The Illusion of Separation

When I woke up the next morning, Chris's scent was still in the blankets.

I laid there for what seemed like entire hours, just breathing him in with a loopy smile on my face. Maybe it was young love. Maybe we wouldn't ever get married or have kids or anything. Maybe this was just a sweet highschool romance and when we both went off to college, or wherever Chris was planning on going, whether it was music or something else (although I really couldn't imagine Chris doing anything else but music). But for now, in the minutes between fast asleep and fully awake, he was mine forever and we were meant to be, even if that wasn't what reality was telling me.

Eventually, though, I had to get up and get ready for the day. It was Saturday, which meant I had the entire day to myself. Monday would start school again and seeing as it was early September I wasn't too ecstatic about going there, considering the nine months of school I had to suffer through. If it was June, I'd be jumping out of bed, eager to get the day over with so that maybe summer would come faster.

At breakfast, my father was quieter than he'd ever been. Usually he was either bossing me around or he was telling me about his personal life, like I cared that he and one of his friends had just had the best time last night getting to know each other again, and when he told me stories like that, I'd just think about the sexual innuendos that contained and try not to smile, which was extremely hard. But today, he was sitting at the table, eating breakfast and reading the newspaper, and he hadn't said a word.

"Anything wrong?" I finally ventured, unnerved by the silence.

He didn't even look at me. That's when I decided something was definitely wrong and it had something to do with me, because if it had something to do with just him, he would have said that it was just a problem with him and the guys and I didn't need to get involved. "Dad," I said slowly. "What happened? What's wrong? Is it Jordan? Brianna? Molly? Who is it and what happened to them?" Normally I wouldn't dream of asking all these questions, but I was scared as fuck and my heart was beating like a caged rabbit, frantic against my ribs.

He sighed heavily. "No, it's not any of them, Hannah. It's no one you even need to worry about."

But it was obvious I needed to worry about this person because he was acting all quiet and he wouldn't do that if the person didn't mean anything to me. So yeah, it was definitely something I needed to worry about. "Dad, please tell me who it is. Please."

"You'll find out soon enough," he said, then got up and went to his room.

The newspaper was lying on the table where he'd left it, along with his empty plate and cup of coffee. I put the dishes in the sink and rinsed them, as I was expected to do, but waited to actually do the dishes. I just needed to peek at the newspaper and see if there was any clue in there about what was going on. Wiping my hands on the dishtowel, I came over and scanned the newspaper, which was open to the sports section. No, that wouldn't give me a clue. He'd only read a few pages in, so it was probably either on the front page or the second one. I scanned the second page; there wasn't anything there, either. Front page time.

It was an emergency article, one of those ones that bumps what was supposed to be on the front page off onto the side or onto the second page because it was that important. In big black letters was the headline, above a photograph of what looked like one of those back roads along the woods, although really in Joplin all roads were flanked by woods. The words on the headline jumped out at me: 17-Year-Old Joplin Boy Killed in Hit-and-Run.

My breathing skipped a beat. That was horrible. It was probably someone from school which meant that they'd hold a memorial service during lunch and we'd all have to eat in silence. If I didn't know the kid, it was going to be kind of annoying even though I should probably be feeling sad and thoughtful like people were supposed to feel during memorial services, with the thoughts of What if it had been me? The thing was, it hadn't been me so I should probably just move on with my life, say goodbye to the kid that had left this world before his time, and make sure my own life was lived with purpose.

I continued to read the article, my mouth moving silently along with the words until I came to something that I was sure was a dream. I mean, I seriously laughed out loud. Who could have put something like that in the newspaper? This was my dad's joke, obviously. Angry at the friends I was continuing to have secretly even though he forbade me to hang out with them, he'd gone to the local newspaper and told them to print this. It was just weird that he didn't involve Carter in it. Why would he do this and leave Carter out of it?

A 17-year-old was found dead in a hit-and-run early this morning. According to sources, the boy has been identified as local Christofer Drew Ingle.

Haha. Christofer Drew. Yeah, like Christofer would ever do something that stupid. I kept reading, just to get the full effect of the horribly distasteful joke that my dad was playing on me.

Upon arriving at the hospital, Christofer was pronounced DOA.

Yeah, Dad, okay. Because Christofer was definitely dead.

I walked back over to the sink and washed the dishes from breakfast in a kind of haze, like I was trying to convince myself that it was a joke, which was weird since I was absolutely sure it was. It had to be. It couldn't be anything else. It couldn't be real because things like that did not happen to Christofer. They didn't happen to anyone I knew. Things like that happened to old drunk guys and teenagers miles away I'd never heard of that I said, "That's sad" about and went on with my life. Things like getting hit by a car just didn't happen to Chris even though he was more likely to have it happen because of the fact he was always off getting high and wasn't always too aware of his surroundings. But...well, they just didn't happen. I'd take the newspaper, or buy a copy, and bring it over to Carter's house today and we'd all have a laugh about it. Carter would make some joke about it being too bad that it wasn't really serious and Chris would do that weird thing he does where he randomly licks Carter's cheek, and things would be just like they always were.

"What's so funny?" my dad asked as he came back out, apparently having heard me laugh.

I cursed under my breath, glad the water was running so he couldn't hear me. "Oh, nothing. Just...yeah, it's nothing."

"Hannah."

His voice was stern and serious and I knew that I was going to have to fess up or else I'd be in for a heap of trouble. Sighing, I turned off the water and turned around to face him. "I looked at your newspaper to see what you were so...what you were acting a bit strange about. I'm sorry." I hung my head and waited for the scolding, the punishment. I figured it would be something like him giving me a little lecture about not looking into other peoples' business and then send me to my room for the day, which would ruin my plans with Chris, but we could meet up tomorrow. He'd be around for a long time still and we'd be able to spend time together.

But no scolding or punishment came. My father simply let out a sigh and folded the newspaper up, throwing it into the trash can. "Well, then. Finish up your chores and if your room is clean and the rest of the chores are done, you can go off with some of your school friends, if you want to."

"Thank you, sir," I said, and when I was sure he was gone I finished up the dishes. All the rest of the chores were done already -- I'd done them last night in preparation for a free Saturday, since they were one of the best things in life and I was determined to have them every week. In five short minutes, I was flying out the door and running down the road towards Carter's house. Yeah, it was a little dangerous, what with the fact that my dad hated me hanging out with Chris and Carter and wouldn't let me if he knew where I was planning on going, but my legs just started taking me there even though I'd planned to go to another friend's house and then to Carter's from there. It seemed as good a direction as any.

As I almost sprinted down the road, though, I noticed something up ahead a ways. A police barrier. Wow, my dad must have had help from one of his police friends. There weren't many police in Joplin and my dad knew practically the entire force since it only consisted of five or six officers. I couldn't believe he was going this far for a stupid joke.

I came up to the barrier and the lone car that was sitting there, an officer in the front seat filling out some paperwork or something. Pretending like this meant nothing to me, I sauntered up to the car and asked, "Hey, what happened here?"

"Hm? Oh, there was an accident here really early this morning. A teenage boy, probably one that went to your school. It wasn't the prettiest sight. You haven't read about it in the paper?"

No. No, no, no. I shook my head, though I wasn't sure what I was answering, and started off towards Carter's house. I'd get there and Chris would be there on the couch, playing some stupid video game or something, or so high he barely even recognized me and laughed at everything Carter said. Maybe they'd both be high and I'd be the one left to laugh at them and clean up their mess, which had happened more than once. Not like I minded. Friends did that for each other.

The world passed by in fog until I was standing at Carter's door. There was no knocking, Carter said, at his house and as long as you were a friend, you could come right in, but for some reason I knocked anyway.

"Fuck," I heard from inside. Carter's voice, but different. "I don't need any fucking visitors right now."

The door opened and I was faced with a very disheveled-looking Carter Hulsey. His brown hair was all askew, like he'd slept on sex hair, and his clothes were lopsided, as if he'd just pulled on whatever was on the floor of his closet and hadn't worried about buttoning it right. His shirt was backwards; the tag was poking out of the front. Carter hated his shirts backwards. It was a major pet peeve of his.

"Hannah," he whispered.

"Carter, what happened?"

"Oh, Hannah." Remorse instead of shock this time. Suddenly the caged rabbit was attacking again, trying to claw out of my chest. Carter wasn't joking around. This was real.

"Carter," I said quietly, trying not to dissolve right there on the spot. "What happened that I don't know about?"

He pulled me into his arms in the hug I needed more than anything else right then, and that's when the dam broke. "He can't be dead," I sobbed into his shoulder, feeling myself shake. "He can't be. He was right at my fuckin' house the other night. We were gonna hang out today. We...we had sex last night." That was something I'd rather not discuss with Carter, and for me to blurt it out like that was serious. Something was very wrong. "Tell me what happened, Carter, please. I can't take any more lying."

"Hannah, baby." His voice was just as shaky as mine. "Chris is dead."

It wasn't a lie. I could tell.