Sat, Jun 17 at 10:32 A.M.HANNAH:Jesus Christ, Ginny, answer your phone already. Don’t ignore me just because we had an argument, it’s annoying when you do that.
Tue, Jun 20 at 5:06 P.M.HANNAH:They’re telling me you’re gone but I don’t believe it. I’m waiting for you at our spot. Come find me.
Thu, Jul 27 at 11:27 P.M.HANNAH:Ginny, please. This isn’t real. I’m going to figure out a way to turn back time, I promise. I refuse to accept this.
Sun, Sep 10 at 10:01 A.M.HANNAH:Remember how you used to follow me everywhere when we were kids? I take it back, the teasing. Come be my shadow.
Sun, Dec 24 at 8:56 P.M.HANNAH:Christmas means nothing without you.
Wed, Apr 10 at 6:33 A.M.HANNAH:Happy birthday, Ginny. You’re 27 years old today. How should we celebrate?
“She was always a girly-girl,” says Hannah from behind me. “All this pink and flowers.” I jerk back from the computer, scrambling to close the screen. Han
nah stands in the doorway, holding a glass of water in one hand, a long-neck beer in the other. She doesn’t seem to have realized I was snooping, but my heart thunders anyway. I used to think nothing could get more intimate than reading Hannah’s lyrics. Now I know that was wrong.
“I’m sorry,” I say. “I shouldn’t have come in—”
Hannah waves away the apology. “Don’t. I love being in here.” She hands me the water. “Just try not to move anything, if you don’t mind. I’m trying to keep it in place.”
I look closer at the half-full glass of water sitting on the desk and notice the film of dust. “This is how Ginny left it?”
“Pretty much.” To my surprise, Hannah settles into Ginny’s unmade bed. “I like to fall asleep in here sometimes.”
“It’s kind of like a shrine. No offense.”
Hannah shrugs and takes a sip of beer. “The better for her to come back and haunt me.”
I turn to study the photos on the wall, willing my heart rate to return to normal. In one photo, it’s nighttime on the beach, a large bonfire in the background. In the foreground, a teenage Hannah stands with her arms slung over the shoulders of a shorter doppelgänger who has to be Ginny, and a guy who looks like a teenage Tom DeLonge from the band Blink-182. Kneeling in the sand are a brunette with cutoff shorts and a giant Bugs Bunny tattoo, and a tall, dark-skinned teenager in impossibly baggy jeans. They’re all wearing megawatt grins. Hannah appears to be the only one soaking wet.
“Don’t tell me you dated Tom DeLonge in high school?”
Hannah follows my gaze, then laughs. “No. That’s Guppy.”
I turn. “Aguppy? That might be weirder.”
She nods at the picture. “Well, his full name is Matt Gupperson. That was taken senior year of high school, thenight we won Battle of the Bands. That’s Carlos Flores, Ginny, me, Guppy, and Keri Marisculo. They threw this huge party for us that got broken up by the cops. I’m wet because they poured Kool-Aid on me like I was a coach at a football game. Dummies.” She smiles fondly. “We used to get in so much trouble.”
Hannah keeps sipping her beer, smiling to herself, and I scan the wall, looking for something else to prompt her nostalgia. “What—the—?” I sputter, pointing to a picture tucked innocently into a collage. “Is that Ginnykissing Ripper?”
Hannah arches a brow. “If you can believe it, Ginny had an ill-fated romance with Ripper the first weekend she came to visit me at Cal State. It’s actually how Rip joined the band. I took her to a party at a friend’s house, and he happened to be Ripper’s boyfriend at the time. Rip spent the whole party wailing on his guitar so loud no one could hear themselves speak. So Ginny, being the gremlin that she is, bet him I could outplay him. She was always doing stuff like that.”
Hannah sets down her beer and curls up on the bed. “So, of course, Ripper starts talking all this smack about how there’s no way I have even half his skills, he’s this absolute beast of a player. We plugged in and I murdered him in front of everyone. I think sometimes Rip is still stuck in that competition, to be honest. But as a consolation prize, he got to make out with Ginny.”
“What about his boyfriend?”
She shrugs. “It was college.”
“Well, this sheds light on his obsession with playing lead.”
“Yep.” Hannah’s voice goes soft and she yawns. “I think he probably has PTSD.” She nuzzles her cheek deeper into Ginny’s pillow.
The hours in the sun and the last few weeks of touring are catching up to me too. I stifle a yawn and sink to the floor, my head against Ginny’s desk, legs stretched out.
“Did you ever wish you had a sibling?” Hannah asks.
I cross my arms and think of Kenny and Ripper. “It would’ve been nice to have brothers, I guess.”
“Mm.”
