The Whole Damn World Is Here

Chapter 5: The Whole Damn World Is Here

** Hannah’s POV**

My phone buzzed against the coffee table like an angry hornet, snapping us out from our engrossment with news and updates about Lucas Bristo.

Piper arched a brow, reached over, and passed it to me.

“Your new mom,” she said flatly.

My stomach sank at the sound of that, the woman can be persistent.

I took the phone from Piper and for a heartbeat I just stared at the screen, the name glowing like a warning sign. I was left with no choice but to swipe to answer.

“Hello?” My voice was tight, already defensive.

“Hannah.” My mother’s tone snapped across the line, “Where are you? You are to return to the banquet hall immediately. I have been looking for you, everywhere!”

I tightened my grip on the phone. I was raging “Return?” I bit out, my voice louder than I meant. “Why should I?”

“Hannah…”

“No, listen to me for once.” The words tumbled out before I could stop them. “Lily and Ray humiliated me in front of everyone. Why should I come back in there just so they can laugh at me again?”

I took a deep breath, waiting for a response I knew I wouldn't get.

“So they can whisper behind their glasses of champagne? No, thank you. I have self-respect. I won’t come back.”

The silence on the other end was suffocating.

I thought that she would at least consider what I had just said but well, the rich people always feel they can get anyone to do their bidding. “If you don’t return,” my mother said, her voice colder than marble, “then I will be forced to process your transfer to another school.”

The threat landed like ice water poured straight down my spine. The fuck did I just hear?

She knew how much I loved it in Columbia. She had tried to convince me to transfer to Harvard but, I just want what I want. I practically worked my ass out to get there, and I am proud of that. I wouldn't want wealth to bulldoze me into a school I do not desire.

“What?” I snapped out of my unending thoughts of what she had just said to me.

The line went off and I lowered the phone slowly, staring at the black screen like it had betrayed me.

I had always loved Columbia University; it's the satisfaction that comes with working hard for something and getting it.

The thought of my mother doing what she had just threatened felt like someone was about to take my whole life's dream from me.

Piper leaned in, her messy curls falling forward as her eyes widened. “She did not just threaten you, did she?”

“She did.” My voice shook, a whisper edged with fury.

My hand trembled around the phone, as though it were still buzzing with my mother’s coldness. “She actually… She threatened to rip me out of school. Like I’m….like I’m some problem she can just transfer away. Like I’m furniture.”

I stood up, pacing the living room without bothering how Piper followed each of my steps with her eyes, dramatically.

“I hate it! I don’t want to be a Black anymore, I do not like the hostility that comes with it,” I said, almost welling up.

Piper looked at me pathetically.

“She didn’t even ask if I was okay,” I spat, my words tumbling faster now. “She didn’t care that I was humiliated in front of half the banquet. No….she only cares that I make the family look good. She wants me to stand there smiling, silent, while Lily and Ray rip me apart.”

My throat tightened, but I forced the words out anyway. “I can’t go back, Pipe. Not until I've gotten my apology. I demand an apology.”

I thought it through again, and it annoyed me more like I was just realising how messed up it is. “Unbelievable!” I sank back into the couch, wondering when my life became a prison.

“Why should I move because she demands it? I’m not some doll they can summon at will. I’m not.”

Piper grabbed the half-empty bottle of cheap wine from her makeshift bar at the corner of the house and poured a glass, her eyes steady on me. She brought it into my hand, her tone almost casual. “If you are not okay with it, then don’t go. Stay here. Let them stew in their own drama. You’ve got me, K-Drama, and wine. What more do you need?”

She forced a smile out of me. “You make it sound easy.”

“That’s because it is,” Piper said firmly, folding her arms. “Hannah, life is not as difficult as people make it seem. Let someone else panic about you. You’ve been dragged around like some shiny accessory ever since they ‘found’ you. Maybe it’s time you set your own rules.”

The glass trembled slightly in my hand before I forced myself to take a gulp. The wine burned my throat, but I liked it.

I took my phone and turned it off completely.

I felt joy and peace that I had done something to hurt them as much as they hurt me.

Piper and I curled up on the couch with the glow of her TV flickering across our faces. She wasn’t as interested as I was in this recent K-Drama, ‘Mr. Queen’, it was so hilarious and I forgot all of my worries, engrossed in it.

Piper scrolled endlessly through articles about Lucas Bristo, each headline more dramatic than the last, distracting me from my movie.

“He’s everywhere,” she said, shoving the phone at me. “Boardroom prodigy. The golden heir. The country’s most eligible bachelor.”

I skimmed an article about his latest investment deal and snorted. “He looks like he hasn’t laughed once in his entire life. Who would want to marry him? That would be a disaster.”

Piper cackled. “Every single straight girl in this town except you.”

I rolled my eyes and sank deeper into the cushions. “Then one of them can take my spot, if I had a spot there anyway.”

I managed to forget about the banquet and everything that concerns it.

***

The next morning, the pounding on the door jolted me awake. It wasn’t a polite knock, not even an impatient one.

I knew the neighbours won’t knock this way unless it’s the apocalypse, and if it’s the apocalypse, why knock this way?

This was war with fists slamming against wood like the door itself had committed some unforgivable crime.

I groaned, clutching at my temples. My head was heavy from too little sleep and too much wine, my mouth dry as paper, but the sound was relentless. Whoever it was, they weren’t leaving until the door fell off its hinges.

Piper burrowed deeper into her blanket cocoon, her voice muffled but sharp. “Tell whoever it is to go die.”

Dragging myself, I walked across the creaking floor to the door, and my hand hovered on the knob. Slowly, I pulled the door open just a crack and froze.

A gang of men in black suits stood outside, perfectly still, their gazes locked on me.

They looked less like people and more like a blockade of muscle and menace.

Instinct screamed through me. I gasped and slammed the door shut so fast the frame shuddered. My back hit the wood as I stumbled away, heart racing wildly.

“Open the door!”

I knew that voice, it has been tormenting me for the past week now, that was definitely Ray.

My heart shuddered at the sound of his voice. Piper shot upright, hair sticking out like a tangled halo, her eyes wide and bloodshot. “What the hell is going on? Who’s out there, the FBI?”

Another thunderous boom against the door. The handle rattled like it was seconds away from snapping off.

“Open the door!” Ray’s voice was a snarl now, vibrating through the frame, leaving no space for argument.

I swallowed hard, my throat desert-dry.

There was no extra exit, no options. Just inevitably pressing down and with trembling hands, I turned the knob.

The door swung open, and the hallway filled with them.

My parents stood in the center, stiff-backed, faces carved in stone.

My mother’s eyes were cold, as she gave me that disappointed look and my father’s expression was unreadable as always. I wondered why he never had an expression on his face; it was practically expressionless.

Lily lingered just behind them, her posture as elegant as ever, a serene calm masking the hostility simmering beneath.

Ray radiated fury, practically vibrating with it, his glare burning holes straight through me.

The sight of someone else pissed me off more than any of these beings that I have survived for a week.

What the fuck is he doing here?

He was leaning against the wall as if the entire world belonged to him, dressed in arrogance, Lucas Bristo.

His eyes met mine, and then I saw the annoying faintest smirk, like he had already figured out the ending to a story I hadn’t even begun to write.

My stomach dropped.

Oh, perfect! The whole damn world is here!