Chapter 47: 45 - The Way We Were

Hanna Valencia Jordan was 18 years old when her world fell apart.

Rian James Aronhalt was the same age when his best friend stopped looking at him.

♛

It all started with a dinner party. Hanna's parents, although considerably less wealthy than Rian's, invited them over to their home to eat, laugh, enjoy each other's company. For all intents and purposes, it was a night that was meant to be perfect. Nothing was supposed to go wrong.

"Hanna?" her mother had called, forty-five minutes before the Aronhalts were due to arrive. "Did you call the repairman yet?"

Hanna, a fiery young girl who was, at the time, distracted by the thought of her best friend coming over, replied that she hadn't and would do so immediately. The appointment with the repairman had been pushed throughout the week, and this was the only day he'd be available before going on vacation. They didn't want to wait—impatience was something of a family trait, here in the Jordan family.

Hanna made the call, then went back to what she'd been doing for the past hour: mulling over prom.

She disliked the very idea of it, felt no desire to go—spending all that time and money and makeup and effort, and for what purpose? One night of awkward dancing and cheap punch? She could do without.

But Rian had asked her.

He had asked her to prom, and now Hanna's convictions shook. She imagined what he would look like in a suit, a sharp midnight and tailored to perfection. An uncomfortable heat kept rising in her chest, and she wasn't sure how to identify it. Rian had been hers forever, but recently she had begun longing for something she didn't even know how to name. It was disconcerting, distracting.

Unfortunately, tragedy did not go well with a distracted mind.

The repairman knocked on their door. Hanna let him inside, because her parents were in the backyard managing the grill. She led him to their furnace, which had been making strange sounds for the past month. The house occasionally filled with a strange scent, one Hanna would later identify as gas.

But Hanna couldn't focus on the repairman; her head was filled with thoughts of awkward dancing and cheap punch and warm raven-black eyes.

Yes, indeed: distraction and tragedy did not mix.

The repairman kept frowning during his visit. He nudged the furnace, his brow furrowing at whatever he'd discovered. He turned to the distracted girl on his left, began to mention his concerns.

"Unstable," is what he said. "Dangerous. Need more time."

But then the doorbell rang, and Hanna's eyes went to the hallway. She could feel him standing there, separated by only a few walls and a door—practically nothing, nothing in the face of their lifetime of friendship—and the repairman lost her attention entirely.

"Yes, right," she said quickly, eyeing the backyard. Her parents were still busy with the barbecue. She had to go answer the door. "Can you come back later, maybe? We have people over. Don't worry, we'll pay extra."

The repairman rolled his eyes as she eagerly ushered him away. She traded him and his advice for the grinning faces of Rian's family, revealed as she swung open the front door. The repairman left, and with him the only chance for crisis to be averted.

Instead, Mr. and Mrs. Aronhalt walked in, unaware that they would never walk out.

"Hanna," Rian said, because for some reason he couldn't find anything else to say. Just the sound of her name was enough to satisfy, calm, excite him.

Thoughts of prom were on his mind, even though he'd never really thought about it until a few weeks ago. The idea of Hanna in a dress to match her amber-hazel-undefinable eyes was deadly to him; it must have been, because every time the image raced across his mind, he could feel his heart stutter to a stop.

Even greater than that fatal desire, however, was the idea of Hanna spending an entire day and night with only him in mind. A limo with him, a corsage from him, endless dances with him and him alone. For an evening, he would have all of her: Hanna Jordan, the girl who belonged to no one.

It thrilled him on a level he could not describe.

"Rian," she greeted cordially, the corners of her eyes lifting in a smile.

Heart: stuttering, stuttering, stop.

He wondered, briefly, if this was a typical reaction to one's best friend. Then she grasped his arm, edging him out of the way so she could close the door, and he decided he didn't care.

Mr. and Mrs. Aronhalt beamed at Hanna as she hugged them hello. She directed them to the backyard, where her parents were waiting. Mrs. Aronhalt's smile took on a distinctly secretive satisfaction as she glided down the hall, leaving the two friends alone.

"Have you thought about it?" Rian asked, enclosing an arm around Hanna's shoulders.

She bit her lip, and it took strenuous effort for Rian not to stare.

"I have," she said, and her voice was warm and confident as always. "I think it'll be fun."

Their last year of high school was ending. Rian didn't care much for thoughts of post-secondary education—he could go anywhere he liked. Financial barriers were nonexistent for him, and his intellect was more than enough even if they weren't.

Hanna had also guaranteed scholarships at several culinary schools across the country. She'd been labelled a genius more than once, though for some reason, people always thought Rian to be the smarter of the two of them.

He disagreed.

Hanna planned to attend a newer program, one that hadn't yet been firmly established. It was founded by Damien Profeta, a legendary chef and one of Hanna's idols, who had personally scouted Hanna as part of the program's first generation of students. This was months ago, and Hanna, with her impossibly warm and infectiously lovely personality, had turned him from mentor to friend in a matter of weeks.

He had offered her an all-expenses-paid trip to a french culinary academy Rian couldn't (or perhaps didn't want to) remember the name of, so she could learn different styles of cooking. It was a planned three months.

Three whole months.

Rian didn't like the idea of Hanna being gone so long, but she was so excited about it. That was when he asked her to prom: one night with her all to himself, before she left.

And now she'd said yes, and the world was good again.

"What are you thinking about?" Hanna teased. He realized he hadn't spoken for the past few minutes.

"Corsages," he lied. He felt like he did when he used to get stress-fevers, years ago: too hot, too excited. He was starting to recognize that he tended to overthink things.

"Hmm," Hanna hummed. She was horrible with lies—both telling them and spotting them. "I'm thinking red for the dress, so maybe something along those lines?"

"Red would look good on you," Rian agreed, eyeing her long auburn hair. He'd danced with the idea of twirling his fingers through it for ages, but could never seem to enact the thought.

A burst of laughter from the backyard distracted them from each other. They rolled their eyes in simultaneous affection as their parents roared at some unidentified anecdote. The two entered the backyard with smiles already gracing their faces.

That should have been the end of it. A perfect day, with food and laughter and enjoyment for all. Nothing was supposed to go wrong.

But alas.

"Hanna, I think there's something wrong with the gas on this thing." Her father nudged the barbecue, frowning at the poorly cooked sausage lying atop it. "Could you go check the furnace room again? I think the switch for the gas main's in there."

Hanna did as she was asked, heading over to where she'd led the repairman earlier. The door swung open behind her. The problem was easy to find, and a frown crossed her face as she crouched to the floor.

The gas had been switched off. Hanna examined it confusedly—the repairman must have done it. She was sure there had been a reason, but she'd been distracted at the time.

It wasn't like she could just leave it off, anyways. They were having a barbecue. The Aronhalts were here.

She switched it back on.

Then she rejoined the others outside, the scent of rotten eggs permeating the house going unnoticed.

Rian could never seem to keep his eyes off her for long. They gravitated to her presence, her fiery hair, her slight figure, the undeniable bigness of her personality. She was a magnet, tailored to attract any and all things like moths to a flame.

Oh, how he wanted to be burned.

However, there did come times when he was forced to look away. One such time arrived when he spotted his father, grinning amiably, get up and leave the party. His gaze followed the older man as he strode towards the house under the guise of a bathroom break.

A pretense, like always. Rian was growing tired of it.

Shooting a charming smile at the others, he got up to follow his father. He avoided his mother's eyes on the way there, because he was also following a secret he kept from her.

He was good at secrets. Too good. They offered him his first tastes of guilt. Unfortunately, on this particular day, that guilt would morph into biting remorse and then vicious self-loathing. It was a poor evening to be harbouring this secret.

The smell of rotten eggs was masked by the sharp scent of smoke, nicotine. Rian's expression steadily soured as he followed the airy trail to the furnace room, spotting his father's normally regal figure bent over a cigarette.

It was a filthy habit, one his mother believed she had talked her husband out of months ago. Rian had discovered his father's transgressions rather early; he recognized the quiet hunch of his back, the secretive press of his lips.

Yes, he was good at secrets—a trait that would serve him well on a precise afternoon three years later, with a redheaded devil at his door.

"What are you doing, dad?" Rian's voice was weary.

His father's eyes shot up from where he'd been lighting the end of a cigarette. Rian didn't miss the fact that this meant that his father hadn't smoked, not technically. Not yet.

Maybe it was this thought that changed things.

Mr. Aronhalt spread a grin over his face, the quick and polished kind that came from practiced secrecy. The lighter slipped into his pocket. The cigarette in his hands flicked out of his fingers behind his back, landing in a dusty corner of the room. Rian could just barely see the dull orange glow of its lit end.

"Just checking the gas," his father lied amicably. "Got a little concerned, what with all the fuss earlier."

Rian didn't let his eyes flick to where he knew the cigarette lay on the floor, nearly out of sight. He paused, considering: his father hadn't smoked. His mother was outside, oblivious. The stench of smoke clung to his father's clothes, but that was from the lighting and nothing else. With the barbecue outside, it would be easy to cover up.

It was a nice day. Hanna was here. They were going to prom. Did he really want to ruin it all, make a scene, over one unsmoked cigarette?

"I think it's fine," Rian said, going along with the lie. He extended his arm, a gesture for his father to walk back outside. "Mom was asking for you."

The mention of his mother worked like a charm. Mr. Aronhalt hurriedly exited the room, on his way to the backyard. Rian shifted so he could stride past, and as he did, he looked to where the cigarette ought to lay.

It was concealed now, behind the monstrous form of the furnace. He couldn't see the orange glow anymore, and so he assumed it had gone out.

What a sad, truly unfortunate oversight. But Rian, relieved to have avoided a mess, simply closed the door and rejoined his devil.

The dinner party moved back inside a few minutes later. The adults, laughing over nothing, milled around the living room. They engaged in a heated debate over something the two eighteen-year-olds were not remotely interested in. Mr. and Mrs. Aronhalt followed Mr. Jordan further into the house, while Mrs. Jordan turned to the two of them.

She pressed a bill into Hanna's hands. "Go get ice cream from that new place down the street," she suggested warmly. Hanna looked down at the money in embarrassment.

"Mom, you don't need to give me money," she protested, but her mother simply shushed her.

"If I don't, I'm sure you'd just steal the ice cream instead," she said knowingly. The heat in Hanna's cheeks intensified as she darted a look to her amused best friend.

"I wouldn't steal it!" she insisted. "I'm eighteen now, okay? I'm legally liable for the stuff I do. I'm out of the thieving business."

Her mother simply laughed and ruffled her hair affectionately. She left the two of them there and trailed after the others.

Hanna huffed and stalked out the front door, Rian in tow. She glanced up at him when she felt the familiar weight of his arm around her shoulders.

3

They reached the front lawn. Hanna crouched to help along a caterpillar that had been stranded in the middle of the driveway. Rian wrinkled his nose, but laughed when she swatted him.

2

The sky was a perfect, impossible blue. Storybook blue. Hanna grinned at the day, feeling the future stretch before her in all its tantalizing glory.

1

The bill accidentally fluttered out of her hands. She chased it onto the sidewalk, then onto the empty street. Rian, alarmed by her heedless entry onto the road, went after her.

0

It was this, the bill her mother had given her lifting out of her fingers, that saved the both of them when an explosion ripped the air to their backs.

pain

They were knocked over by the sheer force of it. Struck with a sudden and seizing terror, Hanna spun around to the source of the blast.

Her house was ablaze.

The bill flew away.

fear

Hanna stared at the flames, so fierce that the disaster seemed smokeless. They ate their way through her front porch, melted the windows, licked at the shingles on her roof. She was stunned still, unable to believe the sight of her life being burned to ash.

Then a throaty scream rent the air, and Hanna shot to her feet.

She knew the voice. It was the same voice that had laughed as a hand ruffled her hair, not three minutes ago.

Her mind had gone blank with horror, the world outside reduced to a buzz. She didn't even notice the body of her best friend, who had hit his head on the asphalt and hadn't yet gotten up.

Her legs moved at a blinding pace, but she felt as though she was running through honey.

The heat touched her first, blasted into her face like a physical force, stole what little breath she had from her lungs.

But the scream, again: it was quieter this time, but somehow this lent greater agony to the sound. The decrease in volume had translated to an increase in anguish.

Hanna leapt over the flames on her porch, somehow emerging unscathed. Twenty or so feet behind her, Rian opened his eyes, straightened his back. He saw the fire, was horrified by it, but his eyes—like always—pulled his gaze in a specific direction.

Hanna.

Even through the shimmery haze and the blinding light and the throbbing pain at the back of his head, he saw her. His horror took a new turn when he saw her enter the flames, venture into the burning building.

please god if you are listening then please please—

Hanna coughed, wheezed. The smoke had finally appeared, and plumes of it flooded the area that used to be her living room. Her stinging eyes glanced around wildly, searching for signs of life in the smog.

A discarded shoe.

A soot-slicked watch.

A quiet groan.

She looked down, spotting a lump on the floor. A feeling impossible to describe in its awfulness rose in her when she realized the lump was her mother, her leg pinned underneath an overturned bookshelf.

"Mom!" Hanna tried to scream, but all that came out was another wrenching cough. It was enough, though, because her mother raised weak eyes to her daughter's face.

"Ge ouw," she said, voice raspy with pain and carbon monoxide.

Hanna attempted to scramble over to her location, but a burning beam from the exposed ceiling crashed down in front of her. An impossible barrier.

Her mother lifted her head, summoning strength from who-knows-where at the sight of her daughter in danger. "Get out!" she shrieked desperately.

Hanna felt something in her chest and realized she was sobbing.

please

She tried coming near again, but her mother screamed the word No every time she got too close to the flames. Her head swam with smoke and heat and the rising head of newborn trauma.

Another beam fell, raging with flames. It landed on her mother's pinned body.

A scream erupted from her broken mother's mouth. Hanna was growing dizzy, but her eyes were wide open, her mind witnessing the fodder for future nightmares. She fell to her knees, trying to crawl, but flames ate away at everything.

The lovely blue blouse her mother had been wearing burned away as the wood dug into her right side. Hanna saw the flesh covering the right half of her mother's ribcage wear away, screams of agony echoing off the tattered walls.

please god I can't

The body of the woman in front of her was being enveloped by fire. Her hair. Her legs. Hanna could not get closer. Her eyes streamed as she watched her mother being burned alive.

Impossibly, her mother opened her mouth again, but this time, it was not an unintelligible cry of agony she released.

It was a single word, a bellow of sheer desperation: "Rian!"

Dimly, Hanna realized her mother was calling for Rian to come save her. The strength had gone from her legs.

Almost immediately, she heard footsteps. They were ones she recognized.

"No," she mumbled, eyes unblinking. Her mother's entire body was immolated now, but that beam pressed down on her right side, cruel as ever.

She felt a twinge in her chest, the same place she'd first seen the beam's flame wear down her mother's skin. It burned. She screamed just once, clutching the right half of her ribcage.

The footsteps stopped behind her. Rian bent down, crazed with fear because here she was, in the thick of it all, the house crumbling in flames around her.

He didn't notice the pile of fire in the corner, where Hanna's unseeing eyes were directed. He shoved down thoughts of his parents, because right now he couldn't save them.

Instead, he grasped Hanna's arm and hauled her up against him. She thrashed, suddenly revitalized, in the direction he'd found her staring. He had to drag her away, promising himself he'd never use force on her again.

Hanna's tears evaporated in the overwhelming heat. She witnessed the exact moment the light went out of her mother's eyes, and the pain in her side tripled.

I am so sorry

The next several hours were unbearable, but they were forced to bear them. Rian cradled Hanna in his arms until paramedics forcibly pulled them apart. Sirens bounced off the houses in the distance until the vehicles showed up; police cars and ambulances and fire trucks. The house continued to burn.

Eventually, the flames went out. The wreckage that had been her home was unsalvageable.

Hanna had gone limp the second she'd been dragged outside of the house. Her side hurt like nothing she'd ever experienced before, but even that was nothing compared to the horrific images looping through her mind. She wondered, briefly, how something like this could happen.

Then she remembered.

Unstable. Dangerous. Need more time.

The words of the repairman whom she had ushered out the door.

The sounds from the furnace room. The strange smell in their house.

He had turned the gas off. She had switched it back on.

no, please, don't say it, don't think it—

The explosion was her fault.

The pain in her side rocketed into agony.

Rian had at some point found his way back to her side, after the paramedics had stopped fussing over the both of them. Miraculously, they were both perfectly fine. Physically, that was. No one wanted to venture into the realm of psychological hurt the incident had inflicted.

A policewoman walked up to the two of them, waiting patiently until they noticed her presence. Her voice was professional and matter-of-fact, because emotion would threaten the dam Hanna had finally built up around her tear glands. She felt sick and empty.

The woman took them through the damage to the house.

Hanna swallowed, engaging in a fight with the bile in her throat.

She said that the fire originated in the furnace room. Apparently, there were high levels of natural gas in the house, which was what made the explosion and subsequent fire so destructive.

Hanna lost the fight. She retched into a nearby bush.

Carefully, her tone gentler than before, the policewoman said that they were the only survivors. Malia Aronhalt, Marcus Aronhalt, Cecilia Jordan, and Brandt Jordan were all confirmed as deceased upon arrival of the authorities.

Rian knelt on the tarmac, staring at nothing. Hanna turned, wiping her mouth, just in time to see him dig his hands into his hair and scream.

It was a horrible, agonized cry of pure grief. Hanna had never seen him look so ragged, so shattered. She saw tears roll down his cheeks, saw the bloody bandage on his head where his skull had banged into the pavement.

Something inside her fractured, terribly.

If only she hadn't been so reckless. If only she had listened to someone, anyone, for once in her life. If only she had thought things through.

The image of Rian in pain seared its place in her mind. His crumpled figure, his raw voice. It melded and combined with the image of her dying mother. All of this was her fault. Her reckless idiocy had taken his family away from him.

Suddenly, she could no longer look.

She ripped her eyes away, forcing them to the ground. Every time she heard Rian's torn breath, saw his movement in the corner of her gaze, the invisible pain in her ribs increased to an unfathomable degree.

She could not look at him.

She walked away. A paramedic from somewhere draped a shock blanket over her shoulders, and she gripped it tight. She hadn't known the true meaning of guilt until this moment, when it crushed her in its cruel grasp. It was so heavy, so very loud, that it drowned out even her own grief.

my fault

She needed to get away from here, away from the knowledge that she'd destroyed both their lives.

Rian lifted his head, watching his best friend cross to the other side of the lawn forlornly. A thought had struck him, while he'd been grieving on the ground. He stood, walking over to the policewoman from earlier.

"Excuse me," he murmured. "What did you say the source of the fire was?"

The woman regarded him sympathetically and took out her notebook so he could see. He glanced down, reading the words with heart-throbbing fear. He saw the words in dissonance:

Furnace

Natural gas leak

Origin point: lit unmonitored cigarette

His breath left him.

no please I can't have done this to her—

He read it again. The words didn't change.

He recalled eyeing the orange glow of the unsmoked cigarette as his father left the room. He remembered his choice to ignore it.

I am a fool

He returned the notebook to the woman, his eyes blank and awful. So this was what true guilt felt like. He felt the first stabs of self-loathing nip at him. It was a feeling he would grow very used to in the next three years.

I did this to her

Rian raised his magnetic eyes to his best friend. He saw the grief etched into her face. He saw him make that terrible decision, over and over. He did this. He was bad luck. What right did he have to be in her life?

But he forced those thoughts down. He knew he was in shock. Surely Hanna, his Hanna, would understand.

Their eyes met. He opened his mouth in a silent, broken apology.

Hanna's face twisted with pain. She turned away.

The world drained of colour.

Rian stared at her back as she walked away. Her crimson hair swayed behind her. His heart filled with a deep and ugly and black guilt.

I am damned, condemned, a curse on all who find me

Hanna had never turned away from him before. Not like that.

His mouth closed. Something inside him fractured, terribly.

The next week was hell. Rian's magnetic eyes followed Hanna everywhere, and Hanna could not look at him even once. They both simmered in their own despair, silently feeling sorry to the other for an accident they both believed was their fault.

It was no one's fault, really. It was poor timing and a bad smoking habit. The two eighteen-year-olds, merely children swept up into disaster, were blameless.

And yet their remorse ate away at them as if they'd each lived a thousand years.

At the end of that week, Hanna met with Damien Profeta. She asked to leave for France early. Everyone had heard about the accident by that point, including Damien's boyfriend, Adrian.

Damien, heart bleeding for her, said yes. She took a plane the next day. She returned after three months, then left again, over and over. A three-month excursion stretched itself into three years.

In the meantime, Rian was adrift. Prom came and went. He spent the entire night staring at pictures of red corsages. His self-loathing knew no bounds.

Damien, who had gotten to know Rian quite well after Hanna's departure, came to visit often. He urged Rian to go to therapy, saying he knew a good psychiatrist. Rian, who at that point was full to bursting with silent pain, agreed.

Adrian was something of a saviour to Rian. Their sessions, twice or thrice or however many times a week Rian needed it, offered Rian the opportunity to unleash the monster that lived inside him, just a little. The nightmares began to fade. He enrolled at the same university Damien taught at, as a psychology student. Soon, he felt almost normal.

Almost.

He adjusted to Hanna's absence the same way army veterans adjusted to shrapnel in their hips: it still hurt, but it was an old, dull ache. Some days the pain was worse than others, and some days it faded into background noise. He missed her terribly, but he knew the guilt would never let him try and restart with her. Too much had happened.

Besides, she was probably never coming back.

And so Rian resigned himself to a life of well-deserved loneliness.

Three years passed with no word from Hanna. He knew she was in touch with Damien, knew she had friends in his class. He even knew she flew in every once in a while to say hello.

He skipped class on those occasions, despite the fact he normally threw himself into his schoolwork. It was his utmost priority to stay away from her, so she could try and have the life she deserved, before he'd ruined it.

One particularly grey day, he'd been preparing for a session with Adrian. He heard a knock on his door, which was strange. He'd bought this apartment with Hanna in mind, of course—he did nearly everything like that because she never fully left his thoughts—but he'd had the doorbell removed. To ensure minimum human interaction.

But for some reason, he'd never expected anyone to come knocking.

A frown graced his face as he strode over to the door. He swung it open.

A redheaded devil stood in his path.

He shattered.

For a moment, time stood still as they both took the other in. She was as beautiful as he remembered. He was about to panic.

As beautiful as he remembered, and also successful and independent and away from him. How could he ruin that?

The self-loathing had taken complete hold of him now. He firmly believed involvement with her would only ruin her life. His self-worth had skewed. So when she said her name, awaited the greeting of lifelong friends, what else could he do?

He lied.

He pretended he didn't know her, the girl he had done nothing but think of the past three years. He was cruel to her, used his words to shove her as far away from him as he possibly could. Then he stepped into the elevator and watched her face through the closing doors.

When her amber-hazel-undefinable eyes were off him, he collapsed against the elevator wall, his breath leaving him in a rush. He hyperventilated before calling Adrian, who talked him through it and told him a truth he already knew.

Hanna was back.

Rian had thought it was another brutally short trip, a duck and cover before jetting back to France, but when Damien asked Rian to fill in as temporary AC as a favour, he realized that that was not true.

She was there again, staring at him with those eyes. After that day, he tried to escape the class, but he was locked in by Damien. He was also told that Hanna wanted to reconcile, and this horrified him more than his last nightmare. He resolved to stay and drive her away, to keep up the cold front as long as it lasted. This, surely, would make her see sense. She wouldn't come by again.

Oh, how wrong he was.

She was a magnet, and, despite his best efforts, he was drawn to her like nothing else in the world. Just to drink in more of her, he followed her to a bar called Mac's. He saw her collapse outside, witnessed one of her episodes for the first time, had a small heart attack when she said she recognized his hands.

He returned her to her apartment, reached a consensus with Rokim, who had heard from Damien and Hanna who he was. If Hanna was around him too long, there was a chance these episodes could kill her. They didn't know what caused it, but things related to the incident usually did the trick.

He'd nearly laughed. He was the incident.

So from that point on, he'd resolved to leave. The revival of old feelings had been a side effect, a byproduct of being in her blinding presence all hours of the day. He could not keep himself from indulging, but that didn't change the plan. Until she was safe from him, completely and undeniably, he couldn't stay.

Now the time had come for him to go. And, according to Adrian, there was nothing Hanna could do about it.