Hanna scoffed. “You are so full of yourself.”
“I’d rather be full of you, Banana, you just aren’t paying attention.” Lily felt a hand slide into hers and squeeze. She turned her head slightly to look at Maya, who kept her gaze forward but Lily could see her face was tense, maybe even pleading. “I don’t take anyone up here, ever,” Lily said quietly, and it earned her another squeeze from Maya, this time gentler.
“Sure, I’ll pretend that I believe that,” Hanna quipped.
Lily heard Maya suck in a breath.
“What makes you think I’d lie?” Lily felt her patience continuing to wane. By the strong grip on her hand returning, she didn’t feel she was the only one.
“I don’t know, maybe your need to be ‘smooth,’” Hanna emphasized the last word.
“Hanna,” Maya started. She had been putting a warning tone in the way she had said Hanna’s name over the past couple of days, since Ex-lovergate. Lily briefly wondered if it had been something the two of them had talked about when she hadn’t been around, like in the shower or something. Either way, Lily knewsomethingpassed between them every time Maya said Hanna’s name like that. It made Lily feel a twinge of loneliness.
“Hanna you don’t know everything about me,” Lily said, turning on the two women while pulling her hand from Maya’s. She was annoyed and she let it show; she had no idea why she was being put on the defensive with Hanna. “What is the issue,yourissue? Seriously?” Lily looked into Hanna’s almond brown eyes, wide with surprise; Hanna looked at her for a few beats before the stare transformed into a glare. “Right,” Lily snorted.
But before she could go on, Maya put both of her hands on her head and let out what could only be described as a growl.
“Really? This is what we are doing?” Maya began, and there was no mistaking the anger and frustration in her voice. “Hanna what is the issue? You have so clearly had something to get off your chest and when Lily asks, you have nothing to say?” Maya didn’t let Hanna respond, not that Hanna had looked ready to do so. Hanna’s face had gone red and she was sputtering slightly, as if processing this abrupt outburst and trying to figure out what to say at the same time.
Maya turned her attention to Lily, took a deep breath and said, “I’m just so—” and then Lily’s heart sank at the sight ofMaya’s face cracking wide open. Maya took a deep breath as tears spilled onto her pinking cheeks.
Lily stood there stunned. Sure things had been tense, but she hadn’t expected tears. But Mayahadseemed a little on edge this whole time.
“I’m so fucking tired,” Maya breathed out, and then she put her head in her hands.
“Papaya,” was all Lily was able to get out before Hanna walked in front of Maya and put her hands on hers, pulling them from her face while cooing softly, “Hey it's okay, hey, shhhh.”
“This is supposed to befunand you two, Hanna,” Maya choked out, “You’re?—”
“Shhh,” Hanna said softly, and then turned to Lily. Lily didn’t find another glare, but she did feel like she was now an onlooker to a very intimate moment, a moment that seemed to confirm that she was a guest shared by Hanna and Maya—anexperiencethey shared.
“Can you give us—” Hanna began, and Maya shook her head as if she was going to say something, but Lily didn’t need anymore confirmation.
Instead she nodded in understanding at the dismissal then turned and continued up the path. She needed her spot more than ever and the path was wide and clear. They could easily find their way back to the cabin, without her.
In Lily’s annoyance and if she were being truthful with herself, hurt feelings, the remaining fifteen minutes or so went by quickly. She was hot under her coat and scarf as she followed the path’s curve. It opened up to a small clearing looking over the retreat property. It wasn’t that high, but in winter no one ventured up here, and Lily needed to be alone more than ever. She sat down on the frosted grass, dropped the blanket but left it rolled up, and unwrapped her scarf slightly, relishing in the cool air touching her heated skin. She undid her jacket to letmore air in. It was like she could feel the heat escaping her, both in the literal and figurative sense. What the fuck had Hanna’s problem been? This was the opposite of what she’d envisioned, and now it was everything she feared: they still had three more days together. Was it going to be awkward? She had been shut out. Hanna had dismissed her and she was sure Maya was about to, too.
Right?
Sometimes, when her parents were still together and she was stuck at home for a weekend, she would attempt to spend time with both of them. But the secrets they built around themselves, her mother’s heartbreak and her father’s affair, made her full house impossibly lonely. She always felt shut out. So when she couldn’t stand it anymore, she went to the treehouse. That had been her refuge, her home that she could fill with lust and longing, if not love. Lily hadn’t lived with that in a long time. It was something she joked with Maya about– how Maya was lucky her parents’ marriage fell apart when she had a means of true escape, a life to live outside of their house and not just a treehouse. There was no treehouse here, just the home she’d brought Hanna and Maya to. Maybe they would leave, and all she would be left with was longing.
Or maybe Hanna and Maya would save her some grief and just be gone when she got home. That’s how her father had left. She just came home to find a half-empty house, her mother and a bottle of wine at the dining room table they only sat at for special occasions. Lily had always thought it was better that way, judging by the vacant look on her mother’s face when she told her her father wasn’t coming back. Lily thought if she had watched him go, she would have that look on her face too.
Sitting there in the cold, she let three hot tears drop on her cheeks and then began trying to push the feeling down, but her body trembled and a sob erupted past her lips. The sheer sizeof the hurt surprised her, unsettled her. But between her run in with Fe and Sruti and confirming that she was once again the outsider, she felt a familiar sting she spent most of her romantic feats avoiding. This was exactly the reason she had distanced herself from Fe, so why hadn’t she done the same thing with Hanna and Maya? She felt stupid for even inviting them up. Perhaps they would have rather spent the break together, but Lily had offered a getaway they couldn’t pass up. Anexperiencethey couldn’t pass up. She dropped her head into her hands and let the sobs roll through her.
No one was going to hear her anyway.
And no one had.Lily had long stopped crying by the time she needed to re-zip her coat and heard footsteps crunching behind her. Each crunching step seemed to bring her back to the world around her, but also froze her in surprise. She’d cooled down physically, knew her eyes were no longer red, but she could feel the heat burning in her cheeks as Maya and Hanna approached her from behind.
“See Maya, this view is totally worth it,” she heard Hanna say, not too far behind her.
Lily knew Maya was giving Hanna a look, but decided not to push it. They’d come to get her. The realization warmed Lily, despite the cold, spreading from her chest, down her limbs, to her fingertips and toes. She felt her eyes burn hot again with the threat of tears that she quickly squashed.
Maya grabbed the rolled-up blanket and began to unravel it next to Lily. Lily sat quietly, waiting to see where this was going to go.
18
HANNA
