“What? Is there something wrong with this place too?”
She laughs, running her hand through her hair and leaning back like this is some great joke.
“Have you never heard of Highland Park before?” she asks.
I look through the windshield again, letting my eyes scour the field and weave in the spaces between the trees. When nothing comes to mind, I say, “I don’t think so.”
“This is, like, a notorious make-out spot.”
My lips form anO.
“I mean, hey, at least no one will have a problem finding the place,” Hannah says, cracking herself up.
“Oh my gosh.” I laugh. “Really?”
“Yes, this is where half the girls on the team bring their boyfriends. During the day, they go into the woods, and at night, a lot of people just park here or pull farther onto the grass.”
I laugh along, trying not to feel insecure about the fact that I’ve never heard of Highland Park or any infamous make outs.
“Have you ever—” The words spill out, catching me off guard.Crap.
“Have Iever…?” Hannah baits me, smirking because she knows exactly what I was about to ask.
“Nothing.” As much as I’m dying to know, I simultaneously don’t want to know.
“A few times, when I was a freshman. I dated this junior, and after practice was over, she’d give me rides home, but sometimes we’d come here to kill an hour.”
I try to picture it, a younger version of Hannah riding in the passenger seat of a teammate’s car, having exciting, intimate experiences… with someone else.
“That’s cool,” I say, not looking at her.
Before she can say anything more, and before I can continue down the unsavory road of my own imagination, I throw my door open and slip out of the car. I head toward the field, not even waiting for her.
“Clarity,” she calls.
Hannah was my first kiss, my first handhold, my first stolen night together, the first person to see me in my underwear—
“Clarity, wait up!”
I shared the best parts of myself and then all the rest. And she accepted the parts of me that I had put out, put down, or forgotten. And to think that she’s done this however many times before. That she’s perhaps fallen in love… That I’m just another one. I mean, am I?
As the question comes to mind, I already know it can’t be true. At least, in my heart, I don’t feel like it is. What we have is different, as different for Hannah as it is for me… maybe… hopefully.
“Hypothetically,” I say, out of breath. I stop and turn around, Hannah nearly knocking into me.
“What the heck?”
“Hypothetically, wouldwecome here?”
Hannah opens her mouth and then closes it. I watch her eyes watching me, and I do my best not to give away the thoughts swarming my mind.
“No,” she finally says, still scrutinizing me for my reaction. “We wouldn’t come here.”
“Hypothetically,” I remind her.
“Yes, hypothetically.”
“And, hypothetically, where would we go?”