Re: [New Year’s Eve: Hannah & Jeremiah]
She had memories of family, but they weren't really good memories, and they weren't really her memories. They belonged to Amy, and they were sad and dark and layered in bad feelings. When she thought of family, it was with that layer of unhappiness coating everything, like it was old dust on furniture left neglected in a decaying house. "I think you're right," she said after a moment, and it was her take on his comment about loneliness, his comment about family and the people in life. "But I think it's possible to have close people and be lonely, and I think maybe we need a person, one person," she said, and it was thinking aloud, and she'd never been in love, and she didn't think it had to be romantic. But it had to be something, and she was starting to feel very, very certain about that. "I'm glad you have your family, Jeremiah. I'm glad." She was. She was. He was a good man, and he deserved people.
She looked at him longer, then, considering and considering, and then she smiled sunbeams at him. "I can't imagine you in an office with numbers or computers," she finally said, and she couldn't imagine it. "I think you're made for creative things, for beautiful things, for things that grow." She believed it. "I think it's wonderful that you're a romantic. I think you'll find someone who completes you, and I think you'll be like two pieces of one puzzle." Hannah read a lot, a lot of romance novels, and it showed.
Their fingers tangled, and she let her lashes fall against her cheeks, gaze down a moment and her smile soft as he pushed her hair back. She listened, soaking in his wisdom, and then she lifted her cornflower gaze back to his. "I don't think he'd like me very much if I was me. Should I just be me, even if that's what happens?" She was trying really, really hard, but maybe he was right, and maybe that was part of the problem. Maybe the trying made her not her, and she was herself now, here, with him, and it was easy, and it felt right. It didn't feel right with Jamie. Even Mars, who hated her, let her be herself. She wasn't exactly sure how to put it into words, how to make it clear, but she thought maybe he understood anyway.