CHAPTER 8


~ 12:34 AM ~ Boulevard Suchet, Paris ~


Caleb and Hanna lay in the warm cocoon created by their sleeping bags, their legs still entwined. A thin film of sweat was clinging to their bodies, and a sense of serenity had filled the air in the tent.

"So… How long have you been planning to do this?" Hanna asked.

"What? Have sex with you?" He didn't wait for an answer. "Try since the night we kept texting each other after our first kiss. I wanted to go up to your room so badly after you'd sent me that photo of you."

"I sent it to you because you said you didn't have one of me," she said defensively. "Not to try and entice you. And it was a decent picture, not a nude or anything."

"You didn't have to be nude for me to wanna have sex with you. I saw your cute little dimples and your full lips and I remembered how they had been on mine just hours before and then I thought of where else I would want you to kiss me. It was enough to keep me awake all night."

"Really?" She shot him a questioning look.

He nodded. "But I wasn't going to try anything until our very last night here."

Hanna swallowed. "Why on our last night here?"

"Well, Sèb has some amazing hidden talents. He would have been able to come up with an official letter from Rosewood High School, announcing that all students would be required to return a day earlier due to our flight being overbooked." He suddenly sounded very insecure, "You could have left your host family without the riks of getting into trouble and we… we could have been together… for the whole night."

"And what did you have in mind for that last night?" She probed.

"Remember how I told you that Sèb's parents are really rich?"

"Yeah?" She raised her eyebrows.

"Turns out, they own a hotel in the city, and Sèb wanted to fix us up with a room for that night."

"Then why today?" A look of suspicion crept upon her facial features. "It sounds like that plan would have made everything a lot easier for us."

Caleb smirked at her. "I told you, I like things complicated. Besides… I didn't wanna wait any longer. When I heard you on the phone today, you sounded so sad and lonely. I just wanted to see you straight away." He turned to face her. "You know when we said goodbye the other night, and you were about to tell me… you know? That's when I knew that I wanted to be the one to tell you first, standing under the Eiffel Tower for the first time in your life. And today, I thought that I should just... give it a go."

"And the tent? All the lights? How the hell did you manage to-?"

"I had help." He chuckled. "From Sèb! He offered to get us a hotel room for tonight. But I told him that... that's not me. 'Cause I didn't think we'd need any expensive sheets or room service to make this night special. Then, he wanted to offer me his room, but believe me, that is not where I would want you to have your first time." He laughed out loud at the thought of Sèb's room, which was essentially a computer lab. "So, he came up with the idea of setting up a tent in the backyard. He's the one who did all of this."

"Won't the neighbors in the houses all around here get suspicious of the lights and the tent?"

"Han, this is a rich peoples' neighborhood. They live in their own little world, they don't look outside their windows. We're safe here, trust me." He pulled her closer in order to make her feel even more secure in his arms.

There hadn't been that many moments in Hanna's life when she had felt absolutely safe, but this was one of them. She stopped with the third degree and closed her eyes, indulging in the feeling of security and completeness that was washing over her.

For a moment, there was silence, until Caleb suddenly chuckled. "I still can't believe I got to be your first," he confessed while fondling with her hair above her ear, reveling in the realization that his plan couldn't have worked out any better if he tried.

"Well, I'm glad that it was you." Hanna said, her eyes still glazed from the intimate experience that she'd just shared with him. "You know… when Sean told me that he didn't wanna have sex with me, I felt really, really bad and I thought that he didn't find me attractive."

"Whoa! Wait a sec! Sean? You mean Sean Ackard was supposed to be the one?"

"Yeah. You know him?" Hanna asked while fondling the few hairs that graced his chest.

"I probably know more about him than you do. I've had to spend plenty of time with him in the locker room after gym. The guy's a total douche. You should have heard him brag about his weekend activities with the rest of the football team. Makes me wanna give him a wedgie now that I know that, in reality, he probably hung out with his bible study club."

"Don't" She eyed him sternly. "And don't let him know that I told you about that, promise me, please."

"Ok," Caleb conceded, but then he sighed contentedly. "His loss. He has no idea what he missed out on." At that, he leaned over to her and kissed her softly on the cheek.

But Hanna wasn't finished with her train of thought. "Took me long enough getting over his rejection, I don't need him to give you a hard time, too."

"Relax, I've had people way worse than him wanting to get on my case. I can deal with it. But tell me, why would he think you weren't attractive enough? Have you seen yourself? You're smokin' hot!"

After a beat, she whispered, "Well, I didn't always look like this." Hanna tilted her head up and lifted the sleeping bag that served as their blanket, revealing herself to him again.

His eyes seemed to focus on her face as he wondered what she used to look like before they met. He didn't think that anything could take away from her beauty. Then, he chuckled, "What? Did you get a nose job or something?"

"No," she mumbled, trying to stall the inevitable.

"Then, what was it? I can't ima-"

"I spent five summers at Fat Camp," she cut in and watched as he took the information in.

"You?" Caleb was stunned.

"My nickname was Hefty Hanna," she said with a bitter smile on her lips. "I used to be a lot bigger, yeah."

"There's nothing hefty about you now, and you know that I wouldn't care if you were, right?"

"I guess so." She didn't look convinced.

"Look, if you felt the need to shed some weight in order to make yourself feel better about your body, then that's alright. You worked hard and you earned your prize, if being skinnier is what you wanted," he shrugged.

"Well, I'm not proud of the way I lost that weight," she admitted quietly. "But like you, I hung around with the wrong kind of people. They once gave me advice on how to lose weight in the fastest way possible, by eating and locking myself up in the bathroom to purge."

The surprised expression was back on his face. "Fuck, Han. That's some serious shit. You don't still do that? Do you?"

Spurred on by the look of concern that lay upon his facial features, Hanna felt the urge to clarify the situation. "God, no. I couldn't go through with it for very long anyway. It's just too gross. I only did it because I wanted to fit in with the popular girls at school. And as you can see, I didn't diminish myself to a size zero, but I do still struggle with my body sometimes."

"God, if you only saw what I'm seeing right now. You are so beautiful, Hanna. You have absolutely nothing to worry about, and I for one happen to love your body." Caleb slowly lifted the sleeping bag and disappeared underneath it as he climbed on top of her. Then, he stretched out and started showering the faintest kisses all over her body, worshipping every single ounce of her until he felt her wriggle in reaction to the kisses he brushed against the ticklish insides of her thighs.

His head resurfaced from underneath the rustling material, and he saw that she had her eyes closed. "Look at me, Han. Do I look like I care about what other people look like? I have shirts in my closet that I've had since I was twelve." He noticed that she was squeezing her eyes shut, trying to hold back some tears. "Hanna?"

When she finally opened her eyes at his request, he saw the sad expression in them. "Hey! If there's one thing that I've learned on the streets, it's that you don't pick and choose the people you wanna spend your days with by what they're wearing or what they look like underneath their clothes. I mean, I know that I tend to surround myself with people that I shouldn't, but that's just for business… because I need the money. But on a social level, I'd rather spend my time with people who have a good heart. Like you. And to me, it doesn't matter what the person looks like. I've met so many people in my life, skinny people dressed to the nines who turned out to have the ugliest heart imaginable, poor chubby people with sordid clothes who couldn't afford to take in a foster child, but did it anyway just to give a kid like me a place to stay."

"Well, then I guess you shouldn't have started talking to me at all. I was a bitch when I met you," Hanna smirked.

"No, you were not. I mean, sure, you acted like you had your head in the clouds. But seeing how you reached out for my help, even though you were advised not to talk to me... That's a pretty awesome thing to do for someone so seemingly invested in their own business. Turns out, I misjudged you. I thought you were a spoilt princess, and I know that I was wrong now. But that's exactly what I mean. People can have the most beautiful exterior, they can be skinny or wear designer shoes… that doesn't make them amazing, but it also doesn't mean that they're shallow. You have to take your time and really get to know the people around you, 'cause otherwise you might miss out on some really great personalities. Like… take Sèb for instance. He wore these expensive clothes when he first came to Allentown and he soon started to dress down because he didn't wanna stick out among the rest of the students. But that didn't take anything away from his good heart, he just covered it up in a different way. It's just clothes and fat cells that make your exterior. You have to look beyond that. But that's the way most people are. Nobody ever cared for what was behind my ragged clothes and shady appearance." He ended his monologue and fumbled at the zipper of the sleeping back that was draped over them. "Nobody, except you."

"I'm glad I stayed around to look beyond your exterior, too," she said truthfully.

"To be fair, you practically begged me to stay around when you offered me a place to crash after our little hairspray incident at the school library," Caleb tried to lighten up the mood. The air inside of the tent had gotten a little too thick for his liking.

"I told you I don't care about rules," Hanna smirked back at him and lifted her head from his shoulder.

They kissed passionately, but parted before things could get out of hand.

"Caleb? Can I ask you something personal?" Hanna asked as she lay down on his outstretched arm again.

"Sure," Caleb shrugged in response. "About what?"

"Your tattoo?" Hanna tried carefully.

"Which one?" He frowned at her.

"Oh come on… that hand on your ass that flips the bird at everyone you turn your back on? What made you get it? Was that meant for someone specific?" She watched his facial features, trying to read his expression, but there was nothing except his usual coolness.

"That one, ok...," he grinned at her before he began to explain, "I've had it for two years. It was a spur of the moment decision… a general reaction to just about everything and everyone around me at the time. They were all treating me like shit."

"Do you still think that everyone around you is treating you like shit? Because I really hope that you don't feel that way anymore, now that you're living in Rosewood. I can fix you up with some more guys I know, so you can make some new friends. And there's Lucas, you know… you two could be friends, and then maybe you'd feel more welcome at school…"

"Hanna, don't worry. I'm good." He cut in to stop her little well-intentioned rant. "I could make friends on my own, if I wanted to."

"Are you gonna keep it? The tattoo, I mean?"

"I don't know yet. I mean, I have considered laser therapy, but it costs like a shit load of money and honestly, at the moment, I need all my money just to get by."

She nodded knowingly, and a vague smile crept upon her lips. "Too bad, but I guess I'll just have to make sure that I don't see your behind that often, as much as I'd like to," she teased him. Then, her brain remembered something that he had said earlier. "What did you mean by 'that one'?"

"Well, there's two," he said candidly.

"You have two tattoos?" She exclaimed in astonishment. "This is the second time I've seen you naked… How come I've only ever seen the one on your butt cheek? Where's the other one?"

Caleb chuckled at her nosiness, but then proceeded to remove the eye-catching broad leather bracelet from his left wrist.

Hanna watched him suspiciously as he revealed his second tattoo to her, which usually was effectively hidden underneath the leather. For a short second, she wondered whether he had been wearing the bracelet the day that she had shared a shower with him, or if there had been any moment during which she could have caught a glimpse of it. But eventually, she realized – yet again – that there had been so many other things about him that she had seen that day which had totally thrown her off. There was no way for her to know whether he'd been wearing the bracelet or not. She hadn't been looking at his hands, after all.

The tattoo on Caleb's wrist was a tiny pair of angel wings, about an inch by an inch in size. The two wings were both adorned with letters. Hanna studied the image for a moment, completely taken aback, thinking about whether she could somehow deduce its meaning from what he'd told her about himself so far.

She lifted her gaze up to his face again. "H... and R...? What do they stand for? Were these your parents' initials?" She tried carefully. "Are they... dead?" She asked hesitantly, fearing the worst.

"To me, they are." He said tersely.

She watched him stare at the tarp above them without blinking, knowing he'd come around eventually.

After a beat, Caleb turned his head around to face her. "I never met my father. He left my mother after I was born."

Hanna's eyes widened in shock, concluding that this was even worse than him being dead. It meant no accidental removal from his life, no whim of fate. There had been a motive behind it, a contemplation and a conscious decision to do so.

Her first reaction was to intertwine her fingers with his, giving him strength and sending him a signal of her immediate sympathy. At the same time, she was gathering her own courage to go on and ask him things about his life. There was so much more that she wanted to find out about him.

"What about your mom?"

He turned his head again and kept his eyes fixated on the construction of poles supporting the tent above him. Moments passed before Caleb cleared his throat and started to explain. "When I was five, my mom dropped me off at my aunt's house to go shopping." Hanna lay absolutely still and let him take his time telling the story of his life. "She never came back."

There was dead silence in the tent now. Hanna didn't know if she was allowed to breathe. She felt like someone was sitting on her chest, leaving her constricted and at a loss for words. "Caleb, I'm so sorry," she whispered eventually.

"Not your fault," he said bitterly.

"I'm sure it wasn't your fault either," her words were barely audible now. She let go of his hand and propped herself up on her elbow. Her other hand started stroking over his stomach and came to rest over the spot on his chest where she could feel his heartbeat. It was pounding against her splayed palm in an even and calm manner, and she got the notion that he was feeling somewhat indifferent about the situation, like he had made his peace with it. Like he had gone through the standard mourning period after the death of a close one and had now reached a state of acceptance. Viscerally, she moved her hand a little to the side and brushed a feathery light kiss against the spot where she had just touched him.

"Do you still have any memories of her?" She let her hand move back to his heart, as if to transfer some of her inner warmth to it, like in an attempt to make it all better.

Caleb put his own hand on top of hers, keeping it there, acknowledging her empathic move, even though he was still avoiding her gaze.

At long last, he answered. "Barely. Nothing good stands out, anyway. The last time I ever heard from her was seven years ago. She sent me a card for my tenth birthday."

"What did it say?"

"Happy birthday. Love, Mom."

"And?"

"And that's it."

She swallowed down the lump that had risen in her throat upon learning about his true plight. A surge of love swept through her body. He didn't deserve this. Nobody deserved to be left alone by their own mother. Or father, she thought with a pang of self-pity.

How come there was so much love in his heart when he'd had no-one to give him any?

Hanna sighed. There was so much that she wanted to tell him, but words were failing her. No matter what she said, she couldn't bring his mother back. Nor did she know if that was even something that he would want.

"Would you ever consider looking for her? I mean, when you're out of foster care?" She thought about what she would do if she was in his situation and wasn't surprised to hear him say, "No."

Silence fell over them again. Then, he suddenly began to speak. "You wanna know what it really means then? The wings, I mean."

"Yeah, of course," she tried to encourage him.

"You know, I feel like all my life, I've never really been given a chance. Like when things got complicated, everyone I've ever lived with preferred to pass me on to another caregiver, instead of trying to make it work. I had to bury all of my dreams really early in my life." He went on in a calm voice, "When I got to Allentown, I had to start over, new school, new teachers, new friends. No one knew me there. I was fifteen and on the verge of thinking that I was useless... that I might as well disappear and no one would care. I almost... I..." Caleb paused in an almost futile attempt to keep himself from starting to sob into her ear which lay so close by that she would have noticed no matter how hard he had tried to suppress it. He didn't want to start crying, not after what they'd just shared.

Hanna instinctively sucked in her breath, thinking of the thousand horrible possibilities as to how he could have ended that sentence, while at the same time trying hard not to allow her mind to go down that road at all. She couldn't even bear contemplating it.

He cleared his throat before continuing with his story. "Anyway, I met a bunch of bad guys in that town and one of them offered to ink my skin. No permission slip, no questions asked... I chose the wings because I never really had anyone in my life who would give them to me, you know, figuratively speaking. Like offering me chances to pursue my dreams and such."

Hanna nodded, understanding his situation. "And the letters?" She asked when he went silent for a moment.

"He was a teacher at my high school there and the first person to ever show an interest in me and my talents. He let me do repair work for the computer lab and taught me a lot of stuff."

"Wow… a teacher?" She asked doubtfully. Her mind drifted off to the teachers at her school. There wasn't anyone that she could imagine being even remotely interested in her talents… or anyone's talents, for that matter… and her English teacher, Mr. Fitz's interest in her friend, Aria, didn't count. "Couldn't you have just stayed with him then?"

"He died," Caleb murmured tersely.

"Oh," Hanna said with regret, feeling a strange kind of mourning for a person who she didn't even know, but who had apparently meant a lot to Caleb; so much so that he had felt the need to have his initials inked on his skin. She wanted to ask Caleb for the man's name or about how he had died or about why Caleb had decided to keep the tattoo hidden from anyone else's view, but at the same time, Hanna felt that she should drop the subject in order to avoid evoking even sadder memories. How did this happen? They had just shared the happiest moment of their lives together…

"After he died, I had a rough patch…" he suddenly began to recount of his own accord. "Hanging out with the bad guys, doing illegal hacking jobs, stealing to get by on the streets somehow, you know, stuff like that."

"How did you manage to get out of there? Did you have to go to jail or something?" She asked with apprehension, not sure if she really wanted to know the answer.

"No. No. Never went to jail, scout's honor." He held his fingers up, "Actually… it was Sèb who pulled me out of it," he finally revealed.

"Sèb?" She shot him an incredulous look.

"Yeah. He came to Allentown High as an exchange student, and somehow we crossed paths. It took me a while to really notice him 'cause he was really shy and inconspicuous. But at some point, I started hanging out with him more often and that's how I managed to slip away from the bad guys."

"So how come you get to stay with his family here? Isn't that like a major coincidence? A giant fluke?"

"No, it's not." Caleb said matter-of-factly. "Mr. Gilbert happened to be the brother of Sèb's host dad in Allentown, and he kinda felt responsible for him. They've stayed in touch ever since Sèb returned home."

"Oh, I see." Hanna nodded at him as another piece of the puzzle fell into place. "That's really great for you both, then.

"He felt that he was doing us both a favor by bringing us together again. And he was right. Sèb helped me realize a lot of things, not just then… but today, too." His gaze fall back upon her, and he couldn't help but wonder how there had ever been a time when he and Hanna hadn't been as intimate as they were right in that moment. It felt so good to finally tell somebody about his troubled past. It felt so right that this certain somebody was Hanna. He couldn't imagine ever holding anything back from her again.

"I'm glad you and Sèb met." Hanna smiled at him in an effort to steer the conversation away from its current negativity. After a long moment of silence, she excitedly blurted out, "And you know what? You never have to remove that tattoo. If we ever got married, you could always say that you had your wife's initials inked on your skin. I mean… The 'H' and the 'R'..."

She had said it with a broad grin, but immediately regretted it, thinking that it was both childish and presumptuous. "I mean... I… I… I didn't mean it that way." She tried to brush it off. Hanna turned a deep shade of red and looked away.

Caleb scoffed before saying, "It's okay. It's kinda funny. Wouldn't it be the strangest kind of fate imaginable if... you… we… you know...? But I'm not even sure that I will... you know… I've seen too many bad examples."

He had spoken in cryptic messages, and yet she knew exactly what he was saying. "Yeah, I see. Yeah. Me neither," she told a white lie in order to backpedal.

"Let's just see where things go. I mean, I've already given my share of commitment." His voice was starting to sound a little more upbeat. "See, I only dropped Spanish in order to be able to see you in French class every day. You know now that I didn't need to take the class." Caleb craned his neck a little in order to see her properly, and then a mischievous grin appeared upon his face.

She wordlessly gazed at him as she processed what he had just told her.

"But look at me now. I get to have two awesome weeks in Paris with Sèb and this one great night with you. And I don't even have to exert myself speaking in another language, Sèb and I only talk in English so that he can improve." He chuckled lightly. "Of course, if I had known that you would get so high on me speaking French, then I would have offered to tutor you earlier on, before we started talking because of Emily's phone." He laughed out loud when Hanna playfully slapped his chest. Then he caught her hand and wove his fingers in between hers. "I guess I'm finally starting to luck out, don't you think?"

"If anyone deserves a little more luck in their life, it's you," Hanna eventually whispered back before their mouths connected in a languorous kiss.

to be continued…


Thanks for reading and for all the kind words about the last chapter(s). Thanks to Sam, my partner in crime, who has provided useful snippets of information and/or dialogue for this chapter.

And as always, thanks to Jenna for making it in time for my regular update. You're my hero!

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