Just Like That...

The book I'm currently engaged in is "Just like that" by Marsha Qualey. This book's first 100 pages were filled with all kinds of details and information. The main character is Hanna Martin, an 18 year old girl living in the city of Minneapolis with her mom and a passion for drawing. She was very talented with a pencil but when it came to interacting with other people she was hardly seen. After her father had died nothing short of six years ago, her mother began dating again. Hanna's mother is a theater teacher at a very pristine university, the same university where Hanna met her boyfriend of 9 months Spencer. Lately though Hanna has lost her connection with Spencer and she breaks up with him. He doesn't take this well and all sort of names are thrown out at her. Hanna's two best friends, Kelsey and Maura, however, are there to help her through; the only problem is Hanna doesn't want it. Hanna is perfectly content with accepting the break-up; she is in fact the heart breaker and feels no regret.

After her mother and her boyfriend Charles go out dancing for the night like they usually do Hanna tries to clear her head. Its three days until Christmas, dark, and cold. Anything could happen to a teenage girl at night but she figures nobody will be out anyway and figures with the attitude she portrays nobody will mess with her. She decides to go for a walk around Lake Calhoun like her and her father use to when he was still alive. This was her backyard, she was totally safe but this walk would change her life.

She stops at a bench to sit and think for a while, hoping the obsession with the break-up she refuses to confront will go away. As two skiers approach, Hanna tries to sink into the corner of the bench, knowing they most likely aren't a danger to her, she watched as two women skiers took off their skis. As she started to hear more intimate sounds she called out sarcastically. They turned to the sound of the call. One skier had showed great concern for Hanna's well-being, warning her of the thin ice on the lake, while the other was good with the answer "I'm fine, thanks."

A short while after the skiers left another couple showed up on an ATV. A guy was driving his girlfriend around after a night of frisky behavior, showed by throwing a used condom at Hanna. They were from out of town and were trying to get to the nearest diner, Hanna pointed them in the right direction and they took off across the lake.

The next morning while watching the news with her mother Hanna had recognized a couple shown on the TV, it was the couple on the ATV. They had fallen through in the middle of the night and both had froze to death, the girl found on shore by an unknown jogger and the guy's body still had yet to be located. Her shock was immediate but she decided not to share the news with her mother, realizing she could have warned them and saved their lives.

Later that week Hanna starts seeing a guy around town she had never seen before, he was very tall and he wore a yellow cap and had long hair. She had seen him at the memorial for the two teens that had frozen to death at the lake. They later meet up and introduce themselves. He was a talented baseball player who had found the frozen body of the dead girl and they made an instant connection. After a day of talking between works breaks, Hanna invites him to her house knowing her mother was out dancing with Charles again. They go up to her room where they talk for a bit then do sex, she had taken his virginity. As she drives him home she can't help but draw him as he gets up to his room and his shadow shines down on the snow. After another risqué night, he meets her mom, she had worked with teens for her whole life and immediately knew how old he was, something Hanna didn't find out, he was 14. After going to his house to confront him with the news he confesses his age, 14, she had had illegal sex with a minor.