Page 116 of The Same Backward as Forward
Hannah doesn’t work at the hospital. She works at the diner down the street.
I try to wrap my mind around the idea of Hannah as a waitress, her healing hands delivering coffee and pancakes to people who have no idea how remarkable she is. I go to the diner. I see her through the window.
And I freeze.
Hours later, I stand outside Hannah’s apartment in a torrential downpour. I tell myself that she doesn’t need to know I’m here, that I just need to make sure she’s okay, and then I can go. I tell myself that she might well have found someone else to love, and I almost succeed at wanting that for her.
Almost.
Raindrops half the size of my knuckles pelt my face, the wind so strong that I can barely plant my feet. And still, I keep watch.
One thing about Hannah, I remind myself,she knows how to take care of herself.
One thing about me: I can’t stop thinking about our first night at the lighthouse.
And our second. And our third.
A window shatters somewhere to my left. This storm is a beast. Lightning rips across the sky, threatening to take me to a place in my memories I do not want to go.
And then Hannah’s entire apartment complex goes dark.
For a split second, I can’t even feel the hurricane-strength winds. All I can do is stand there and think,There’s no way for me to make sure she’s okay from the street.
I need for her to be okay.
The door to the building has a busted lock, saving me the trouble of breaking in. In darkness, I feel my way to the stairs, because I know Hannah won’t be on the ground floor. She’s wary. She’s watchful. She will have built herself a tower.
As I ascend the stairs in pitch-black, each crack of thunder brings my worst memories closer and closer to the surface.
Kerosene. The howling of Wolves. Kaylie—
I reach the top of the stairs, and that’s when I hear Hannah scream.
Reality distorts itself, a red haze descending on me. One second, I’m at the top of the stairs, and the next, I’m standing in an open doorway, and Hannah is falling into my arms.
“Harry.”She says the name like a curse, like a prayer, like both at once.“Toby.”
Just from the way she says the names—both of them—it’s clear to me: Hannah the Same Backward as Forward is not in love with someone else.
It’s also clear that she’s in labor.
I lift her into my arms like she weighs nothing. Her head falls against my chest, and I can feel her listening to my heartbeat the way she would on a lighthouse night.
“I’ve got you, Hannah.” I try to stop there, but I can’t. “The Same Backward as Forward.” She is the world to me, and I cannot pretend that she is anything else.
For the first time in years, I feel solid. I feel real.
Hannah’s body convulses—pain—and I snap into action,carrying her back into her apartment. There’s no way we’re getting anywhere in this storm. I feel glass crunch beneath my feet as a blast of wind and rain hits us both.
Her windows are already gone.
Lightning tears across the sky, and I use what I can make out of her apartment’s layout in that flash to make my way slowly to Hannah’s bedroom, where the windows seem to still be intact. I get Hannah onto the bed, roll her gently from her side to her back. Cursing the darkness and wishing that I couldseeher, I hold my hand over her mouth, checking her breathing the way she once did mine.
It’s faint.
Hold on, Hannah.I think of all the times I anchored myself to her, and I do what I can to give her something to hold on to. “I wrote to you,” I tell her.
The lights come back on, and Hannah breathes—audiblybreathes. “I hate you.”
