Her Name In The Sky Part 28

"No," Hannah says, her head reeling. "No. I really didn't."

Joanie's face looks momentarily relieved, but then her eyebrows crinkle and she voices the fear Hannah has tried to push down for the last minute.

"Han, do you think Baker might have-?"

"Hey," Wally calls, striding toward them with his lunch tray. "What's up? Y'all coming to sit?"

Hannah and Joanie freeze. Wally hovers five feet away, his eyebrows lifting as he takes in their expressions.

"We're coming," Hannah says. "Sorry. We were just talking about something our mom asked us to do."

They follow him to their usual lunch table. Hannah sits down next to him and Joanie sits across from them, trying to catch Hannah's eye. Hannah unpacks her lunch bag and picks the bread off her sandwich, chewing it in small bites that make her feel like she might throw up. Wally stirs the red beans on his lunch tray and says, "So during Econ today-"

Hannah doesn't listen: Michele has just strutted into the courtyard, her face alight with a power Hannah has never seen on it before, her friends trailing her with satisfied smirks on their faces. Whole tables of students look around to her, and all at once people start calling out to her.

"What's going on?"

"Is it true?"

"Do you have it with you?"

The ruckus is enough to distract Wally from his story and to quell the other conversations taking place at all the different lunch tables. A hushed silence falls over the courtyard: no one talks, no one eats, no one s.h.i.+fts a lunch tray or crinkles a bag. Michele struts to a table in the middle of the courtyard-the table where Baker and Clay sit-and leans down to whisper to someone. Hannah's stomach chills; she waits in absolute stillness, unable to breathe or blink.

Wally leans over. "What's going-?"

His words are cut off by a yell from the middle table.

"-AND GET THE h.e.l.l AWAY!"

Hannah cranes her neck to get a better look, but she need not move at all: Clay is half-rising from his seat, his face blotchy red and his eyes narrowed in fury, his shoulders tight with tension.

"Calm down, Clay," Michele says, her voice carrying around the courtyard. "I'm just saying-"

"Well shut up and move on," Clay spits. He turns away from her and gazes out over the sea of onlookers. "Go back to your tacos," he says. "She's just talking out of her a.s.s, like usual."

"Why don't you let Baker speak for herself?" Michele retorts, her voice dangerous.

The whole courtyard balances on a pin.

"Great, Clay, you've gone and alerted our whole cla.s.s," Michele says, crossing her arms. "I was trying to be discrete. This is a sensitive issue. Although...it's probably fair that everyone should know who's responsible for getting Ms. Carpenter in trouble. Right, Baker?"

Hannah's stomach turns over.

"She has nothing to do with it," Clay says. He speaks in a deliberately low voice now, but his voice carries around the silent courtyard anyway.

"Then why do you look so scared, Baker?" Michele says. "If you had nothing to do with the e-mail, then why did I see you crying in Ms. Carpenter's room before school this morning?"

Hannah s.h.i.+fts down the bench, straining her eyes. Then she sees her: Baker sits as still as a statue, her face flushed red, her eyes stretched with fear.

"Kind of makes sense, doesn't it?" Michele continues, shrugging a shoulder. "I mean, the writer mentioned that she had been trying to cover up her feelings by dating a guy. She said she worried about hurting her tight-knit group of friends. Yes, Clay, the Six-Pack. She said she was drunk and had started drinking a lot more lately. And we all know that has to be you, Baker, right? I mean, you had that embarra.s.sing episode at Liz's party last weekend-"

"Shut your mouth!" Clay yells, jumping up from his bench.

"Can't you see I'm trying to help? If she's the one who wrote the e-mail, then she obviously needs our support as she tries to figure out these difficult feelings. We're her friends. We're all a family. You're the one who always says that, Clay, right? Maybe if we had known about this sooner, then she wouldn't have had to send that e-mail that got Ms. Carpenter in trouble...."

Hannah scans the faces of everyone in the courtyard. Nearly all of them wear the same expression: a mixture between shock and confusion.

"So?" Michele says, speaking down to Baker. "Was it you, or what?"

Baker opens her mouth, but no sound comes out.

"I'm not trying to accuse you," Michele says. "I just think whoever got Carpenter in trouble owes us all an apology. Don't you think that's fair, Baker?"

"I didn't write it," Baker says, her voice weaker than Hannah's ever heard it.

"I don't understand why you're acting so funny, then," Michele says, peering down at her. She hangs her head, like the whole encounter is causing her pain, and sighs. "It was you, Baker. Right?"

There is a long, pressured silence, and Hannah's heart hammers inside her chest.

"You're supposed to be our president, remember?" Michele sneers. "You're not supposed to go getting our favorite teacher fired. Or, you know, decide to be a lesbian."

Baker breathes very fast; even though she sits yards away, Hannah can see her shaking.

"Well, since you're not saying anything," Michele says, "I guess we can take that as a yes."

Hannah stands up without thinking and knows what she's about to do before she actually processes it.

"It wasn't her," Hannah says. Her voice spreads out around the courtyard, and she hears it echo in her head, almost like it isn't hers. Every face in the vicinity turns to look at her.

"What are you doing?!" Joanie whispers. "Sit down!"

"She didn't write it," Hannah says, making eye contact with as many people as she can, but hardly seeing them at all. "I wrote it."

"Stop trying to cover for her, Hannah," Michele says.

"I'm not. She was trying to cover for me."

"That doesn't make any sense, Hannah, just sit down-"

"I sent the e-mail last night," Hannah says, her mind working furiously to keep up with her words. "I was drunk-and panicking-I had been feeling that way for a really long time-" her voice starts to break-"and Ms. Carpenter has always been my favorite teacher, and I saw how she acted at Ma.s.s yesterday..." She shakes her head with genuine tears in her eyes. "I sent her the e-mail without thinking about it."

"Then why did I see Baker crying to Ms. Carpenter this morning?" Michele says angrily.

Hannah swallows down the tears in her throat. "I called Baker in the middle of the night and told her everything. She said she would try to help. She told me everything would be okay. She promised she'd talk to Ms. Carpenter for me and explain everything so that I wouldn't get in trouble. I was worried that I-I might jeopardize my acceptance to Emory. I begged her to go talk to Ms. Carpenter first thing this morning."

"Oh, this is a bunch of c.r.a.p," Michele says, but Hannah looks around at her peers' faces and knows that they believe her-that they are desperate to believe her.

"Baker has nothing to do with this," Hannah says, her voice shaking, her eyes still wet with tears.

"That doesn't even make sense," Michele says. "You two haven't even talked in, like, weeks. We've all noticed it."

"She was trying to distance herself from me," Hannah says, lowering her eyes to the table. "I told her how I've been feeling about-about girls-and-" she swallows-"she wasn't sure we should be friends anymore. She didn't want to compromise her beliefs."

Clay's voice is the first one to break the courtyard's silence. "Is that true, Bake?"

Every face turns away from Hannah and back to Baker. Baker meets Hannah's eyes, her expression still terrified. For an infinite moment they read each other, and Hannah nods her head forward a fraction of an inch.

"Yes," Baker says.

Hannah breathes.

"So, what, you were gonna take the fall for Hannah?" Clay asks incredulously.

Baker doesn't answer. In the distance, somewhere far, far away, Hannah hears the bell ring. The sound of it seems to startle everyone back into the reality of the school day. In an uncomfortable silence, people all around the courtyard pick up their trash and step away from their tables. Then the silence gives way to a buzzing whispering, and Hannah watches in a daze, feeling like she's in a movie, as cla.s.smates walk past her, some of them staring, some of them ignoring her, others outright glaring at her.

But the only person Hannah watches is Baker. She rises unsteadily from her table and seems unaware that Clay is speaking into her ear. She meets Hannah's eyes one more time, and Hannah feels the weight of the world between them. Then Baker walks loosely and clumsily toward the B-Hall doors, her head down and her hair hanging over her eyes.

And then everyone is gone. Everyone except for Joanie and Wally.

Hannah slumps down into her seat. Everything around her seems dim, surreal. Joanie gawps at her. Wally sits with his back rigid and his hands clenched.

"Wally-" Hannah says.

"Don't talk to me."

"Wally, wait-"

But he jerks himself away from the table and yanks his booksack over his shoulder. He throws his bag of trash at the trashcan; it hits off the side and falls to the ground, but he doesn't stop to pick it up.

Joanie gathers up the contents of her lunch, sealing her sandwich bag with trembling thumbs. She reaches for her water bottle but knocks it over onto the table. Hannah watches the water spread over the wood while Joanie picks up the bottle with shaking hands.

"I had to," Hannah says.

"Bulls.h.i.+t," Joanie says. She stands up and tucks her blouse into her skirt over and over and over, until the fabric is stretched taut across her stomach. "Do you realize Mom and Dad are gonna find out now? Is that how you wanted this to go?"

Joanie's hands continue to shake as she raises her water bottle to her mouth and takes a clumsy gulp from it. Hannah still sits at the table, her arms and legs numb, her mind foggy.

"Stupidest thing you've ever done in your life," Joanie says.

Her cla.s.smates stare at her all through third block. The only person who doesn't look at her is Wally, who sits with his jaw clenched and his head bent over the desk. Hannah's mind replays the scene in the courtyard again and again while Mr. Creary prattles on about the format of their Government exam.

And then the overhead intercom beeps.

"Mr. Creary?"

"Mm?"

"Please send Hannah Eaden to the office."

She tries hard to ignore the stares of her two-dozen cla.s.smates, but she can feel their eyes on her as she crosses the cla.s.sroom. She closes Mr. Creary's door and stands in the hallway with a feeling of panic in her stomach. Her vision dims. When she starts to walk, she can feel air beating against her sweaty palms. She stops off into the bathroom and throws up.

The front office secretaries seem to be waiting for her. "h.e.l.lo, Hannah," one of them says, her smile forced. "Mrs. Shackleford would like to see you. You can go on back to her office."

Hannah opens Mrs. Shackleford's door to find a half-dozen people inside. Mrs. Shackleford sits at her desk, her expression grim; Mr. Manceau and Father Simon stand together at one window, Mr. Manceau's arms crossed over his stomach and Father Simon's hands clasped behind his back; Ms. Carpenter stands at the opposite window, her angular eyebrows drawn together; and Hannah's parents hover just inside the door, their skin pale and their eyes nervous.

"Hi, honey," her mom says. She looks like it's costing her everything she has to look at Hannah. Hannah's dad stands silently at her side, mechanically rubbing at his elbow.

"h.e.l.lo, Hannah," Mrs. Shackleford says. "Have a seat, please."

Hannah sits in the designated chair in front of Mrs. Shackleford's desk, with the adults circled around her. She feels like the center p.a.w.n in a child's game of Duck-Duck-Goose.

"Hannah, do you know why we called you in?" Mrs. Shackleford asks.

"Is this about the e-mail?" Hannah says, trying to sound braver than she feels.

Mrs. Shackleford nods a few times. "Yes, it is. Hannah, we've had several students tell us that you've taken owners.h.i.+p of that e-mail. That you told some friends that you're the one who wrote it."

"I told the whole senior courtyard," Hannah says. In her peripheral vision, she can see her mom flinch.

"Hannah..." Mrs. Shackleford brings her hands together and stares hard at her. "Do you understand the implications of telling people you wrote this e-mail?"

Hannah casts her eyes to the objects on Mrs. Shackleford's desk: the name placard, the dove-shaped paperweight, the photographs of her husband and children. She feels acutely aware of everyone watching her. "Yes, ma'am. Everyone will think that I'm-um." She clears her throat. Out of the corner of her eye, she sees Ms. Carpenter tuck her head down.

"It's a bit more complicated than that, Hannah," Mrs. Shackleford says.

"How?"

"So you did write the e-mail?" Mr. Manceau cuts in.

"Bob-" Mrs. Shackleford says.

"I think you should let her answer the question, Mrs. Shackleford," Father Simon says. "She hasn't confirmed yet."

"Can you confirm that you wrote this e-mail?" Mr. Manceau says, thrusting a piece of paper into Hannah's hand. Hannah smoothes out the paper and reads the topmost line, but then her parents step up behind her and peer over her shoulder.

"Don't," Hannah says.

"We've already read it," her mom says.

"What?"

Her mom swallows. "Mr. Manceau already showed us."

Hannah glares at Mr. Manceau. He raises his eyebrows, and his challenge is clear: What are you gonna do about it?

"Please just give me a minute," Hannah asks her parents.

Her mom nods in a resigned way. Her dad continues to rub his elbow. Hannah, with the force of a hammer on her heart, reads: DATE May 11, 2012 TIME 1:03 AM.