Whistleblower ✓

43 | hold still

Hanna was entering her Blue Period.

This is not to say that she'd pulled a Picasso and gone full monochromatic with her work—just that she had drawn, for nearly a week straight, nothing but hands. Lopsided fists and gnarled, crooked fingers were strewn about the apartment, which Hanna hadn't left in several days.

She'd become a recluse. She ate nothing but instant pho and fruit-shaped gummies, and she turned down every attempt I made at dragging her out of the apartment for some fresh air.

"We could do the drive-through at McDonald's?" I offered as I sat on our bedroom floor with her. "I'll buy you nuggets and a McFlurry to dip them in."

Hanna didn't even look up from her sketchbook.

"Not hungry," she monotoned.

She drew another line, stared at it for a moment, then roared with frustration and flipped to the next blank page to start again.

I wasn't sure how bad her artistic suffering would get.

Vincent van Gogh had cut off his own ear, so the bar appeared to be set alarmingly high.

I was about to suggest we go on a run together (really, I was desperate to get her out in the fresh air, my own wellbeing be damned) when my phone buzzed on the floor beside my knee.

It was a text from Bodie.

They talk so fast though. How do you not need subtitles???

I blushed and turned my phone over. I don't know why. Hanna was too agonized by her creative process to care that I'd been spending the afternoon texting Bodie about my telenovelas.

I'd only mentioned Gran Hotel in passing. I hadn't expected him to go home and binge-watch the entire first season.

And I definitely hadn't expected him to suggest we watch a few episodes from season two together.

I glanced up at Hanna.

She sort of resembled a miniature storm cloud in the oversized grey sweatshirt she'd stolen from Andre. She'd been wearing it for more than twenty-four hours now. I was starting to wonder if this was the new normal for us: Hanna, a tiny lump of grey, fixed in the center of our bedroom floor amongst a sea of art supplies and emotional distress.

"Don't you have class in, like, two minutes?" I asked, tugging at the threads at the knee of my ripped mom jeans.

"Skipping," she replied, and traced out the curve of a knuckle.

"Are you sure that's a good idea?"

"It's art history. I can just look at the slides later."

"But don't you want to—"

My phone buzzed again.

I flipped it like a poker player checking her hand.

Another text from Bodie.

I'm outside.

"Hey, Han?" I said tentatively, clearing my throat to get her attention. "Bodie's coming over. Just for a little while. To work on our project. Is that cool?"

"Sure, whatever, fine," she grumbled.

She wasn't even going to give me shit for having a boy over.

That's how I knew she wasn't alright.

I pushed myself up off the floor, knees cracking, and padded out into the kitchen to grab my keys off the counter and slip on my plastic Old Navy flip-flops.