Chapter 14: Hanna

At breakfast the next morning, Hanna slapped her mostly empty tray on the table and plopped down next to Emily. Peeling the skin off her apple, she noticed one of their own wasn't there—and how Spencer picked at the ends of her hair and Emily avoided her eyes. "Where's Aria?" Hanna inquired, and her heart inadvertently sped up.

"In locked-down mode," Spencer mumbled at her oatmeal.

"What?" Hanna exclaimed, loud enough for a few heads to turn their way.

"Shhh!" Emily shushed her. "Keep your voice down. Who knows how these patients will feel if one us got taken down."

"Taken down how?" Hanna stammered.

Glancing around her, Spencer leaned across the table so that she was closer to Hanna after she knew no one was still staring. "I saw Ezra drop her off this morning and explain he found her along the side of the road on his way to work. The nurses tried to get her to confess if somebody had helped her escape because there's no way she could have made it out, even in her other self."

Hanna wrinkled her forehead, but, after reminding herself that it would leave her skin dented, relaxed. "Do we believe that?"

"I don't know," Spencer murmured. "That's all I heard before they led her to the elevator and took her down."

"Wait, there's a lower floor than the ground floor?"

Emily nodded. "A basement not used for storage."

Gulping nervously, Hanna rotated her head around her shoulder to stare at the elevator. "Then what's down there?"

By that point, Spencer knew she couldn't keep down any more food. "We have no idea."

And that was all Hanna remembered of that conversation—until she woke up an hour later in a white-walled room with white sheets and white uniforms and white linoleum floors. The only color that broke the uniformity was dark hair in dark clothes. "Em?" she croaked in a murmur. The shadowy girl stood up from her chair and propped herself on Hanna's bedside. The blurry vision morphed into clarity—and it was Emily. "What happened?"

Emily placed her hand over Hanna's. "You passed out. The doctors…" She trailed off, biting her lip.

"The doctors…what?" But Hanna already knew what, and she trailed her hand across her protruding ribcage. When she glanced down at what she felt, it wasn't dented or shrunken, it was just normal.

Ingesting the clump in her throat, Emily inhaled deeply in an attempt to banish the pounding headache she was developing from her weeks of practicing tolerance in this place—and now her friend was dying. "They said if you don't start eating again, you…you won't make it. It's been too little for too long, Hanna. And I know that's now what you want to hear, but it's the truth."

When Hanna parted her lips, she thought she was going to say something in her defense, but instead her vocal chords were dry, and she withered back. Luckily for her, Caleb entered before an unbearable silence endured. "What are you doing here?"

Caleb seemed angry, but he could never be angry at someone who needed help. It wasn't his nature; it was the reason why he was the only person who interned at this place, because no one else wanted to handle this without pay. "It's kind of normal for someone to show up when one of the patients they're assigned to is in the hospital." Sighing, his shoulders sagged, and what Hanna once saw as a tough, fuming wall of disappointment was now defeated—but still held some of that disappointment. "You told me the exercises were helping."

He was talking about the therapy she was going through to accept that a few hundred calories weren't going to make her gain ten pounds in one sitting, and to commence the introduction of more food into her system. It was probably the only way she hadn't ended up in this bed sooner, an IV in her arm. The IV… She poked where it was attached in her arms. "How many calories is this giving me?"

"It doesn't matter, Hanna," Caleb told her. "It's not a decision anymore. It's to save your life."

Hanna could feel her bottom lip tremble. "But I don't—"

"Have a problem, I know," Caleb interjected. "But you don't want to die, do you?"

Gulping, Hanna thoughtlessly placed her hands on her face, felt the bones of her cheeks poking her. The window, as it was pitch dark outside, reflected what she saw: a face not hollowed out. Then what were her hands feeling?

But before she could answer Caleb, she'd waited too long and he snapped, "It's still your choice, then. I can't help you if you don't want it," and stormed out of the room.

"Caleb!" Hanna called back, but her cry was too weak, too…forced. It was to make him come back so that she could lie to him, and she was tired of lying. But she couldn't bear to admit that she'd been lying to herself for weeks. If she couldn't trust herself, who could she trust?

For the first time since she was admitted here, understanding struck Hanna, a comprehension of what Aria was going through for ten years. The flutter in her chest, the one of adrenaline from her recent argument with Caleb, died out. It was terrifying, to feel this way. And Hanna had chalked Aria up as crazy.

If she was, though, then they all were losing their minds. None of them could trust themselves: Hanna couldn't trust what she saw, what she believed; Spencer couldn't trust the addiction her brain wanted fulfilled, the one that whispered to her, "It's only one pill…"; and Emily…

"Well, that was harsh" was Emily's lone response to what had ensued in front of her. What else was there to say? She wasn't one to damage feelings and trust.

But Hanna hadn't heard her. Instead, with eyes round and bulging like saucers in a skull, Hanna asked what she'd been processing in her mind from the moment her fingers recognized what her eyes weren't catching. "Do you ever fear yourself, Em?"

In Emily's mind, she thought of when she was younger and found Alison DiLaurentis beautiful enough to kiss, but then went to Sunday school where she was taught about sexualities that belonged in hell, and she began to wonder: is the Devil inside me?

This time, Emily stared in the window, and what she saw on the outside was something she could trust. It was in her eyes, though, that she was frightened of a possession of wrongful temptation. "Every day," she replied to Hanna, and reached out to clasp Hanna's hand. "But don't worry about me. Let's focus on you feeling better."

But I feel fine, Hanna wanted to protest. She couldn't even remember feeling sick before passing out. Instead of expressing this, she waved it off. "Oh, it's fine. I just need some salt, that's all."

Emily wanted to tell her that it wasn't "fine," that it wasn't "all." But like Hanna, she didn't say this, and got up to get her friend some pretzels, even though she knew she would only lick the salt off, and her body would continue to die.

…

A couple days later, Hanna was back in her daily routine, and didn't hold a grudge against Caleb as much as he did against her. How was that supposed to help her? she wanted to ask. But he was right that she never truly believed in their one-on-one sessions, and she wasn't ready to admit that to him, or to herself.

Meals were now a bother, as Emily tried to be supportive, but not too pushy. "Eat something, Han, please. An apple, for me?" Spencer watched the awkward ordeal and cringed. But Hanna only thanked Emily for caring, and Emily backed off. Later Spencer was chided by Emily for not caring about Hanna's life, but Spencer defended herself in the same way Caleb had, that fixing her wasn't an option if Hanna didn't believe it. "There has to be something, though…," Emily had said after being broken down by Spencer and joining her side. The friends had no clue, even in the urgency of their rapidly deteriorating friend.

And then there was Aria, who, a week after Hanna landed in the hospital, was still not back from wherever the nurses took her. It was unfortunate to admit that Aria's only three friends hadn't had much time to think about her, other than the constant worry they had churning their guts. But unlike Hanna, Aria understood herself as best as she could, and was more accepting of new ways of help despite her thinking it might not work, and that was why Spencer and Emily worried, but weren't as concerned as they were about Hanna. Aria was a fighter; Hanna didn't even think she was fighting.

However, Emily's everyday prodding, and Spencer's occasional acknowledgement of Emily's concerns being accurate, made Hanna begin to boil—until she lost her top, and she slammed her fist onto the table. "You don't understand what it was like to be that fat!" she nearly yelled. Her outburst wasn't unusual at Radley mealtime, so no stranger aimed their eyes at her in curiosity. But Emily and Spencer, rather than apologize or recognize that Hanna's reasons were valid, stared at Hanna's hands with their jaws dropped open like a hungry snake's.

When Hanna looked at what they were looking at, her heart almost jumped out of her throat. Her annoyance was strong enough that she didn't feel the fork poke through her fist. Even more annoyed, Hanna chewed the inside of her cheek to loosen the building tension—doesn't a fork usually fly when you slam it that way?—and easily tugged the fork out, wrapping her fist in a napkin. "It's fine, okay?" she said in a strained manner. "It barely went in."

Still frustrated, Hanna dumped her tray in the trash and fought the temptation to run out of the room in humiliation. Sometimes she hated being such a drama queen, but the impulse to escape from the friends suffocating her was stronger than her rational thoughts.

Why was everyone tiptoeing around her? Hanna was snug in her thoughts, just like her nails were snug in the pink gel polish she was able to smuggle in from another patient. In times of stress, she needed to smother her nails with pretty chemicals. Good thing her toes were free.

Was it because she couldn't handle some harsh words? Because she could. She could fight back viciously with words, if need be. Suddenly a jolting pain kicked her stomach, and the wind was consequently knocked out of her lungs. It was the same stabbing aches she'd had when she began limiting her diet months ago. A growl gurgled inside, like her belly was crying—and she shivered in discomfort. There was no way she was going to cave into her body's desires when it had plenty already.

At dinner, after a long hour of intense cognition, Hanna had built up the courage to please her friends and reassure their anxieties: she ate half a piece of lasagna. Spencer's fork, covered in green beans, paused before her mouth as she watched Hanna eat, shocked. Emily let go of her utensils and clapped her hands. "Hanna!" she exclaimed, and draped her arms around her. "I'm so proud of you! Oh, you'll be better in no time, and then we'll be one step closer to leaving this place…" And Hanna set her fork down, stopped listening. She'd gotten so used to living in Radley, she forgot that there was a life waiting for her outside the gates: a life with her mother, with Sean, with her friends Naomi and Riley…

But who was to say what would happen to any of them if Hanna made it out? Maybe Aria would be a permanent case. Or Emily would leave before them (as she shouldn't be here at all), relish in a normal life, and forget that the rest of them were still trapped here. It wasn't fair, for any of them, really, to be friends like they were. Because who was to say it would last past these walls?

…

Unfortunately, Hanna had a session with Caleb right after dinner, and couldn't stop at the bathroom on the way. She pushed through the unbearable amount of talking she had to do ("What did the doctor tell you to do?" "Are you following his advice?" "Are you listening to me, Hanna?" "If you don't follow it, they'll be forced to take action, which I know you don't like.") By the end, she calmly said, "I think this should be my last session. I find the attitude unhelpful," and scampered out before he could see past her shocking sass and notice that her hand was over her stomach in pain.

After eating, the aches had become torturous, as though her stomach was gnawing on her organs. Bolting into the bathroom, it was easy for her to dispel of what little she'd consumed. But she hadn't waited long enough—because Caleb, leaving Radley for the day, passed by that bathroom on his way out, and the sound of vomiting was what he was assigned to help in (unless the patient was sick with a flu).

Without reluctance Caleb crossed what many average people considered a barrier, and recognized the girl who hadn't closed the stall in her rush. "Hanna!" But instead of turning around to defend her dignity, he saw her shoulders slump, and then shake.

"I-I have a problem," she whispered, almost incoherently, but Caleb caught it. "I—"

"You don't have to say it again," he reassured her, and offered to help her up. "Come on. You need to rest, and we can get started first thing in the morning." As Hanna's clammy hand grasped his shoulder, he said, "Hey. I'm proud of you, Hanna."

That's what Emily had told her, and she didn't care about how much that statement meant to her until she heard it a second time from someone else. "Thank you," she murmured, and said nothing more.

On the way out, her eyes caught her reflection, and that image she always had shattered. Her cheeks were sunken in. Her ribs poked out above her miniscule waist. Her knees were knobs supported by sticks. She had…vanished. A sack of bones and skin.

The rest of the night, that reflection haunted her, reiterating in her sleep, What have you done, what have you done, what have you done…