“Hanna,” Sean said gently, reaching to pull her dress back down. “This isn’t…”
He wasn’t fast enough, though; Hanna had already torn the dress over her head. Sean’s eyes canvassed her whole body. Amazingly, this was only the second time he’d seen her in her underwear—unless you counted the week they spent at his parents’ place in Avalon on the Jersey Shore, when she was in her bikini. But that was different.
“You don’t really want to stop, do you?” She reached toward him, hoping she looked smoldering yet wholesome.
“Yeah.” Sean caught her hand. “I do.”
Hanna wrapped herself up in her dress as best she could. She probably had a hundred mosquito bites already. Her lip trembled. “But…I don’t get it. Don’t you love me?” The words felt very small and frail coming out of her mouth.
Sean took a long time to respond. Hanna heard another couple from the party giggling nearby. “I don’t know,” he answered.
“Jesus,” Hanna said, rolling away from him. The vodka lemonades sloshed in her stomach. “Are you g*y?” It came out a little meaner than she meant it to.
“No!” Sean sounded hurt.
“Well then what? Am I not hot enough?”
“Of course not!” Sean said, sounding shocked. He thought for a moment. “You’re one of the prettiest girls I know, Hanna. Why don’t you know that?”
“What are you talking about?” Hanna asked, disgusted.
“I just…,” Sean started. “I just think that maybe if you could have a little more respect for yourself—”
“I have plenty of self-respect!” Hanna shouted at him. She shifted onto her butt, rolling onto a pine cone.
Sean stood up. He looked deflated and sad. “Look at you.” His eyes traveled from her shoes to the top of her head. “I’m just trying to help you, Hanna—I care about you.”
Hanna felt tears gathering at the corners of her eyes and tried to choke them back down. She would not cry right now. “I respect myself,” she repeated. “I just wanted to…to…show you how I feel.”
“I’m just trying to be choosy about sex.” He sounded not kind, but not mean, either. Just…detached. “I want it to be at the right time with the right person. And it doesn’t look like that’s going to be you.” Sean sighed and took a step away from her. “I’m sorry.” Then he pushed through the trees and was gone.
Hanna was so embarrassed and angry, she couldn’t speak. She tried to stand up to follow Sean, but her heel caught again and she fell over. She splayed her arms out and stared up at the stars, holding her thumbs over her eyes, so tears wouldn’t pour out of them.
“She looks like she might puke.”
Hanna opened one eye and saw two freshman boys—most likely crashers—hovering over her as if she were a girl they’d created on their computers.
“Fuck off, pervs,” she said to the ogling freshmen as she stood up. Across the lawn, she could see Sean running after Mason Byers, wielding a yellow croquet mallet. Hanna sniffed as she brushed herself off and headed back toward the party. Didn’t anyone care about her? She thought of the letter she’d gotten yesterday. Even Daddy doesn’t love you best!
Hanna wished, suddenly, that she had her dad’s number, her mind flashing back to that day she’d met her dad and Isabel and Kate with Ali.
Although it had been February, the weather in Annapolis had been freakishly warm, and Hanna, Ali, and Kate had been sitting outside on the porch, trying to get tan. Ali and Kate were bonding over their favorite shades of MAC nail polish, but Hanna couldn’t get into it. She felt heavy and awkward. She’d seen Kate’s relieved expression when she and Ali first emerged from the train—surprise at how gorgeous Ali was, and then relief when she laid eyes on Hanna. It was as if Kate was thinking, Well, I don’t need to worry about her!
Without realizing it, Hanna had eaten the entire bowl of cheese popcorn that was on the table. And six of the profiteroles. And some of the Brie wedge that was meant for Isabel and her dad. She clutched her bloated stomach, gazed at Ali’s and Kate’s flat six-packs, and groaned out loud, without meaning to.
“Little piggy doesn’t feel good?” Hanna’s dad asked, squeezing her small toe.
Hanna shuddered at the memory and touched her now-slim stomach. A—whoever A was—was totally right. Her dad didn’t love her best.
“Everyone in the pond!” Noel shouted, snapping Hanna out of her thoughts.
Across the field, Hanna watched Sean pull off his T-shirt and run toward the water. Noel, James, Mason, and some other boys threw off their shirts, but Hanna didn’t even care. Of all the nights to see Rosewood’s hottest boys without their shirts on…
“They’re all so gorgeous,” murmured Felicity McDowell, who was mixing tequila with Fanta Grape, next to her. “Aren’t they?”
“Mmm,” she muttered.
Hanna ground her teeth together. Fuck her happy father and his perfect soon-to-be stepdaughter, and f**k Sean and his choosiness! She grabbed a bottle of Ketel One from the table and drank straight from it. She put the bottle back down but at the last second decided to bring it to the pond with her. Sean wasn’t going to get away with dumping her, insulting her, and then straight-up ignoring her. No way.
She stopped at a pile of clothes that were no doubt Sean’s—the jeans were neatly folded, and he’d anally stuffed his little white socks into his Pumas. Making sure no one was looking, she balled up the jeans in her hands and started backing away from the pond. What would the V Club say if they caught him driving home in his boxers?