Finding Obsidian

45 - The Way We Were

Hanna Valencia Jordan was 18 years old when her world fell apart. 

Rian James Aronhalt was the same age when his best friend stopped looking at him.

♛

It all started with a dinner party. Hanna's parents, although considerably less wealthy than Rian's, invited them over to their home to eat, laugh, enjoy each other's company. For all intents and purposes, it was a night that was meant to be perfect. Nothing was supposed to go wrong.

"Hanna?" her mother had called, forty-five minutes before the Aronhalts were due to arrive. "Did you call the repairman yet?"

Hanna, a fiery young girl who was, at the time, distracted by the thought of her best friend coming over, replied that she hadn't and would do so immediately. The appointment with the repairman had been pushed throughout the week, and this was the only day he'd be available before going on vacation. They didn't want to wait—impatience was something of a family trait, here in the Jordan family.

Hanna made the call, then went back to what she'd been doing for the past hour: mulling over prom. 

She disliked the very idea of it, felt no desire to go—spending all that time and money and makeup and effort, and for what purpose? One night of awkward dancing and cheap punch? She could do without.

But Rian had asked her. 

He had asked her to prom, and now Hanna's convictions shook. She imagined what he would look like in a suit, a sharp midnight and tailored to perfection. An uncomfortable heat kept rising in her chest, and she wasn't sure how to identify it. Rian had been hers forever, but recently she had begun longing for something she didn't even know how to name. It was disconcerting, distracting.

Unfortunately, tragedy did not go well with a distracted mind.

The repairman knocked on their door. Hanna let him inside, because her parents were in the backyard managing the grill. She led him to their furnace, which had been making strange sounds for the past month. The house occasionally filled with a strange scent, one Hanna would later identify as gas. 

But Hanna couldn't focus on the repairman; her head was filled with thoughts of awkward dancing and cheap punch and warm raven-black eyes.

Yes, indeed: distraction and tragedy did not mix.

The repairman kept frowning during his visit. He nudged the furnace, his brow furrowing at whatever he'd discovered. He turned to the distracted girl on his left, began to mention his concerns. 

"Unstable," is what he said. "Dangerous. Need more time."

But then the doorbell rang, and Hanna's eyes went to the hallway. She could feel him standing there, separated by only a few walls and a door—practically nothing, nothing in the face of their lifetime of friendship—and the repairman lost her attention entirely.

"Yes, right," she said quickly, eyeing the backyard. Her parents were still busy with the barbecue. She had to go answer the door. "Can you come back later, maybe? We have people over. Don't worry, we'll pay extra."

The repairman rolled his eyes as she eagerly ushered him away. She traded him and his advice for the grinning faces of Rian's family, revealed as she swung open the front door. The repairman left, and with him the only chance for crisis to be averted.

Instead, Mr. and Mrs. Aronhalt walked in, unaware that they would never walk out.

"Hanna," Rian said, because for some reason he couldn't find anything else to say. Just the sound of her name was enough to satisfy, calm, excite him.