by hannah
July 7th, 2010
From Sex, Life, & Hannah::Volume 1, Spring Season (CHAPTER 12: POST-EJACULATORY REMORSE)
I’m sitting next to Clark at the Pink Bear, getting drunk.
“It’s my face isn’t it?” I slap my hand down on Clark’s forearm. “He doesn’t want me because something’s wrong with my face!”
After leaving Mr. Smyth’s house, I called in sick. I didn’t sleep at all, and couldn’t eat. So I staggered through the day drinking coffee, re-examining every detail of our date a hundred times, wishing I could take back the “B-word” portion of it. I was convinced I’d still be bathing in afterglow if only I could erase that part.
As soon as I’d heard a car pull into the front house, I’d run across the yard and told Clark we needed to go out.
“Oh my god, no!” Clark recoils, aghast. “You’re as gorgeous as ever! Even more so with your saucy new makeup.” Beaming, Clark cradles my face in his hands.
I’ve been pouring my heart out to Clark for over an hour, and for over an hour he’s been reassuring me that I’m still the cat’s meow. But I need to hear more.
“You don’t think my nose has shifted left?” I down the rest of my vodka soda and order up another.
“Absolutely not!” Clark leans in. “That man is a fool for breaking your heart, and mark my words: He will regret it for the rest of his life.”
Clark is such a good friend, and he’s saying all the right stuff…except it wasn’t supposed to end like this. Mr. Smyth wasn’t supposed to be regretting anything, and I wasn’t supposed to be wallowing over my life with my gay neighbor. Mr. Smyth and I were supposed to be together forever. I grab the new drink in front of me and start chugging.
by hannah
May 26th, 2010
From Sex, Life, & Hannah::Volume 1, Spring Season (CHAPTER 10: LOVE IN AN ELEVATOR)
I’m sitting on the floor of the elevator with my head tilted back against the wall, the ice pack covering my face again. The Ex is beside me, his dress shirt back on, his undershirt glued to my nose. The bleeding has stopped, but the elevator hasn’t started. According to the maintenance man The Ex got ahold of, it’s going to be a while. Apparently all the elevators are down, and a woman in labor is stuck in one too; so we’re not a priority. I close my eyes and try to imagine myself elsewhere.
I always thought The Ex was The One. When I was thirteen, we had to make a poster of what we wanted our future to look like, and he was it: tall, dark, and fashionable. Not that my whole collage was of the perfect man—I had included my fantasy wardrobe, too—but the male model I’d cut out of the October issue of Cosmopolitan was the centerpiece. And when I strolled up to the Beverly Hilton concierge that fateful Saturday morning looking for directions, I had an eerie feeling I’d just met my centerpiece.
We were in love—through the growing pains and the glory. Even when he broke up with me eighty-seven days ago and I ran after him, tears, mascara, and eye shadow streaming down my face, screaming: “Are you sure? Because this is it!” and he stopped, and I went on: “There’s no going back after this! I’m done. No need to hang on to that engagement ring! Are you sure this is what you want?” and he paused, staring at me, and finally said, “I’m sure,” his voice cracking and his head turning away quickly, and I yelled out: “You’re dead to me!”—I still believed we would be together forever.
I sigh deeply, wondering how the hell we got here: broken-up, broken, in a broken elevator.
“How’s Genie?” I ask flashbacking to our last drama that took place on an elevator. We were at Nieman Marcus, going up to the men’s shoe department, when The Ex’s annoying little micro dog decided to take a whiz all over Charlie Sheen’s shoes. I started apologizing, and The Ex started yelling at Genie, before picking her up and realizing she was getting pee remnants all over his new polo…and pushing her onto me. Then he blamed me for not taking her out for a walk earlier, and I reminded him it was his dog. And worse, just another trendy phase he was going through. He handed Charlie his business card, apologized, and said he’d comp him an all-inclusive weekend stay at the Beverly Hilton. I rolled my eyes.
“I moved into a new place that doesn’t take pets, so I gave her to one of the front desk girls at the hotel.”
Figures. I move the ice pack, and then turn my head around to face the brushed steel interior of the elevator wall. I am immediately horrified. “I look like the pet project of Dr. Frankenstein gone wrong.” I want to cry. “I’m probably scarred for life. I’ll probably need plastic surgery.”
I feel him squeeze my arm. “Hey.” He tugs me to face him. He puts his other hand under my chin. “You’re still sexy as hell.” He smiles.
My stomach curls into an anxious knot. Sitting next to The Ex, on this sterile elevator floor, stuck between floors two and three, on this first day of spring, exactly three months before our six-year anniversary, in the midst of this chaotic night, and painful memories, and awkward small talk, I realize that…I am still in love with my ex-boyfriend…
by hannah
May 17th, 2010
From Sex, Life, & Hannah::Volume 1, Winter Season (CHAPTER 9: ACCIDENTAL)
Still in traffic and not even two-thirds of the way home, I start looking around my car for something to keep me occupied: reading material, leftover food, a CD I haven’t listened to a hundred times, anything.
I notice a duffel bag behind the passenger seat.
I reach around and grab it, and unzip it to examine its contents. Mud-ridden sneakers…were those from the time The Ex and I went hiking in Griffith Park and it started raining? Black sweatpants cut off at the knee—I’m pretty sure I cut those off for the hike. A beat-up old grey t-shirt…the t-shirt The Ex had to change out of because it got so wet. A glass pipe lined with black pot residue, because we decided to wait out the rain in my car and needed something to do.
We ended up getting stoned, then horny, and then making out like two teenagers on their parents basement couch in front of a rented movie. Finally he reclined the passenger seat as I whipped out his dick and he ripped off my sweatpants so we could screw our brains out…
