Re: [New Year’s Eve: Hannah & Jeremiah]
She went. She took his hand, and she went, and it was quieter and cooler, and she could see outside. The chandelier was still beautiful overhead, and it was still like some fairytale, but it was also a tiny space in a bigger story, and Hannah found that she liked chapters. She wasn't worried about anyone hearing, and she didn't realize he was, and she thought it was just easier here, quiet and just them. "How? How did you do it without him knowing?" she asked of the man who wasn't his father, and then she tried to figure it out in her head. "No, no, backwards," she said. "What made you think he wasn't your father?" It seemed a more important place to start, didn't it?
She didn't think about asking too much, about nosiness. She'd learned people didn't always like her tendency to ask, to invade personal space with questions and touches, but she stood close, and she asked. It was just who she was, and her hem brushed the leg of his pants. "Why shouldn't you be at ease with him?" she asked of his father. "Did he know about you before? I think he sounds like he wants to help, to do right. Is he like you very much?" she asked, trying to imagine him, Jeremiah, older, settled, aged enough for gray at the temples and children fully grown. It made her smile, and she could see it. Maybe he couldn't yet, and maybe it seemed impossible or very far away, but she could see it, and she touched her fingertips to his temple, to where gray might come one day.
"One of my brothers," she said openly, and this was her answer to his question about who she was talking about. "Jamie. He's younger, and I try and try, and I don't think I ever say it right, or help him how he needs. Mars, my sister, she hates me, and I can do that. I can talk to her, and I understand. I understand Si. I always understand Si, but Jamie is hard. I want to help, but I never, ever know what he needs me to say," she explained. It was a lot of words, and she plucked a little at his sleeve while she spoke, thoughtless and comfortable in his presence.