How to disappear

15

        How To Disappear - Chapter 15

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“Are you fucking crazy?” Sergei gapes, trying to fathom why, after everything she’d told him, Hannah would choose to be somebody else.

“Excuse me?” Hannah raises her eyebrows as if the accusation is completely unwarranted.

“It’s an honest question, Hannah – oh, I’m sorry, Madison,” Sergei shoots back and watches as Hannah flinches from the anger in his voice, “Because if I’m not mistaken, I believe you spent the past six hours telling me all about how in love you are with a woman that you can’t be with because instead you’re here, hiding out in the middle of fucking nowhere. And now you’re going to stand here and tell me that this place is your home? That this is where you’d rather be even though nothing’s standing in your way of going back to Los Angeles?”

“You have no idea what you’re talking about,” Hannah mumbles and sinks down to her couch, trying to look anywhere but at the furious man standing in front of her.

“Oh, I don’t? Then enlighten me, Hannah, please. Tell me what huge chunk of information I’m missing here. What’s the plot twist this time?”

“I can’t just go back,” Hannah spits out, finally meeting Sergei’s eyes, “Don’t you get that? I can’t just walk back into my life like everything’s perfect and nothing happened. Hannah Hart is dead, Sergei. I’m dead.”

When Sergei’s face softens, Hannah continues, “And I made that choice, y’know? I made the choice to leave Los Angeles and everyone I love behind, including Grace. I didn’t even – God, I didn’t even think it through, really. In a spur-of-the-moment decision I left everything in the dust.”

“You did it to protect Grace.”

“Did I?” Hannah laughs, a mixture of sadness and bitterness evident in her voice, “That’s what I told myself in the moment – that I was doing it for Grace. And that’s what Gabriel believes and – fuck, maybe I even believed it for a little while, too. But do you want to know the real reason why I did it?” Hannah doesn’t wait for Sergei to respond, instead exhales heavily and continues, “I was afraid. A man held a gun to my chest with every intention of killing me and he pulled the trigger. And the idea that he was still out there somewhere… that fucking terrified me more than anything else.”

“There’s nothing wrong with that, Hannah. You had every right to be afraid… I know that I would’ve been afraid too if I was in your position,” Sergei frowns, cautiously resting a hand on Hannah’s knee in comfort, “But you can’t let your fear of Pete keep you from going home.”

“I’m not afraid of him anymore,” Hannah shakes her head, “He’s locked away for good and I don’t doubt that he’ll stay there.”

“Then what are you afraid of?”

Hannah looks up at the man sitting beside her and she can feel tears pooling in her eyes, “What if she moved on, Sergei? Or what if she’s not okay? You said earlier that her YouTube page is down, what if there’s a reason for that? Or what if she hates me for what I did? What if everybody hates me for what I did?”

“Hannah, you didn’t do anything wrong,” Sergei squeezes her knee, “You were shot by a lunatic that would have probably done it again if he knew you were alive. You protected yourself – nobody’s going to blame you.”

“Then why do I feel like I have so much to be blamed for?”

Sergei purses his lips and nods, staring down at his lap, “I really don’t know. Maybe you feel guilty for going into witness protection for yourself rather than for the people you care about, but you shouldn’t. Because I can tell you with absolute certainty that if you go back home now, nobody will hate you, Hannah. Nobody.”