Hannah
I got home from Erin’s house and Dad was waiting for me in the kitchen, he’d made me something to eat and placed it on the counter beside my pill bottles.

“What’s with the sandwiches?” I asked.

“You can’t take your meds on an empty stomach and you didn’t show up for dinner tonight, Darla was upset that you didn’t want to meet her and I am very disappointed in you, Hannah. You promised me that you would try and get along with her,” He sighed with exasperation, emptied four of each pill into his hand and handed it over to me “Take these and go to your room,”

“You’re doubling my dose, no way am I taking them,” I shook my head and backed away from my father’s hand “Are you trying to give me an overdose?”

“I’m trying to get you to go to sleep,” He growled “You’re getting out of control, and I know what’s going to come if you don’t get your shit together and calm down, Hannah!” He was yelling at me now “I will not put out one more fire you’ve caused, or pay for more damage to a public building or anything else I did to cover for you, because this isn’t you, this crazy stuff isn’t my little girl… you… you’re not my little girl,”

That hurt, it hit me like a ton of bricks, but I put on a brave face and held out my hand for the pills, which he quickly gave to me, raised my hand to my mouth and opened, but stopped before I could drop them in, closed my mouth and my hand and smirked at my dad.

“Hannah, what are you doing?” He asked as I moved over to the garbage disposal and held my closed hand over it.

“I can’t take these, I had alcohol tonight,” I shrugged and dropped them down the hole and flicked the switch before disappearing out of the kitchen and into my bedroom.

I dropped down and sat on the end of my bed, staring out of my window into nothing but the stars in the sky. My phone buzzed in my pocket, but before I could read the message from whoever was texting me, I was distracted by Dad knocking on my door.

“What do you want?” I asked.

“I brought a peace offering,” I heard him laugh slightly through the door.

“I don’t want it,”

“Hannah,” He sighed softly “You have to understand that I only want what’s best for you, I want you to get better, I can’t lose you, I can’t lose the only thing I have left-“

“You can, and you will,” I said, cutting him off “Once I’m gone, you’ll for sure marry Darla and you’ll raise her kids with her, maybe have a couple with her, but soon, mom and me will just be a distant and rarely remembered memory,”

“You could never become just a memory,”

“Mom did!” I almost yelled “Alfie, too, you might have never met your son, but they’re both already just memories to you,”

“Every night, before I go to bed, I talk to your mother, I tell her everything that’s going on down here, although she’s probably watching us from wherever she is, and I sing, badly, to Alfie’s sonogram pictures, eventually singing myself to sleep,”

“Why don’t you wear your wedding ring anymore?” I asked as he came into the room slowly, holding my favourite mug in his hands, filled with hot chocolate.

“Because I have a girlfriend,” He said softly, handing over the drink “A woman whom I’m not married to, but maybe one day I would like to be, and you’ll understand why a little bit better when you meet her tomorrow,”

“Tomorrow?” I asked.

“Darla will be joining us at a family dinner tomorrow night, where the three of you girls will be meeting my new business partner as well as your Uncle’s,”

My heart jumped into my throat and tears came to my eyes, I felt it instantly, a sick feeling in my stomach that told me who he was talking about and I’d be pleasantly surprised if it wasn’t Sebastian who turned up here tomorrow.

“I’m worried about you,” He told me, handing the mug over to me “Your mother started to act crazy before we lost her, she was… different and weird things were happening to her, she would disappear for hours at a time and leave me with you, and for a few minutes at the same time of day every time she went out, you would cry, scream and wail, you were inconsolable, but then suddenly it would stop, and soon your mother would come home,”

“I’m not crazy,” I said into the mug as I brought it to my mouth and took a drink.
~~~~
Dad left shortly after I started to drink, and then I remembered someone had text me before he came in. I pulled my phone out of my pocket and saw that I had a message from Erin.

Oh my fucking God… I can’t fucking believe my father… this is so fucked up, he said that my mother would be disappointed in my actions… like WHAT THE FUCK… and we have BIGGER issues, like Sebastian and Christopher getting to us through our dads and their line of work! Anyways, please respond ASAP – E

Well that confirmed my suspicions about Dad’s new partner, so I started to text Erin back.

I just had it out with my dad, too. I called him out on forgetting about mom and baby Alfie, and that soon he would forget me too, but…

My vision started to blur and my thumbs didn’t want to move across the keyboard and type out the rest of the message. He drugged me! My own father drugged me by putting the pills in my drink.

I fell back on my bed and my eyes started to close, but I was fighting it, trying to stay awake to text Erin, tell her what he had done, what else had happened. But my body betrayed me and the double dose of meds took over and sleep consumed me, my breathing regulated and I drifted off into dream land.
~~~~
“Eugh...” I groaned as the sound of my phone ringing in my lap woke me up, I was groggy and still disoriented, but I wasn’t passed out, just out of it.
I picked up the phone and saw that Erin was calling me, but I also saw what time of night it was.

“Erin, what the Hell?” I groaned into the phone, but I could hear the sound of her feet on the sidewalk, her heavy breathing and I could almost hear her heart pounding in her chest.

“I think he is following me, Hannah. Please, I need you! My house, please!” She said, followed by the sound of her phone dropping before the line went dead.

“Fuck,” I groaned as I tried to stand off of my bed, but stumbled sideways and into my wall “I can’t drive like this,” I told myself before I concentrated really hard to make sure I didn’t screw this up, and when I opened my eyes I was in Erin’s bedroom, a second later, she burst through the door.

She jumped and squealed when she realised someone was in her room, but she placed her hand over her heart and chuckled lightly when she saw that it was only me.

“Hannah!” She sighed, a smile spreading across her face “Thank God you’re here,”

“God aint got nothing to do with it,” I breathed out a laugh before my legs gave way beneath me and I fell to the floor with a dull thud “Ouch,” I grunted.

“Shit, Hannah, are you alright?” Erin asked, rushing to help me sit on the bed.

“I’m fine,” I waved her off “Dad wanted to double my dose of meds tonight, I didn’t take them, put them down the garbage disposal,”

“That’s my girl,” She smiled.

“But then he crushed up four more and put them in his ‘peace offering’ hot chocolate,” I finished.

“Oh,” She smirked “Taken down by the old man, huh?” I nodded.

“What did you need me to hurry over here for anyway?” I asked, rubbing my eyes sleepily “And anything we talk about now might have to be fed back to me again tomorrow at that dinner thing we’re supposed to go to tomorrow,”

“That’s actually what I need to talk to you about,” She quickly shrugged out of her jacket and sat on the bed beside me “What do you think we should do?” She asked “Go and keep them all happy or blow it off?”

“Well, I missed dinner with Darla tonight and Dad was super disappointed that I upset her before even meeting her, so I don’t think me skipping out on it would be a very good idea,” I admitted
“But I don’t know how I feel about you being around Christopher all night, especially when it’s freaking feeding time,”

“You don’t want me hanging around Sebastian but it’s alright for you to be stuck with both of them at dinner?” She asked, raising her eyebrows “I don’t think so,”

“They aren’t going to hurt me, but they would hurt you,”

“They wouldn’t hurt you?” She scoffed “So what about everything Sebastian has already done to you? Huh? If I don’t turn up I’m pretty sure Christopher would be pissed, and then his annoyance would for sure get in the way of Sebastian wooing you into marriage material and that would only make him angry, so then you’re left at the butt of their anger,”

“Alright!” I laughed, holding up my hands in defence as she ranted more and more “We’ll both go to dinner, but we should have the guys, all of them, Matt, Brian and Johnny included, as well as Tori hanging nearby just to be safe if something goes horribly wrong,”

“Sounds like a plan,”
~~~~
Jimmy
Hannah and Erin had come to all of us this morning and informed us that there was going to be a family/business dinner party tonight between the girl’s fathers and their new business partners; Sebastian and Christopher. Zack and I had already been coming up with a plan to do something about these motherfuckers and made the decision that we need to be assertive, show them who the girls are actually with now, and tonight seemed like the perfect time, until they told us that we would be hanging around outside waiting for them to come tearing out of the house like bats out of Hell.

“Hey,” Hannah whispered, climbing through my bedroom window that I’d left open for her. Neither of us wanted her to come through the door and have the first time she meets my mom be when she’s a nervous wreck about tonight.

“Hey,” I beamed at her, moving across my room to help her onto the floor so that she didn’t fall and hurt herself “How are you?”

“Well, everything considered, I’d say I’m doing alright,” She laughed a little “You got anything to drink?” She asked.

“I could go down and get you a coke if you want, its-“

“I meant something heavy,” She said, cutting me off “I could really use something strong to get me through tonight,”

“Ah,” I smiled “Well, you’ve come to the right place,”

I moved us back over to my bed and sat her down carefully before sliding open my bedside
table drawer and rummaging inside, hoping that she wouldn’t see the condoms in there that I had, just in case, you know.

“Ah hah!” I exclaimed as I produced my trusty hip flask “There’s some good Scottish whiskey in there, drink up,” I handed it over and she quickly unscrewed the cap and took a huge drink.

“I feel better already,” She breathed, the smell of the alcohol hitting me in the face.

“Make sure you brush your teeth at least four times before dinner,” I laughed, taking the flask off of her and taking a small swig myself.

I turned to her, ready to say something else, but before I could, she pounced on me, knocking
me back onto the bed with her lips pressed against mine as she grabbed at my t-shirt and climbed on top of me.

“Hannah,” I panted, breaking the kiss “What are you doing?”

“I need this,” She breathed heavily, her eyes burning into mine “Please, Jimmy. Take me, make me know I’m yours,”

“You’re not thinking right,” I told her, squeezing my eyes closed so that I didn’t have to look at her. Looking at her while telling her that it wasn’t time would make me cave, I wouldn’t be able to say no to her.

“What?” She laughed a little “You don’t want to have sex with me?” She asked.

“No,” I almost laughed “I want to, oh God I want to have sex with you, but not tonight, you’re scared about tonight, and with everything that’s been going on, you’re not in the right state of mind and I don’t want you to think I’m taking advantage of you,”

I heard a soft sniff from beside me, and when I opened my eyes, Hannah was crying softly.

“Hey,” I whispered as I cupped her cheek in my hand “Why are you crying?”

“I can’t believe this,” She groaned “I come in here and throw myself at you and you reject me,” She started to cry more “This was so embarrassing,” I opened my mouth to speak, but she disappeared in the blink of an eye.

“Fuck,” I muttered, picking up my phone and calling Zack.

“Hey man, what’s up?” He asked as he answered.

“We need to get over to there soon,” I told him “Hannah’s a wreck and I think I just made it worse, but I want to make sure everything goes alright from the beginning,”

“What did you do?” He asked protectively.

“She uh… She wanted to, you know… for the first time tonight, and I turned her down,”

“Shit man,” He laughed “It’s not like you to turn a girl down,”

“She’s not just a girl though,” I admitted “She’s Hannah, she’s my Hannah and she’s been hurt, scared and her life in in danger, I didn’t want her to think I’m some sleaze ball who has been waiting for this from the beginning,”

Notes

This chapter sort of just speaks for itself! Things seem to be getting hard at home for Hannah, and now THIS with Jimmy?

How will dinner go?
More to come from my amazing co-writer!

- LMV