now.â
âBigger than my mom saying no?â
âYes.â Hannah was biting her nails. Perfect Hannah with her perfect teeth was biting to ugly nubs the nails at the ends of her perfect long fingers.
Chloe frowned in confusion. âWhatâs the matter with you?â Though Chloe herself found Hannah to be slightly androgynous, with her tall, boyish bodyâstraight hips, straight waist, smallhigh breasts, short hair always slicked back away from her faceâother people, boys especially, did not agree. Her serious, appraising eyes, brown, round, and unblinking, made Hannah look as though she were engagedâas though she were listening. Chloe knew it was a ruse: the steady stare simply allowed Hannah to be lost inside her head. She wore makeup she could ill afford, but strived to look as though she just splashed water on her face and, voilà , perfection. Her current demeanor was out of character. âWhatâs the matter?â Chloe repeated.
âNothing. Everything. How likely is it,â Hannah asked, âthat Blake and Mason are actually going to go?â
âA hundred percent.â Chloe pulled her friendâs twitchy hand out of her mouth. âStop doing that. Whatâs wrong?â
Hannah didnât reply. She was too busy bloodying the tips of her fingers.
Chloe plopped down on Hannahâs lavender bed and stared at their reflection in the floor-length closet-door mirror. For a long time Hannah had wanted to be a ballerina. For many hours in her room she practiced her arabesques and soubresauts in front of that mirror, hoping one day she would stop growing and her parents could afford ballet classes. She finally got her lessons in the divorce settlement, but by then she was five-ten and too tall to be lifted into the air by anyone but Blake, who was definitely not a ballet dancer.
Hannah turned up her music, which was already plenty loud. She did it so her mother couldnât hear her, but the result was that Chloe couldnât hear her either. Hannah had a barely audible soprano, like a low hum, and over the high treble strands of Metallicaâs âNothing Else Mattersâ she was nearly impossible to make out.
She lay on her bed next to Chloe. âChloe-bear, Iâm in trouble.â
Chloe didnât hear.
âI have to break up with him and I donât know how to do it.â
That Chloe heard. âWith Blake?â She bolted up. She was horrified.
âNo, with Martyn.â
âWho?â
âShut up. Be serious.â
Chloe shut up. How to tell Hannah she was being serious? Who the hell was Martyn? She hoped her pitiful ignorance didnât show on her face. She scrunched it up knowingly, trussed her eyebrows, nodded. âWhy, um, do you have to break up with him?â
âHe was going to give me money to go to Barcelona, because he knows I donât have enough, but if Blake is going, he wonât give me any.â
Chloe blindly navigated the maze before her, hands out in front. âSo donât tell him Blake is going.â Who the hell was Martyn?!
âExcept . . . he was going to meet us in Barcelona for a few days.â
Chloe weighed her words. âMartyn was going to meet us in Barcelona for a few days?â As if repetition would make Hannahâs words make sense.
âI didnât want him to, Chloe, believe me, but I donât have enough money to go, and I thought, whatâs a couple of days, when weâre going to be there two weeks, right?â
âMartyn was going to meet us in Barcelona.â
âDonât be mad. I was going to tell you he was coming. I was just waiting for the right time. Please donât be mad.â Hannah briefly leaned her head into Chloeâs head, and then clapped her hands, businesslike. âNo, thatâs it. Iâm going to end it. Itâs for the best,â she said. âHe is getting too serious, anyway. We need to break up,