"Hanna?"
The blonde's head snapped up at the sound of her name reverberating in the previously silent and vacant room. She was met with the sight of a tall brunette girl with curious eyes. She had a Sharks duffel bag slung over her shoulder and blue goggles dangling from her hand. The swimmer seemed hesitant to approach as she lingered by the poolside, and Hanna suddenly wondered if she should leave.
"Paige…hey," she responded to the girl staring up at her inquisitively.
"What are you doing here? Not that you're not allowed to be, but Emily's been off the team for a while so you know you won't find her here…" Paige spoke tentatively, almost as if she were talking to a hurt child or an old sick person. Hanna was sitting alone at the top of the stands, towards the far right corner, but she could just make out that Paige looked almost worried.
"Yeah, I know...just came here to think, I guess," Hanna shrugs, trying to appear casual despite the inner turmoil she was experiencing. Paige's expression flits from worried to surprised to confused in a matter of seconds and she cocks her head slightly to the side.
"Sorry I'll leave, you probably want to practice," Hanna mumbles quietly, still somewhat caught up in her own thoughts. As she stood to grab her things and make a hasty exit, Paige called out, "Hey, no it's fine, you can stay. I just didn't really peg you as the type to come here to think." She chuckled quietly hoping to ease the tension a bit. Hanna stopped moving, looked around the room momentarily with a slightly furrowed brow, and then cracked a smile.
"Yeah, you're right, I never thought I'd come here either," Hanna said as she shook her head lightly in amused confusion.
Hanna decided to take Paige up on her offer but instead of sitting where she was before, she stepped down a few rows and walked along until she was in the centre of the stands, and unceremoniously dropped herself down on the bench. She could see Paige more clearly now at this closer distance. She wore a goofy grin on her face, but it didn't quite reach her eyes. They didn't shine or sparkle the way eyes usually do when people smile or laugh. They seemed almost…pained. But before Hanna could ask the swimmer if she was alright, Paige spoke again.
"So what spurred on the change then? Watched Emily compete enough times that you too are becoming entranced by the wonderful smell of chlorine?" she laughed lightly while taking a few steps forward and placed her duffel bag down. The blonde chuckled a bit but the smile began to fall from her face as she looked down at her feet.
"No… I don't know why I'm here," she spoke softly after a moment, "Everything's been so crazy lately... I guess I just wanted to be alone for a moment, and this is probably the last place anyone would look for me," Hanna shrugged. Paige studied the girl for a moment. She looked different; her hair was shorter and there were black streaks and undertones in it instead of Hanna's usual bottle blonde hair. She was fiddling with something purple in her hands that Paige couldn't quite make out, and her gaze wouldn't lift from the floor. Hanna looked lost in thought, troubled by something, so Paige spoke again.
"Well, I can guarantee you I'm the only one coming in here this late to practice, so you picked well. But I'm also responsible for locking up here so you're kinda stuck with me," she gave a light smile hoping Hanna would look up. The blonde lifted her head and offered a half-hearted smile in return, then dropped her gaze again. Paige sighed quietly, convinced she had failed at getting the blonde to open up, and began pulling open the zipper on her duffel bag. She was about to strip out of her warm-ups and Sharks hoodie when the blonde spoke again.
"Did you always know you were gay?"
The swimmers head snapped up in confusion and she stammered for a moment, unprepared for Hanna's sudden question.
"Uhm…I don't know…why?"
The blonde didn't respond, but instead stared at her as if she were trying to figure out a puzzle. The tension in the air was building and bordering on palpable, as Paige looked increasingly more uncomfortable by the second under Hanna's shameless stare.
"Sorry, I just…never mind. Don't worry about it." She visible began to retreat back into her own thoughts when Paige realized this was her chance.
"It's okay uhm…yeah I guess I always sorta had a feeling," she spoke up, catching Hanna's attention again. "I didn't really know what being 'gay' was until I was 12 and someone mentioned it one Sunday morning when my family and I were in church." She paused to see if Hanna was still interested and on being met with Hanna's complete focus, she continued. "Someone was talking about their son and how he wasn't welcome there anymore because he had a boyfriend. That was the first time someone explained what being gay was to me, and I think something clicked, but I just didn't realize it at the time." Paige hadn't fully realized it while she was speaking, but during her response to Hanna's question she had stepped up on the first bleacher and began walking idly towards the middle of the row. She was now centred in front of Hanna, looking up at her from below.
"So you never got confused about who you were?" Hanna questioned immediately. She felt a sense of déjà vu to the similar conversation she shared with Emily in the car a week perviously, and wondered what response she would be met with this time around.
The swimmer snorted, "Hell no, I was an angsty, confused teenager for years, I dunked Emily's head underwater because I had a crush on her, remember?"
Hanna chuckled, "Yeah, you're right, you were a bit confused huh?"
"Damn straight," Paige chortled, "or maybe not so much…" she added and Hanna laughed loudly at her dorky pun. They continued to laugh for a couple of moments until the swimmer chanced to walk up the remaining rows and sit a couple of feet from the blonde. Hanna didn't look at her or acknowledge the movement in any way, she just kept staring ahead with the ghost of a smile on her face. Paige could see now that Hanna was holding a purple bracelet with her name stitched into it in bold white lettering. She'd seen a similar bracelet in Emily's room once but she put it away when she saw Paige notice it. She wondered now if there was a deeper meaning to them than what she had first thought was simply a childish friendship bracelet.
"Do you think people can change?" Hanna asked after a long silence. The question caught Paige slightly off guard, but she realized by the tone of Hanna's voice that she was truly seeking an answer from the other girl. The blonde sounded uncharacteristically vulnerable, something Paige had never (with the exception of the night Hanna's ex-boyfriend was shot) witnessed in Hanna during the few conversations they'd shared when Paige dated Emily. The swimmer thought for a moment, and caught Hanna looking over at her in the corner of her eye. Paige was unsure whom the question was really about at its core. She thought about the possibilities, including Alison, the blonde herself, and maybe even Paige, but she decided against prodding.
"I think…we are who we are. And life isn't about…changing who you are but rather…changing into who you were meant to be," Paige started carefully. She turned to meet the blondes intense gaze and continued, "I believe people go through a lot of changes because they get scared, or lose sight of who they are…and sure, people can change trivial things about themselves, but when it comes down to it, I think you're sorta hardwired a certain way…you know?" Paige looked for confirmation that Hanna was taking in what she was saying but she was just met with crinkled eyebrows and a short response, "I think so…you mean you can change things like appearances?"
Paige was beginning to get an idea of what was troubling Hanna, but again decided not to ask.
"Yeah kind of, like, here let me give you an example," she started, while subconsciously scooting a few inches closer to the blonde. "I've always had a nasty temper, got it from my dad, and I used to be that kid who would have a tantrum at the beach for some reason or another and smash other kids sand castles in a fit of rage," Hanna laughed while imagining an angry little Paige throwing sand perfectly in her head. This time the smile stayed on Hanna's face. Encouraged, Paige went on.
"Of course I always felt bad and apologized right away, but as I got older I realized I didn't want to be like my dad, getting angry and then blindly taking it out on anything in my path, so I decided to change how I dealt with anger. Running became my escape; I would just run until I didn't have the energy to feel mad anymore. Then I could think through what was bothering me. Over time I got better at controlling anger long enough for me to handle a situation and then go take it out on something else, preferably inanimate objects," they both chuckled at this, and Paige momentarily thought about the unfortunate trashcan from the night she caught Emily with Nate.
"But even though I don't explode like I used to, that doesn't mean I changed into a person who doesn't have a temper. I still get really mad and snap sometimes, because that's a part of who I am, but I choose to change how it affects me because I have the power to."
Hanna nods understanding, and wonders how much else she didn't know about Paige. For a moment Hanna wants to ask her more, but decides it's probably not the best time to try to get to know the swimmer. Instead, she just stared into the other girls eyes, which she had just realized held a hint of mystery and a whole lot of kindness, and wished she had taken the time to get to know her better before. Maybe they could have been friends. But with Paige being her best friend's ex, it seemed unlikely that could happen now without it being awkward as hell.
Blue light reflected off the pools surface and danced across Paige's face, creating the impression of movement despite Paige staying completely still as she easily gazed back this time. The blonde broke the starring contest and looked over at the pool. She watched the surface ripple lightly under the water jet's forced movement and let the bracelet fall from her grasp to her feet. They sat in comfortable silence until Hanna asked out loud the question that's been haunting her for days. At first she spoke so quietly Paige couldn't make out what she was saying, and she wondered if Hanna was talking to herself. But then the blonde shuffled the last few inches over to the swimmers side, in fear that her voice would not be able to carry the distance a second time, and spoke again.
"What if someone does forget who they are? How do they get back to feeling…right, again?" Paige could hear Hanna's voice quiver and saw the fragile expression on her face as she turned to her with glistening eyes. Again, the swimmer was at a loss for words, feeling her heart break a little at the sight of the once confident girl, struggling to hold herself together. She saw a younger version of herself in the blonde's eyes: lost, insecure, and all alone. Paige's body acted before her mind could catch up, and she reached out for Hanna's hand, carefully grasping it in hers and giving it a light squeeze. Paige kept looking into the blondes pleading eyes, and tried to convey to Hanna that she was there for her. That she understood. Then she spoke softly, dipping her head forward a little.
"Then that person has to go back to the start."
It was vague, she knew that, but she didn't know how else to phrase it. The blonde understood though, and gave the swimmer a weak smile before giving in to her emotionally induced fatigue and resting her head on Paige's shoulder. The swimmer radiated warmth and comfort, and Hanna felt herself relaxing into Paige's side as she let her eyes close. It wasn't awkward, despite the whole 'best friend's ex' thing; they seemed to fit perfectly against each other.
She cracked her eyes open again to look at the calming blue that seemed to envelop the entire room. Hanna knew she was weary from the emotional roller-coaster she'd been strapped on since Alison got back. She brought back a thousand memories from a time when she felt so insecure in her own skin that she turned to dangerous methods to change herself. Alison, someone she believed was her friend, had brought her down and made her feel worthless. Now she had no idea who she was anymore; if she was the scared girl from before, the girl Mona had helped sculpt her to become, or something in between. And in that moment, Hanna realized that Paige too was on the same 'Alison ride' that she was. Alison was the cause of the pain in her eyes, and not only because she brought back dreadful memories for Paige as well, but because she is the real reason she lost Emily.
She began to stroke her thumb in circles on the back of Paige's hand, trying to express that she was there for her too. Paige let out a small sigh as she closed her eyes over for a moment, letting herself feel comforted for the first time in weeks. The two of them sat there, hand in hand, looking out over the calm, rippling blue beneath them. The whole world fell away and for a moment that was all there was. Nothing else existed but the swimmer and the blonde, the blue, and the distinct feeling that this moment could be the start of something new.