Reasons to Be Happy

There’s like a whole month of my life I don’t remember.

We knew it was coming. We knew she was going to die…but there’s no way, no matter how much warning you get, to be ready. There’s no way to avoid being ripped open, crushed until there is nothing left of you.

My dad and I pretty much fell apart.

Everyone says that, fell apart, but it’s what it truly felt like—like actual pieces of us fell away, scattering around, until there were too many fragments to possibly repair. How could you even begin to fix us? The idea was too overwhelming—easier to ignore the shards, to just get used to being broken.

I miss her. It seems so stupid to even say that. It’s such an understatement. I miss her. I look for her and she’s not there.

After she died, Dad started drinking. Too much. I pretended not to notice.

After she died, I wrote a whole section of “Mom things” on my list:

102. The way Mom gave me butterfly kisses with her eyelashes when I was little

103. That lemon meringue lotion she used, so she always smelled like dessert

104. The way she called me beautiful

“Hey, beautiful, what are you thinking?” she’d ask, coming out to the backyard where I crouched working on my cities

105. The way she’d actually listen

106. Mom’s smile when I walked into the room

107. The way she called me Hannah Banana

108. The look on her face the times I watched her studying my cities when she didn’t know I was looking

109. Our beach glass door frame in moonlight

110. Mom’s dorky birthday poems

111. The way Mom sang off-key to the car radio

If she were still here, I wouldn’t be such a disaster.

Sometimes I sit and picture her, the way she’d hardly ever wear makeup when she wasn’t on a set, and she looked so clean. Or I remember being in the ocean, seeing how long I could hold my breath and float underwater—the way she yanked me up by the hair, her face panicked, thinking I’d drowned. Her fear—which showed she loved me—felt like a solid thing in the air around us. Then she laughed, choked, and said, “Hannah! You always take things too far.”

She was right.

She was so, so right. I’d taken my SR too far. No longer my friend, but a creepy stalker I couldn’t get rid of. It scared me and I wanted to stop it more than anything in the world.

No, that’s not true.

More than anything in the world, I wanted my mom back.

But stopping the SR? That was second.





My newest reason to be happy should’ve been to have a reason to be happy again! I hadn’t been able to up come with anything except stuff that had to do with my mother since she died, but now I had a new one: blue icing. I could finally add a #114 to my list:

112. The way Mom always smiled and never rushed her fans when they approached her

113. Dreams where my mom is still alive and healthy

114. BLUE ICING!

This blue icing was the best thing to happen to me all that day. No, all that week. Maybe the entire two weeks I’d missed school after Mom died. That’s all I could think about when I got back in the car with my pissed-off dad: that bright blue icing on the cupcakes would be perfect.

My brain stuck on that blue icing even though my dad had just caught me shoplifting. I didn’t steal the cupcakes. Please. Where was I supposed to hide a plastic container of four cupcakes? I’m not that fat. Dad caught me slipping a Three Musketeers bar into the pocket of my cargo pants.

This floating feeling washed over me: Maybe this is it. I’m busted. It’s over. I don’t want to be this person. I know stealing is wrong. The floating kind of felt like relief. But mostly it felt like a freak-out. I really needed it that night.

He caught me. I still couldn’t believe it. Most of the time he was so clueless. Mom had been too. Maybe she never noticed me stealing because she usually felt so awful it took all her energy just to stay upright and walk through the grocery store. But Dad didn’t have that excuse. (At least when he was sober, which he seemed to be right now. Who knew anymore?) Didn’t he ever wonder why I always waited in the car when he went in that one market in Malibu? One of the cashiers there had caught me stealing a loaf of bread.

I had to give up a lot of the food I’d swiped when Dad caught me…but not all of it. I still had the most important stuff. I just hoped Dad couldn’t hear the crinkling noise of the plastic baloney wrapper I’d shoved down the front of my pants. The baloney was so cold it almost burned. I’d lifted it from the fridge near the deli counter.

Little bulges poked out of Dad’s tight jaw, his knuckles white on the steering wheel. I wished I could tell him I was sorry. I wished I could do better. I wished I could just tell him the truth, so he would save the day and make everything okay like he did in his movies.

I wondered if he hated me. For being alive. When Mom is dead.

I wished he would talk or say something, even if he yelled at me.

Somewhere down beneath the lunch meat in my pants, the candy bar started to melt. Another Three Musketeers, soft and mushy. I hated how the candy bar felt, pressing against me, like gross Kevin’s hands in the pool. Just thinking of him brought back that prickling, frozen shock. Gross stupid moron. Now they all acted like idiots around me, snickering and stuff. I hated them. I hated that whole school. My classes, the teachers, everyone.

That’s not true. I didn’t hate DeTello. I think she suspected something. I didn’t think she suspected the SR, but she kept writing these notes on my assignments and keeping me after class to tell me I have power and potential and I can do anything.

I don’t think she meant to lie, but I didn’t feel it. I looked inside and I didn’t see it. I remembered that I used to see it. I didn’t know what happened. I couldn’t remember when I started impersonating Hannah Carlisle instead of actually being her.

In the car, my dad still didn’t talk.

Why couldn’t everything be the way it used to be, before I started this disgusting habit, with my mom alive and my dad not hiding bottles of Scotch all over the house? I clutched the cupcakes. Thank God for the blue icing.

We took the groceries into the house in silence. Maybe Dad wouldn’t talk to me ever again. Mom and Dad’s best friends, Sean and Laila—both actors too—were coming over for dinner. That could work in my favor. Maybe that will keep Dad too occupied to deal with me.

I reached into a bag, pulled out the tabloid I’d bought, and used it to mask the bag of Ho Hos. Maybe if I was just really casual…

“Hannah,” Dad said, “we need to talk about what happened.”

I let the Ho Hos drop back into the bag, but kept the magazine.

“Why did you shoplift?” he asked.

“I didn’t shoplift.”

“You were going to shoplift. You just got caught.”

“I was going to put them back.”

I wished Dad could see himself, his eyes popping out of his head. He opened his mouth and held out his hands like he was totally ready to freak. Looking at him right then, it was hard to believe he was actually a pretty good actor. But I felt bad for him. You’d think if your wife just died, you’d be too distracted to flip about something like this.

All I wanted was to get rid of the candy bar and baloney. I had to get to my room.

“I’m sorry, but I don’t believe that,” Dad said. “You’re lucky I caught you. If someone else had seen you, they would’ve pressed charges. It would’ve been all over the tabloids. And I’m standing here thinking that maybe I should’ve gotten the manager.”

Sweat trickled between my belly and the lunch meat. I knew he meant it. I knew it in the store; that’s why I gave up the candy bar, the Peppermint Patty, and the two Oatmeal Cream Pies. When my dad was mad, he didn’t say stuff he didn’t mean, like some people. When Dad was mad, he only told the truth (well, except about his own secret remedy, that is).

“You want to get arrested?” he asked. “You want to have a criminal record?”

Like you? I wanted to snap, but didn’t. The vein in his forehead turned purple.

“You stole from school, and I caught you today. Are there more times we don’t know about?”

You have no idea. My hot skin itched. I wished I could unzip it and peel it off.

He yelled and made me jump. “Damn it, Hannah! I don’t need this crap right now!”

I’d never seen him look like that before—a hot red spot shone from both cheeks. His eyes glittered like those crazy street people who act like they want to fight you.

Was he calling me crap? He didn’t need crappy old me anymore?

I surprised myself by screaming back, “Well, I don’t need you anymore either!” Screaming felt really good, even though my throat was raw.

His face shifted again and I felt like I was watching him on film. His eyes welled up with tears and everything about him softened.

“No, no, no, Hannah, that’s not what I meant.” He reached for me, to hug me, but I backed away. “Don’t ever think that. I do need you. I didn’t mean I don’t need you, I just…I don’t understand this. Why are you doing this?”

I was glad he said he needed me, but I had everything ready upstairs in my room. I needed to get the candy bar out of my crotch. I needed to start or I would go crazy.

Dad whispered, “I’m sorry.”

I nodded. “It’s okay.” Perfect exit line. I picked up the magazine and cupcakes again. Forget the Ho Hos. I’d get them later. I started to leave the room.

“Whoa. Excuse me. Where do you think you’re going? We have groceries to unload and dinner to make.” He paused, all dramatic. “And I want you to talk to me about the shoplifting.”

Oh my God! I slammed the magazine down and longed to smash my fist into the cupcake container lid. I yanked one of the reusable cloth bags toward me. I shoved stuff into a pantry cupboard. I slammed cans and each bang fueled me more. I couldn’t help myself. The SR was taking over. It was beginning and I wanted to go give in to it. Dad was ruining everything. I flung the cupboard shut so hard it bounced back open.

Dad started unloading groceries too, and that meant he wasn’t watching my every move. Maybe I could snag the bag with the Ho Hos.

“You want candy bars?” he said. “You can buy candy bars. I’ll buy you candy bars.”

He stopped unloading groceries and touched my shoulder. I jerked away. I didn’t even mean to, but I couldn’t stand to be touched, not when it was beginning. This was turning into an emergency.

“What is this really about?” he asked.

How could he be so stupid? Did he really not get it? Dad turned to reach into the bag I’d left unguarded. I wanted to tackle him when he pulled out the bag of Ho Hos.

“Hannah! Did you put this in the cart?” He shook his head and said, “A dozen Ho Hos?” like it was a bag of human hands or something. He dropped the bag and snatched up the receipt. “These better be paid for, or I swear to God, we’re getting back in the car this second.”

Where did he think I could hide a bag of twelve Ho Hos? Was he insane?

“You’re in luck,” he said, sticking the receipt in his pocket. “But you’ll be paying me back for these.”

“Why? I can’t have a snack because you’re spending too much money on booze?” Saying that felt as good as slamming a door.

Dad’s hand twitched and I thought he might slap me. I sort of wished he would.

He tossed the bag to me, but I didn’t catch it. It hit me in the chest and fell to the floor. When I bent to get it, the baloney packet dug into my gut. Something hot and burning rolled up my throat. I swallowed hard. I stood up with the bag, dizzy.

Suddenly I didn’t want to leave the room. If I left, I knew what I’d do. Maybe Dad would make me help with dinner or something. This dinner was kind of a big deal, after all—our first guests since Mom died…even though Sean and Laila hardly counted as guests. Maybe if I stayed here in the kitchen, the feeling would go away.

“The money is hardly the point,” Dad said. But he didn’t tell me what the point was. Why couldn’t he see what was happening to me? Why couldn’t Izzy have told him instead of Mom?

I stood there in our kitchen, holding the bag of Ho Hos against my chest like a pillow while Dad started fixing dinner. I wanted him to talk about it. I wanted to stop it, I really did.

I sat down at the kitchen island and tore open the bag. Inside were six packages of two Ho Hos each. I took one out. Dad was doing something at the stove, but he glanced at me over his shoulder. I could tell he was disgusted, but he tried to hide it. I shoved in a big mouthful, eating half the Ho Ho in one bite. Dad’s lips curled down. I ate the other half. When I licked the cream off my fingers, he turned away. Without looking at me, he laid four chicken breasts on the grill, and said, “If you’re going to eat high fat, you might as well eat better tasting fat. I mean, that cream filling tastes like Styrofoam and the icing has no flavor.”

Icing! I remembered the cupcakes. I needed to eat that blue icing. I’d already had one Ho Ho, so I’d be sure to go way past the blue icing when it reappeared. Just to make sure.

I picked up a cupcake and licked the icing off the top. Dad pinched up his face and turned away. I got every bit of icing I could, then I ate the cupcake. If I wasn’t safe from the SR sitting in the same room with him, then I knew it was up to me to protect myself. The blue icing was all I had.

I could tell from the ingredients that Dad was making Thai salad with grilled chicken, my very favorite. He cut a lime in half. When I opened a second pack of Ho Hos, he glanced at me, his face and neck all red. He ground the lime against the juicer.

I pulled the magazine back out of the grocery bag with chocolatey fingers. I’d put it in the cart along with the Ho Hos because Dad’s picture was on the cover—not the feature, not this time (Sean and Laila were, though), but one of the smaller boxes. Mom never wanted me to read stuff about Dad or our family before she read it first, but she wasn’t here anymore to stop me.

Dad chopped vegetables, whacking that knife around, making more noise than he needed to. He’d probably cut off a finger and blame it on me. I flipped through the magazine.

I found the article. The first picture was a full page of Dad on the set of Blood Roses. Production had been halted for nearly a month because of…because of Mom. He’d just gone back to it two days ago. The photo was good, except that Kevin was in the background.

I ate another Ho Ho.

“Hannah,” Dad said, his voice all shocked like I’d picked my nose in public or something.

I ignored him.

He reached out and moved the bag of Ho Hos away from me. We glared at each other.

I kept reading the article. Blood Roses was about vampires. My dad was playing a vampire. He had to ride a horse English style and wear period costumes. It was set in the 1890s.

“I thought this was a serious film,” Aunt Izzy had said when she heard it was about vampires.

“It is,” Mom said, sounding like she was defending Dad.

Mom had been lying in bed, and Aunt Izzy was painting Mom’s toenails bright scarlet. Izzy started telling stories from when she and Mom were kids. My grandparents had passed away when I was really little, so I loved those stories about Mom’s childhood, because there weren’t many sources for me to get them from, and I was hungry for every single detail about my mother I could get. I think that’s the day it finally hit me that I was going to lose her, that she really, truly was going to die and I wouldn’t have her anymore. As Aunt Izzy and Mom told stories, I sat cross-legged on the floor in the bedroom, trying to soak up every word.

“I’ve always loved vampires,” Mom said. I’d never known that. I loved vampires too. “When I was young,” she said, “I wanted to be a vampire.” She turned her bald head to me and smiled. “I read Dracula and Salem’s Lot. I read every book and story I could find with vampires in it. I used to leave my window open at night, and I’d take out the screen, hoping a vampire would come in my window and make me a vampire too.”

“No vampires ever came,” Aunt Izzy said, her nose close to Mom’s toes. “But one night a possum came in through that window and your grandma was pretty darn mad at your mom.”

I giggled. “What happened?”

Aunt Izzy grinned as she kept polishing. “This possum was sitting on the couch, hissing at everyone in the morning. All three of our worthless dogs were cowering by the front door.”

“How’d you get it out?”

“Your grandma chased it off, whacking it with a broom,” Aunt Izzy said, laughing. “And after that, she’d check your mom’s windows every night.”

“Why did you want to be a vampire?” I asked her.

Aunt Izzy lifted her head from Mom’s toes. “You are amazing,” she said to me. “Do you know I never once asked that question? Even after the possum. I never stopped to ask why.”

“Hmm,” my mom murmured. She ran a hand over her patchy head, tucking her nonexistent hair behind her ear. “I wanted to live forever,” she whispered.

I stopped breathing. Her words ached inside me like I’d pressed on a bruise.

“There are so many things I want to do and see, and even back then I worried I’d run out of time,” Mom said. “If I were immortal, I’d have forever to explore and try everything I wanted.”

I’d fought really hard not to cry.

Aunt Izzy had cried, though, her tears dripping down onto Mom’s new red toenails.

“You certainly didn’t want to live forever,” Mom said, in a joking tone, trying to make Aunt Izzy laugh. “There I was, trying to attain immortal life, and you seemed determined to speed yours to a hasty end.”

Aunt Izzy smiled, kind of sad. “I know,” she said. “I’m sorry.”

Mom lifted a foot and tried to wipe a tear that hung from the corner of Aunt Izzy’s mouth with her toe. Her polish wasn’t dry, though, and she’d left a red streak, like blood.

I thought about that conversation now. No way did I want to live forever. I didn’t even want to live right now. It would be cool to be a vampire, though, because if your life sucked as bad as mine did (ha ha, no pun intended), you could just walk out to meet the sunshine and end it all.

I pulled the bag of Ho Hos back to me.

I skimmed the article about my dad. All the usual stuff about his movie credits. All the usual stuff about Aunt Izzy’s first documentary winning an Academy Award, the usual stuff about Dad drinking too much, getting arrested before I was born. I got sick of reading the same thing over and over again. I always liked to see if there was anything about me or Mom.

Sure enough, there it was, how he met Mom on the set of their first movie together. How she inspired him to stop drinking. How when she got pregnant (Me! That was me!), he went to rehab because he didn’t want to mess anything up with me.

But then…the article talked about Mom’s cancer. There was a picture of Mom looking all skinny with her big alien eyes and fuzzy head. It made the baloney go cold again.

So did the pictures from her funeral. I knew paparazzi followed Dad all over the place, but they’d been at the funeral? No way. There were two pictures with me in them, with my swelled up cheeks, punched eyes, and dark teeth. Great. Photographic evidence that beautiful Annabeth Anderson and gorgeous Caleb Carlisle’s daughter was a huge, fat, hideous beast. I hated the photographers. I thought about that day; it’d been horrible enough without them. I didn’t want to know that someone else was there. It felt like someone seeing something really private, like they’d spied on me in the bathroom.

“So,” Dad said, there in the kitchen, “are you going to talk to me about the stealing?”

“I said I was sorry!” I tried to scream. My throat felt scalded. The tears spilled over in my eyes. I tossed the magazine down on the counter. It landed face down in some lime juice.

Dad turned the magazine over. That little photo of his face was all wet. Some lime pulp stuck to the corner of his left eye.

He wiped his own photo with his fingertips. He looked down at his picture and said, “Listen, your spring break is coming up. You think you’d like to go out to Ohio? Stay with your aunt?”

“You just want to get rid of me! You hate me! You think I’m fat and ugly!”

Dad closed his eyes! I couldn’t believe it. He shut his eyes like I was annoying him.

Fine. While he had his eyes closed, I grabbed that Ho Hos bag and ran up the stairs. I shut my door, then moved the desk in front of it. Dad couldn’t stop me now. Nobody could. If Mom came back, I might be normal. If she hadn’t known this horrible thing about me, maybe she wouldn’t have died. If Dad quit drinking and everything was like it used to be, I could stop this.

But I knew there was no stopping me now. My stalker of a Secret Remedy was in control.





I unzipped my jeans and yanked out the packet of lunch meat. I clawed at it, ripping it finally with my teeth. I pulled three slices out of the pack, wadded them in a ball and shoved it in my mouth. Slow down, slow down, I warned myself, terrified of how I nearly choked one night, how I had to do the Heimlich on my chair after my eyes filled up with black dots. That panicked me so bad I swore I’d never do it again. That was two days before. I’d done it twice since then. Once already that morning, before Dad finally emerged from his room.

My eyes watered as I pictured myself in my cafeteria job: hiding in the corner of the school kitchen, standing over the trash can, shoveling other people’s leftovers into my mouth: bitten-into pizza crusts, tater tots, the corn and lima beans everyone left behind. I guzzled the remains of milkshakes, I licked plates clean of mashed potatoes, I scraped the pretzel cheese off the wax paper with my teeth. I devoured the fries no one else ate—the gray ones, the burnt ones, the weird tiny withered ones. I stood there in my hairnet and ate their trash like some dog.

I pulled another wad of baloney from the packet with my teeth. Saltiness registered on my tongue but by that point it was mostly texture, motion. Another slice shoved in. The packet had juice, water from the meat that I slurped off the plastic. I pulled out the candy bar, soft and mushy. I ripped it open and gnawed it off the wrapper, chewing baloney and chocolate together in my mouth. Then, the rest of the Ho Hos. A rhythm of

rip open,

shove in,

chew,

swallow,

rip open,

shove in,

chew,

swallow,

rip open,

shove in,

chew,

swallow.

I chugged half the bottle of water, then crawled to my drawer, my secret stash. What this drawer held could be the end, all I had. I’d eaten everything I’d stolen from our kitchen freezer earlier, all those Tupperware containers of peanut chicken, coconut soup, and pasta salads that the cleaning lady had packed up and put away after the funeral. All the boxes of fancy soups, rolls of crackers, and jars of pesto I’d snuck from our pathetic cupboards. The mustard, the maple syrup, the chocolate sauce. I knew I should ration, but I knew I wouldn’t. Once a binge began, I would eat every last scrap. I opened the drawer and devoured a loaf of bread, a pack of pudding cups, a box of oatmeal cream pies.

Finally, it happened.

Like a motor coming on, like a switch. The trance. I closed my eyes. I didn’t need to see. I didn’t taste. I didn’t feel texture.

I didn’t feel anything.

• • •

The knocking jerked me out of my stupor. Laila’s voice at my door, barricaded by my desk. “Hannah? Dinner’s ready.”

I panted. Tears leaked down my face.

I ran my tongue around my mouth, then cleared my throat. “I-I’m not hungry.”

“Are you okay, hon?” she asked. “Your dad said you argued.”

“I’m fine,” I croaked. “Thanks. I-I’m just not hungry. I feel kind of sick.”

“You let me know if you need anything. I hope you’ll come down later.”

After a moment, I called, “Laila?” but she didn’t answer. She’d gone away. Good.

My stomach groaned, bloated and miserable, with all those Ho Hos, baloney slices, and cupcakes sloshing around. Cupcakes.

The blue icing!

I’d better hurry. I gathered the empty bread bag, the pudding cups, all the wrappers and shoved them under the bed.

I made sure the room looked fine, and only then did I move my desk. This was the scariest part. If I got caught now, I wouldn’t be able to finish.

I opened the door slowly. Voices drifted up from downstairs. Good. A sound buffer.

My pulse throbbed in my swollen fingertips as I tiptoed to the bathroom and locked the door.

I turned on the faucet just a little more than a trickle, so it made a noise if you were right outside the door, but not so you could hear it downstairs. From the cupboard under the sink I pulled out the box of tampons. I unwrapped one and put the pink wrapper on top of the pile of Kleenex in the wastebasket, shoving the unused tampon in my pocket. Mom and Dad had thought the toilet at home was clogged because I flushed tampons, so after that, I tried to always leave them as an excuse. I lifted the toilet lid, then the seat. It smelled, just faintly, of bleach.

I leaned over. I slipped my right two fingers into my mouth to touch the back of my throat.

The surge happened fast, but it happened long. I dreaded those seconds of suspension, those seconds where I couldn’t breathe. But those horrible, eyes-bugged-out-throat-burning seconds had to happen to get to the release.

The release was this great rush, like when you’re really scared of something, but then you find out it’s okay, and that zippy feeling tingles in your fingers and ears, behind your knees, on top of your skull, and you feel alive and happy like you might laugh for a long time.

I gasped in breath and put a hand on the wall so I didn’t fall down. No blue in the toilet. I didn’t think so. Not this early. I couldn’t flush yet. I only got so many flushes before people got suspicious. I’d never done this with Dad sober and with company in the house.

The tingles tickled my neck and scalp. Once I’d caught my breath, I bent over and tapped the back of my throat again. I kept my eyes open as I vomited. I needed to see the colors.

After round two, I leaned against the wall. Still no blue. I closed my eyes. The zippy feeling was good, but left me wobbly.

I counted to twenty, whispering the numbers, moving my tingling lips and thick tongue, then stood and vomited again. There it was—traces of bright blue floating in the slosh.

A fourth time—only hints of blue—and then I flushed.

When I stood, sparkling lights danced all over the bathroom walls. I blinked hard to bring the toilet back into focus. The water rose high, scaring me, then went down, fast and strong.

I kept blinking, but the room blurred wavy, the walls and floor melting together. I knelt, not sure I could keep standing, and leaned my forehead against the toilet seat.

I closed my eyes and savored the tingling, the shivers like giggles, reminding me of the runner’s high I used to get. But worrying kept me from really flying.

I’d eaten all my secret stash. Dad would never let me out of his sight in a grocery store again. I’d already been written up for arriving to my after-lunch class flushed and watery-eyed. If they thought I was on drugs it wouldn’t be too long before they’d start checking on me in the bathroom. I couldn’t find where Dad was hiding his cash anymore. He was shipping me off to Aunt Izzy who was not clueless and knew my entire bag of tricks. What would I do?

My nose ran. I sniffed, but it didn’t stop. When I opened my eyes, I watched dark beads of blood slide down the white porcelain bowl, leaving tainted trails behind.





I had no reasons to be happy.

Dad and I hardly spoke to each other. After six in the evening, he wouldn’t remember if we’d had a conversation anyway, so there didn’t seem much point. He didn’t act drunk; it’s not like he fell down or slurred his speech, but he’d just sit and stare, tears in his eyes.

I spent a lot of time going through my mom’s closet, taking the things that smelled the most like her lemon meringue lotion—a pink cashmere hoodie, a thin white nightgown, her pillowcase. I slept with these items. Sometimes, when I felt the SR tugging on me, I could talk myself out of it by inhaling her lemon scent.

Sometimes.

On nights I couldn’t sleep, I’d shut off our alarm system and stand among my cities in the moonlight. I hadn’t finished the last city for my mother. I hadn’t gotten thin so she could see me beautiful just once before she died.

Aunt Izzy had reminded us of Mom’s favorite saying when she gave the eulogy. Pretty is as pretty does.

I was a big, fat failure for my gorgeous mother.

After two weeks, I went back to school.

I walked into the building barely functional, feeling like I glowed neon. The expectation of being stared at made me long to crawl into a locker and hide. That new expectation added to the burden of being on guard for the B-Squad and gauging their reaction to me. Was I still “in”? Was I being released yet? I was so tense, my neck spasmed.

“What is that?” the familiar, poisonous voice hissed in my ear. “What is she wearing?”

I turned to Brooke, who looked past me down the hall at Kelly, a girl from our class Brooke didn’t deem fashionable enough; Kelly wore a cute vintage dress with a puffy skirt, along with a pair of black high-tops.

Those were Brooke’s first words to me after I returned from my mother’s death and funeral. What is that? As if she were looking at rotten food on the sidewalk.

Kelly turned toward Brooke’s voice, then flushed red. When Kelly walked away, the B-Squad collapsed into gales of laughter.

“Eww!” Brittany said, shaking her hands the way somebody might if they had bugs on them. “That was so gross! Did she like make that dress herself?”

“How could you go out looking like that?” Bebe asked.

“Does she own a mirror?” Brooke said.

The piano music flowed over my anxious body like a hot shower. I’d missed the piano music. I wanted to listen to something beautiful. Not this nasty noise.

I walked around the corner into the lounge, the B-Squad following me.

Jasper saw me and stopped playing. “Hey, Hannah,” he said. “How are you doing?”

His voice, his words, rolled over me just like his music. “I’m okay. Thanks. For asking.”

The B-Squad stared.

Jasper stood up. “I’m so sorry. About your mom.” That yellow slice in his eye shimmered.

“Thank you,” I whispered. My eyes burned, and I knew I was going to cry again. I turned away from the girls and ducked into a bathroom. Maybe they’d follow me, comfort me, and apologize for not asking how I was.

They didn’t.

I wasn’t surprised.

• • •

In health class, Mrs. DeTello hugged me. “Good to have you back. How are you?”

I’m a train wreck, I wanted to tell her. I’m out of control and it scares me. My dad is unraveling. Please help me.

But I just nodded and whispered, “I’m okay.”

DeTello told us about a major project we’d be starting after Spring Break. She was telling us early so we could start it “percolating in our brains.” We were all going to have to complete a “Make a Difference” Project, where we created some kind of service project to make a difference in our world. She stressed that there were many different kinds of “worlds”: “You could interpret the word to mean your immediate family,” she said, “or your neighborhood, or the school, this community, the city, some other city, the nation, another nation. Think outside the box and come up with a project that means something to you personally.”

This assignment wrapped me in that lead blanket again, just like in the counselor’s office. Make a difference? Who, me? Right. Like that’s gonna happen.

• • •

Later, I got called out of science to go down to the principal’s office. Suarez offered me condolences, assured me the teachers would be understanding if I struggled a bit, and let me know I didn’t have to work in the cafeteria anymore.

I panicked.

No, that’s an understatement. I actually had a meltdown right there in her office. I had to work in the cafeteria! What would I do without it? I begged her to let me still do it. Suarez must’ve thought I was crazy. I tried to convince her I couldn’t stand for anything else to change right now. I got her to agree, but I wouldn’t be surprised if I got summoned to the counselor again soon.

I needed the lunch duty. That’s what was keeping me alive.

Jasper and the kitchen staff gave me a card they’d all signed. Pam and the others all wrote really sweet, real things. I got teary-eyed again, but it made me feel good. In the kitchen, with those people, was the only place I felt human.

• • •

In geography, we watched a video about the diamond mines in Sierra Leone. There were all these kids with missing arms or ears or eyes. Rebels had hacked them off with machetes to “send a message.”

I closed my eyes. I thought of Aunt Izzy and her documentary. I knew she’d interviewed orphans in Sierra Leone. Aunt Izzy. Aunt Izzy. You’ve got to save me.

• • •

I lay in bed breathing my mother’s pink cardigan, seething at my dad “sleeping” on the couch, and actually thought, if I were missing an arm or an eye, no one would expect anything from me. If I’d shown up at school with some kind of handicap, the B-Squad would never have given me the time of day. I might still be the authentic Hannah.





38. Chocolate-dipped strawberries

39. Rock climbing

40. The way ducks sound like they’re chuckling

41. The scent of vanilla

42. Revenge movies

43. The word “peevish” (I just like it)

44. Manatees

45. The way patriotic marches played by whole orchestras make me feel like I’m going to cry

I sat on the plane, on my way to Ohio, flipping through the list I’d started way back in seventh grade. I hadn’t added anything to my purple book since the blue icing day. I tried to think of something to be happy about: getting away from Dad (but that didn’t count because he’d forced me to go), getting away from the B-Squad…but those weren’t things worthy of my list. They were only temporary reasons. I needed real ones.

Starting a new adventure?

Please. Brooke would laugh at that. I was going to Ohio. What kind of an adventure could I possibly have in Ohio, I could hear her mocking.

Brooke was going to the Bahamas for the two-week vacation. Brittany was going to her condo in St. Thomas, and Bebe to Mexico City. Me? I was being banished to Ohio. Woo-hoo.

There were two saving graces in the B-Squad’s eyes: Aunt Izzy won an Academy Award for her last documentary Need, which was about addiction. Even though none of those losers watches documentaries—they’d think I was an even bigger geek if they knew I loved them. Watching documentaries is #76 on the list—an Oscar is an Oscar and carries clout. That and the fact that Izzy was in an inpatient program for eating disorders when she was in high school. (I didn’t tell them that—they knew because it’s always in the coverage about my mom and dad.)

“Cool,” Brooke said, with wide, admiring eyes as we waited for algebra to start. “That’s hardcore. That’s serious.”

I nodded.

“Maybe,” Brooke said, “she could teach you a thing or two.”

I thought my face would explode.

“Ouch, Brooke,” Bebe said, but her eyes were bright and gleeful.

Brittany just stared down at her book.

My eyes burned. Don’t cry, don’t cry, don’t cry. I could not bleed for these sharks.

“Oh, for God’s sake, lighten up,” Brooke said. I wasn’t sure if she was talking to me or Bebe. “I just meant that your aunt really knows what she’s doing, if she had to go into a hospital. Wouldn’t we all love to be anorexic? I just meant that you’ll be with a master, so pay attention. Bring some tips back for the rest of us.”

When the plane finally took off, my chest convulsed as I fought not to cry. I missed my mom. I should’ve been nicer to my dad. I should’ve stayed home to help take care of him. I shouldn’t be such a monumental screw-up. If I was a normal, good daughter, he’d want me around.

Dad had been scaring me lately. I hated that he scared me—a father’s supposed to comfort you. He drank way too much. He forgot to do basic stuff at the house, like buy groceries and have the grass cut, and his publicist and assistant were around a lot more than they used to be, doing things like picking me up from school, doing our laundry, and bringing me takeout dinners. Sean and Laila had become a daily presence too, and I knew they were as scared as I was because they were both way too cheerful and perky all the time.

Kevin stopped me in the hall the other day. He’d grabbed my arm, hard, and said, really close to my face, “Your drunk dad better not wreck my movie.”

“You better not wreck his movie,” I shot back, but the taste of rust rushed through me. Was my dad falling apart enough to derail a film? What Dad did in our house was one thing. What he did in front of my classmates was another.

L.A. disappeared from view in its perpetual brown smog. We rose above it to pink cotton candy clouds. When the sky looked like a field of snow, I closed my eyes.

I wanted to hurl myself out of the exit door when I remembered the conversation I’d overheard at home. Aunt Izzy called the landline and Dad and I both picked up at the same second in different parts of the house. He spoke first, and even though I hadn’t deliberately planned to do it, I stayed on the line, feeling more horrible and creepy with everything they said.

Aunt Izzy got right to her point. “When are you going to get Hannah in treatment?”

Dad sighed. “Izzy, you never quit.”

“This is urgent, Caleb. You can’t ignore it. You both need help.”

“What’s next, Iz? You going to tell me I’m anorexic?”

“I’m talking about your daughter. Your daughter who is in a lot of pain.”

“Of course she’s in pain! Her mother just died! That doesn’t mean—Izzy, you think everyone has an eating disorder. It’s just your thing.”

“When have I ever suggested that someone else had an eating disorder?”

“You just—you just, I mean, come on, Izzy, Hannah’s overweight.”

I feared they’d hear my intake of breath from that punch to the gut.

“You’ve never said that to her, have you?” She sounded like she might kick him if she could.

“Well, not so bluntly…but, yeah. Annabeth…and I talked to her about it.” Dad tripped on my mom’s name.

“Oh, Caleb, she’s in trouble. The stealing at school, the shoplifting, all of it is related.”

Dad groaned. “Please. She just wants attention.”

“Of course she wants attention!” Aunt Izzy snapped. “Her mother just died!”

Silence. I bet my dad felt punched in the stomach too.

“Think about it,” Izzy said. “All she wants is attention, Caleb, and is she getting any from you or are you—”

She didn’t finish, but I knew what she was going to say and I knew my dad did too, because I’d heard them argue about it before. Or are you just drunk all the time?

That’s when I’d hung up.

A lot of good my little secret friend did me.

But still, the SR was as close to a real friend as I had. I actually pictured her as a person.

At least she never betrayed me like my breathing, living friends did. I probably shouldn’t even call them friends. I probably only did because otherwise I’d have to face the pathetic fact that no one who actually existed liked me.

There had been someone who actually existed who’d liked me.

Or maybe not liked me, but treated me like a human being. But I’d destroyed that the day before. It wasn’t enough that I’d said I didn’t like him in front of a whole art room of people. Or that I’d told him I liked Kevin. No, I had to make it worse.

Oh God. I shrunk down farther in my seat, wishing I could curl in on myself and disappear. Jasper’d seen me. He’d seen me on a binge. It hurt me to remember the look on his face.

I’d been standing in the corner by a trash can, in the tiny room between the kitchen and the cafeteria, the room where the doors could open for the delivery trucks. I stood there scarfing down trash—a bunch of grilled cheese sandwiches we hadn’t sold, about seven of them, one after the other—and a sound had made me turn.

The sound had been Jasper. Oh God, the look on his face. He was appalled. Horrified.

I froze, my mouth full, my cheeks stuffed out, grease and crumbs all over my face I’m sure.

“Hannah?” He asked it like he wasn’t even sure it was me.

I couldn’t chew. I couldn’t swallow. I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t breathe.

“What are—are-are you okay?” he whispered.

A whole year passed before he moved. He stepped toward me and I bolted. I dropped the grilled cheese sandwich in my hand and ran. I ran to the bathroom and threw up, then I ran outside. I just ran and ran and ran. I ran until I got lost and had to leave a panicked message on my dad’s voice mail.

Laila came to pick me up. When she hugged me, I tried not to cry.

“Where’s my dad?” I asked, missing the smell and hug of my own mother.

Laila looked away and said, “He’s working, hon, so he called me.”

I knew she lied. What, was he too busy to be bothered if I was lost and wandering L.A.?

Maybe Sean and Laila could adopt me. They didn’t have any kids of their own.

I wasn’t brave enough to ask her, though.

Maybe the plane would be hijacked by terrorists. Maybe we would crash. Maybe I’d never have to deal with Brooke or Brittany or Bebe or Kevin or any of them again.

But then…I’d never see Jasper again.

I’d never see Dad again. I thought about my dad at another funeral. That wounded defeat in his eyes at Mom’s. The desperate way he’d held my hand through the whole thing.

Okay, plane, I take it back. Don’t go down.

I was nervous for the rest of the flight, afraid I’d jinxed us with my thought.