Her Name In The Sky Part 24

Joanie shakes her head. "I don't know. I found her slumped over the kitchen sink and tried to take her into the downstairs bathroom, but she wanted to come up here. I don't think she wanted anyone to see her."

Hannah lays her head on the carpet and peers through the crack beneath the door. She can see Baker's bare legs and feet spread over the tile floor. "Baker?" she calls again. "Baker, it's me, it's Hannah. Can you let me in, please?"

"I tried to use a bobby pin," Joanie says, her eyes wide and frightened, "but I couldn't get it to work."

"Let me see it. Where's your phone? Look up how to unlock doors with bobby pins."

Joanie finds a helpful article and reads it aloud while Hannah works the bobby pin in the keyhole.

"Come on," Hannah pleads with the bobby bin, "come on."

Finally, something clicks, and Hannah rotates the doork.n.o.b until the door pushes open and she falls forward onto her hands.

Baker is slumped against the bathtub with her feet extended toward the toilet. Hannah crawls toward her, calling her name, Joanie right behind her.

"Baker? You okay?" Hannah asks when she reaches her. Baker rolls her head on the edge of the bathtub, moaning and clutching her stomach. She has vomit on the corner of her mouth and in her hair. "Bake," Hannah says, wrapping her arms around her, "are you alright? What happened?"

Baker nestles her head into Hannah's s.h.i.+rt and starts to cry.

"Joanie," Hannah says, looking up at her sister's anxious face, "can you wet some toilet paper?"

They wipe Baker's mouth and her hair. Hannah pulls her into her lap and rubs her back, whispering calming things to her and promising that it's going to be all right.

"She needs to throw up more," Joanie says.

"Baker," Hannah says softly, tucking her hair back, "we need you to vomit more, okay? Okay? We'll help you."

Baker scrunches up her face and cries. "Can't," she whispers. "Hurts."

"I know," Hannah coos, pulling Baker's hair back into a ponytail, "but it's going to make you feel better, okay? I promise. Come on, we'll help you."

"Come on, Baker," Joanie says kindly, "you can do it."

Baker turns her head away from them; two more tears streak down her face. "Come on, B," Hannah says, "let's sit up."

She and Joanie guide Baker to the toilet. They stand on either side of her, poised like bodyguards, Joanie gripping Baker's arm and Hannah rubbing Baker's back.

"Doing great," Hannah coaches her. "Now try to make yourself vomit, okay?"

"Just stick a couple of fingers down your throat," Joanie adds, miming the action.

Baker bends forward and heaves. Joanie looks away with her face screwed up in distaste, and Hannah stares at a hand towel near the sink and focuses on drawing circular patterns over Baker's s.h.i.+rt.

They stay that way for several minutes, the sound of Baker's retching echoing around the bathroom, the vibrations from the music downstairs pulsing through their blood. Then Baker stills.

"Feel better?" Hannah asks.

"Yeah," Baker rasps. Hannah hears the pump of the toilet flus.h.i.+ng.

"Careful," Hannah guides. "Sit down slowly. We'll get you some water, okay?"

She sits down and pulls Baker into her arms again. Joanie squats next to them, her eyes still crinkled with worry. "Do you think you got it all out?" Joanie asks.

Baker nods against Hannah's chest. Hannah strokes through her hair and smoothes a thumb over the light sheen on her forehead.

"Can you get me a wet washcloth, Joanie? Or a wet piece of toilet paper?"

Joanie finds a washcloth under the sink, wets it, wrings it out. Hannah presses the blue cloth against Baker's forehead, then her cheeks, then her collarbone. "How you feeling, B? Any better?"

"Yeah," Baker breathes, sounding more like herself even though she keeps her eyes closed. She tucks her head further into Hannah's s.h.i.+rt. "Thank you."

"We'll just sit here for a little while, alright?"

The three of them rest in silence for a few minutes, Joanie sitting with her back against the wall, Hannah sitting with her back against the bathtub and Baker tucked into her side. She can feel Baker breathing against her body, and she pulls her fingers through Baker's hair in the same rhythm.

"It's a good thing I called you," Joanie says.

Hannah looks up. Joanie is wearing an unusual expression: she seems calmer and older somehow.

"Yeah," Hannah agrees, s.h.i.+fting her eyes to the tile floor. "I'm glad you did."

"I'm gonna get her a gla.s.s of water. I'll be back in a minute."

"Thanks."

Then Joanie is gone, and Hannah is left with Baker in her arms.

"What the h.e.l.l happened?" Clay yells, bursting into the bathroom. Joanie trails behind him with her mouth open in protest and a gla.s.s of water in her hand. Luke follows last, his usually bright face falling into worry.

"She got sick," Hannah says, sitting forward. "Keep your voice down."

"Why didn't anyone come get me?"

"What?"

"Baker, are you okay?" he says, falling to his knees in front of her. He runs his hands up and down her arms. "What happened, baby?"

Baby. The word echoes loudly in Hannah's head, then drops into her stomach and pierces her sharply.

"Don't move her, Clay," Joanie snaps, stepping forward. "Here, Hannah, give her some water."

"I'm going to get my keys," Luke says from the doorway. "Bring her out to the car in a minute."

"Thanks, man," Clay says. He inches closer to Baker and brushes his knuckles down her face. "You alright, Bake? What were you drinking?"

"She can't talk, Clay," Joanie says impatiently. "She just vomited up a whole swimming pool of alcohol. Give her some s.p.a.ce."

"Here," Clay says, reaching for the water gla.s.s from Hannah, "I'll do it. You and Joanie go help Luke with the car."

"What?" Hannah says, nothing making sense in her head, her impulse to hold Baker strengthening by the second.

"I'll take care of her. I can carry her down the stairs."

"I don't think we should move her yet," Hannah says.

"Hannah, she's my girlfriend, okay, I can handle this. C'mere, Bake."

Hannah watches numbly as he transfers Baker's body weight to himself and holds the gla.s.s of water to her lips to drink. "Open up, baby," he says, his deep voice stripped down to a gentler sound.

Hannah stands slowly and backs into the sink, words swimming around her head, worry still clutching at her stomach, and beyond it all, that ache, that terrible ache, suffocating her heart.

"Hannah," Joanie says softly.

Hannah doesn't look at her.

"Up we go," Clay says, lifting Baker in his arms. "Han, can you get that water gla.s.s?"

She does as he asks and follows him out of the bathroom, out of the bedroom, out of the house. Luke's car idles in the driveway, waiting for them.

"Are y'all coming?" Clay asks, turning around briefly.

Hannah can't find her voice.

"We're good," Joanie answers him. "Text us once you get her home, okay?"

"I will," Clay promises, and then he climbs into Luke's car with Baker resting in his lap. Hannah and Joanie stand still and watch them drive away.

"I can drive home, if you want," Joanie says tentatively.

"Yeah."

"Han? You should put that water gla.s.s down."

"What?"

"That water gla.s.s. In your hand. Maybe you should go put it on the porch."

"Yeah."

She walks it numbly to the front porch, but then, just as she's about to set it down, a deep pain overtakes her, a pain so sudden and blinding that she channels it without thinking-she throws the gla.s.s at the brick wall of the house-she hears it smash into a million fragments, fragments as numerous as the hairs on her head, as the sands on the seash.o.r.e-she hears Joanie gasp behind her but she doesn't care-the pain is debilitating and she wants to vomit, she wants to vomit, but she can't.

"Hannah," Joanie says, approaching her cautiously. There are tears in her eyes.

Hannah opens her mouth to speak, but only dry sobs come out. She shakes her head back and forth, back and forth, trying to erase everything.

"Hannah, please," Joanie says, grabbing her wrist. "Let's go home."

Chapter Eleven: Possibility.

Hannah stays in bed for a long time on Sunday morning. She blinks at the sunlight streaming through the crack in her crimson curtains, but all she sees is Baker on the bathroom floor, vomit on her mouth and in her hair.

Hannah, she's my girlfriend, okay, I can handle this.

"Hannah?" Joanie calls through the door. "Can I come in?"

Hannah hides her face in her covers, but Joanie enters the room anyway. Hannah hears her set something on the dresser. Then she feels Joanie's weight settle onto the bed, right over Hannah's feet.

"You should probably get up," Joanie says. "It's past noon."

"So what."

"So you're being a total lard-a.s.s."

Hannah doesn't respond. A heavy silence falls over them, a silence that Hannah can feel wrapped all around her.

"Han?" Joanie says, her voice fragile. Hannah can imagine her face, sad and anxious like it was the time Hannah fell off her bike and sprained her wrist when she was in first grade and Joanie was in kindergarten. "Is there anything I can do to make you feel better?"

Hannah breathes into her pillow. Unexpected tears spring into her throat. "No," she says.

Joanie s.h.i.+fts her weight on the bed, and Hannah feels a lighter pressure on her foot, the pressure of Joanie's hand.

"Han?" Joanie's voice is so, so fragile. "Is there something you want to talk about?"

Hannah breathes. "Where are Mom and Dad?"

"They're at Home Depot."

"Oh."

"Hannah? What's going on with you?"

Hannah sits up and wipes at her eyes. Her heart sprints away in her chest, like it knows what's coming before she does.

"I-" she says.

"Yeah?"

"I-I don't know how to explain this."

"Okay...well, does it have something to do with Baker and Clay?"