Remembering everything all over again. How those girls had laughed at her. How easily Hannah had let herself believe that they wanted to be her friend. How Blake had looked at her as if she disgusted him.
What Hannah was experiencing was not just the loss of Blake, but the loss of a dream that had simmered beneath the surface of her entire life. A belief that one day, she could be like the people who came here every summer.
She eventually crawled out of her bed on the fourth day, after her mother started to talk about doctors’ appointments and blood tests. She went through the motions of the day—breakfast, helping out at the shop, going home to make sandwiches for lunch—feeling as though she was drifting a foot or two outside of her own body.
Her parents were supposed to be going away that evening, taking the train up to Lyon to visit Hannah’s aunt for her birthday. They would be away for a couple of nights. Hannah heard them talking in quiet, worried tones, debating whether they should be leaving her. It was impossible to keep secrets in their small apartment.
“I’m fine,” she interrupted them, leaning her head around the door. “I have some work to do on my uni applications. And I’m feeling better. I’ll be OK on my own.”
She didn’t tell them exactly why she longed for privacy. How badly she wanted to crawl back beneath her sheets and grieve without the anxious eyes of her mother watching over her.
That night, after her parents had left with promises to call as soon as they arrived in Lyon, Hannah went down to the sea.
She took off her shoes as soon as she reached the sand and started to run, shedding her clothes behind her. She was in her underwear by the time she reached the shoreline. The coldness of the water took the air out of her lungs. She dove beneath the surface and kicked, the salt stinging her skin, the roar of the tide in her ears. She opened her mouth, and as the water flooded inside she let out a scream, a howl that came from so deep within it felt as if a part of her was tearing away from herself. It erupted into the ocean as air, a dead cry that nobody would hear.
When Hannah surfaced, the hill was silhouetted against the sky. Close to the top, she could see the glow of the pink house. Lanterns bobbing as they were set out on the terrace. Strings of fairy lights, everything ready for Evelyn Drayton’s birthday the next night. Once again, the longing seized hold of her, so physical that for a split second, she thought she had a cramp. She had imagined herself on Blake’s arm so clearly that the image felt scored onto her vision. Now, she saw Cordelia on his arm instead. Her perfect, shiny hair. Her small, toned body. A dress that fit her just right.
Cordelia struck Hannah as the kind of girl who already had everything. It felt stupendously, cataclysmically unfair that she got to have Blake as well.
Hannah dove back beneath the water. She held her breath for as long as she could, and then, when her lungs were aching, kicked back toward the surface. Her eyes were stinging. She squeezed them shut.
When she opened them again, she saw a figure standing on the shoreline. He was silhouetted in the half-light of dusk, but still she knew who it was. Whohewas, his hands buried in his pockets, his hair tousled, his head tilted to one side as he watched her.
After all, she would know Blake Drayton anywhere.
They went back to her apartment. The air inside smelled of garlic and stewed meat, the meals that Hannah’s mother had cooked and refrigerated that afternoon for Hannah to eat over the next few days.
“Do you have anything to drink?” Blake asked.
She didn’t have the kind of drinks he would want. The expensive bottles of vodka he and his friends drank, the multipacks of beer. Instead, she found an open box of red wine left over from one of the rare nights her parents drank with dinner and poured him a glass. She passed it to him, painfully aware of how out of place he looked in her kitchen. The room felt much smaller than usual, as if the walls had inched in while she’d been away. She was suddenly conscious of the dated yellow tiles, the washing hung up on a buckled clotheshorse because they had no space for a dryer.
“You’re not having one?” he asked.
She shook her head. She wanted to be clearheaded for this conversation. Braced for whatever Blake had to say to her. Besides, the thought of red wine still made something in her convulse.
“I’m not thirsty,” she said.
“Right,” he said. “Right.”
He seemed temporarily stalled, glancing around the room. Hannah found herself bristling. Was he really so shocked by where she lived?
“Shall we…” His eyes hovered on the sofa, covered with diving equipment that her parents had brought back from the shop for cleaning. “Is there somewhere we can sit down and talk?”
“We can talk here.”
It was a strange thrill, to see him hesitate. To know that he was thrown by this—that he had expected Hannah to scurry to clear space on the sofa, or offer up her room. It felt like something close to power.
“Fine,” Blake said. He straightened, gathering himself. “Hannah, about the other night—”
