Some words are like diamonds. You can drape them all over you. Sparkle like an August night.
I step toward him, and my foot lands in an icy puddle. The cold reminds me: At the end of the day, diamonds are just rocks. And we’re the suckers who empty our pockets for them.
Micah wanted me, too, at first. I could feel it, the way he couldn’t keep his hands off me. Drew can’t even touch me—look at him, look at him not even wanting to touch me, like I’m contagious or dirty. Because maybe I am. Dirty.
I pull my coat tighter around me. Back away. “I know what it’s like to be with someone who wants me. This … doesn’t feel like that.”
“Because it isn’t like that,” Drew says, louder. “I’m not just trying to get down your pants, okay?”
“Well, obviously you’re not trying to do that.” Maybe I’m ugly now. The sadness, the pills. Maybe that’s why he doesn’t want to kiss me.
“Hannah, I…”
He stops. Looks at his feet. Canvas tennis shoes soaked through with snow. The storm caught us by surprise. Doesn’t everything?
I am so cold. Every part of me is frozen. Snow whips between us, and I back away a little more.
Drew’s thinking. Deciding. If I’m worth it. But we both know the answer.
I’m not.
“This was a mistake, Drew.”
He doesn’t look at me. “What?”
“Being here.”
“With me.”
As soon as this is over, I’m taking a pill. Fuck it. Fuck everyone. Fuck me most of all.
“Yeah,” I say. “With you.”
When I walk away, part of me hopes—thinks—he’ll run after me. Or call my name. But he doesn’t.
He lets me go.
Like a shell you pick up from the beach, admire for a moment, but then throw back into the water. You don’t see where it lands.
The ocean doesn’t whisper, Hannah. Hannah.
It doesn’t say anything at all.
* * *
The pill is in my mouth before I reach the end of the street.
If I pulled a card right now, I’d get the Devil: the card of addicts everywhere. The devil made me do it. My favorite Devil is in the Shadowscapes tarot, because it shows exactly what it feels like to be in prison. The Devil in that one is this beautiful but terrifying winged monster standing on top of a cave, juggling a heart in its hands. In the cave is a naked girl in chains, curled in on herself. I don’t see how she’ll ever get out.
I jump on the next train and ride the T all morning long. I like the C Line, even though it’s more of a trolley than a subway, because it goes aboveground part of the time. So I just ride it up and down Boston, and I keep drawing a D, over and over, in the steam on the window—Drew, Drew, Drew. I go past Fenway, the “Cathedral” where the Sox play, and when the train slides underground I look up and imagine my angel as we zoom under Boston Garden, then we rumble beneath the dystopian buildings of Government Center. I have to get out at the end of the line, North Station, and change directions, then I ride the train back to Cleveland Circle, to the reservoir in front of Boston College, where I walked with Mom last Thanksgiving. We drank pumpkin spice lattes, and she told me it was okay I didn’t want to go to college.
Then she fucking died, and now I ride trains by myself and think thoughts like: Anna Karenina was brave.
It takes brass ovaries to throw yourself in front of a train.
I only saw the movie, because I’m not smart enough to read the book. Mae read the book.
And then I have to try hard not to cry in public. Because it’s wrong to want to die so badly when someone spent twenty-one hours in labor to bring you into the world.
It’s warm in these old, cranky cars and I’m clean and young and don’t look homeless, so no one bothers me. That’s what you call privilege, I guess. It’s a Sunday morning, and the other passengers are carrying shopping bags and children and are too busy planning next week’s Thanksgiving dinner to notice the girl at the end of the car wrapped in an olive-green wool coat, her tangled hair covered with a thick knitted hat a drug dealer—former drug dealer—bought her on a whim because it has a pouf on the top that he thought might make her smile.
Just when I’m about to start feeling sad about Drew, my diamonds start to shine inside me. Pretty, pretty Oxy (Percocet’s for babies) wraps itself around me and we are woven in each other, in love.
I smile.
I forget.
I float.
Pro Tip: Wear sunglasses. Put in earbuds. No one bothers you.
People come and go. I am here and not here. Not awake, not asleep.
In between.
In limbo.
No
one
sees
me.
I am invisible.
As usual.
I have to wait in the cold for the next train to take me back across Boston, knee-deep in snow, but I barely notice because I didn’t just take one pill, I took two.
Maybe I should have taken them all.
Just.
Hannah.
I ride and ride and ride.
And then, around Coolidge Corner, the nausea hits, like it sometimes does, and I have to throw myself out of the doors when I get to my stop and luckily no one else is there to see me hurl up last night’s whiskey into a snowbank.
Whatever.
I stumble across the tracks, and there’s a blare, like the end of the world in surround sound, and I turn and a train, a train is coming.
Whatever.
There are sparks and a screech and the train is slowing down and so I keep moving because I don’t want someone to have to clean up my mess on the tracks.
Whatever.
The snow is coming down hard now, and I can barely see, even though it’s only—I actually have no idea what time it is, but the sun is still out, that pale Boston hangover sun.
Some people have been shoveling since last night, putting out salt. I stick to those parts of the sidewalk, carry myself up the twisty turns into the little hilly neighborhood behind Washington Square, to Aunt Nora and Uncle Tony’s.
I’m nearly there, the cold so deep in me now I can barely move. I take a step forward and suddenly the world slides out from under me, staring up at the leafless tree in our front yard.
“Ouch,” I whisper.
I am so thirsty.
The front door opens. “Jesus Christ.”
My cousin is suddenly standing over me. It’s hard to see him with my sunglasses on, but I think he’s pissed. “Are you okay.”
He doesn’t reach out to help.
“Sure,” I say.
Words are hard when you haven’t used them in a long, long time.
He pulls off my sunglasses, stares at my pupils. My guess is that they are very small.
“How much did you take, Hannah?”
I shrug, and the movement shoves snow into my coat.
“Enough.”
I sound like our drunk neighbor in Venice, the one we nicknamed Cuervo.
“Well, Hannah, it’s clear you handle bad news with aplomb. It occurs to me Mae and I made a huge mistake not telling you your boyfriend was cheating on you while you were dealing with your parents’ death. I think, judging by today’s performance, you would have handled that with admirable maturity, with the calm of a ship’s captain in a storm. Thanks for showing me the error of my ways.” He turns around and heads up the walkway.
I lie in the snow a little longer.
They would never understand: What they did hurt more than what Micah did. So much more.
“Hannah.” He is kind of yelling from the front door. “Get the fuck inside.”
It’s hard to stand. All the snow. Like sand, but shittier. My bones frozen.
I wish Drew had kissed me.
I wish my parents hadn’t died.
I wish I were holding my baby.
I wish I were dead.
I need another pill.
When I step in the house, Nate shuts
the door and then fixes me with a look of pure disgust.
“There is vomit all over your coat. Did you know that?”
I look down. So there is.
“Huh.”
“Is that her?” Aunt Nora calls. She rushes into the room, stares at me. “Where have you been? It’s nearly two in the afternoon!”
“The train.”
“What?”
“I was riding the train,” I say.
She looks at Nate. “Is that a euphemism? Does riding the train mean—”
“No,” he says. “I don’t think so.”
The one she’s thinking of is riding the dragon. But it doesn’t feel like a dragon, Oxy. It feels like a phoenix, maybe. Because, after, you’re just ash.
I pull off the coat, my boots, hat. All in a pile. Water all over the rug. Nice rug.
God, it’s hot in here. Why the hell is it so hot in here? I pull off my sweater.
“I need some water—”
“Tony, get the car,” Aunt Nora’s saying over her shoulder, her voice sharp. She crosses to me, stares at my arms. They are covered in a red rash. “I’m taking you to the ER.”
“What?” I try to pull away, but she has an iron grip. “I’m fine—”
Aunt Nora’s shaking her head. “I can’t believe I didn’t see—”
Mae appears on the stairs, a shadow. “I should have told you sooner.”
At first, I think she’s talking to me, about Micah, about lying to me, but then I see she’s talking to my aunt. Because she told her. About the pills. I stare at my sister.
“You fucking bitch.”
Mae flinches as the words come out of my mouth.
I need a pill. Now. I need a pill, fuck, fuck, fuck.
“I trusted you,” I say. The tears come, fast and hard.
She shakes her head. “No, you didn’t. You don’t. You never told me about getting pills from Drew, or that you wanted to be with him and not Micah. You hid the last postcard Mom and Dad sent us—I found it in your room. You didn’t tell me about anything.”
“Well, now you know why I didn’t trust you, you fucking narc,” I snarl.
“Enough,” Nate says.
“Oh, of course. Defend Mae. She’s your favorite and Dad’s and everyone’s. Of course, of course, because I’m Just Hannah—”
“Just the ONLY SISTER I HAVE.” Mae is shouting. I have never heard this sound from her. It freaks me the fuck out.
“I know you’re on a Class B narcotic right now and it might be challenging to fully comprehend what I am about to tell you,” she says, “but do your best, Hannah: I DON’T WANT YOU TO DIE.”
“Well, that makes one of us,” I say.
She stares at me. “You are so unbelievably selfish.”
My sister stands above me—in every way—looking down, her arms crossed, and I am so sick of her up there, always up there, being perfect. The heir and the spare.
“I don’t want your help. I don’t need your help. That doesn’t sound selfish to me. I’m fine on my own. I’m sorry I’m not some scientific problem you can solve, Mae. You don’t get a goddamn gold star for this one.”
“Hannah, honey, please stop—” Aunt Nora starts toward me, but Nate shakes his head.
“She’s fucking high, Mom. You can’t reason with her.”
“You want to go to space, Mae? I’ve already been there,” I shout. “Zero gravity, Lucy in the sky with diamonds. Your fucking Starman is up there, too. Everything you study for, all the answers you’re looking for: I already know them. I don’t need advanced physics and Annapolis to feel weightless. To know the universe doesn’t give a shit about me or you or anyone on this fucking rock. The universe does not have our back.” I head toward the kitchen, toward water and the car in the garage Aunt Nora’s about to force me inside. “As far as I’m concerned, the sooner you’re in outer space, the better. Maybe you can do the Mars mission. Doesn’t it take, like, four years just to get there?”
Her eyes fill—Dad called them tropical eyes. Blue, like the bluest ocean—and I hate her, I hate her.
This entire family, drowning in salt water.
29
Mae
ISS Location: Low-Earth Orbit
Earth Date: 25 November
Earth Time (EST): 19:08
Not all the soup in the world can fix this.
While they’re at the hospital having Hannah drug tested and talking to doctors about how to make her better, Nate and I try to make minestrone, but once everything’s cut up we realize we’re out of stewed tomatoes. We give up on the soup.
“Ever heard of the comic Lenny Bruce?” Nate says.
“Comedy is not of great interest to me.”
“Okay, well, anyway, he was super famous. And a heroin addict. I was reading up on opiates after you told me about Hannah and I keep thinking about this thing Lenny said, how he was certain heroin was going to kill him—but shooting up was like kissing God.” Nate shakes his head. “How can we compete with that?”
What could I give my sister that could possibly be as good as kissing God?
“Hannah would love to kiss God. I think maybe that’s all she’s ever wanted.”
I picture her, that night we put on Mom’s lotion, pressing a hand to her heart and talking about the Something Else in her. God doesn’t exist, obviously, but no one can deny the power of that idea. It’s held most Homo sapiens in thrall since almost the beginning of human civilization.
“What happened to him?” I ask. “To Lenny Bruce.”
“He died on his bathroom floor in Hollywood when he was forty. Overdose.”
I hate the Papaver somniferum.
Like Hannah, the poppy that her pills come from grows tall and thrives in temperate climates. It comes in many colors, but we usually associate it with fields of red. Blood red.
They’re pretty tough, for flowers, but the Papaver somniferum only blooms for a few days. Short life span.
The pod is where the trouble is. After the petals float off, you cut into the pod with a knife, catch the milky sap. Let it harden. And there you have it: opium. Smoke it, swallow it, shoot it into your veins. Crushed dreams and ruined lives.
The molecules in the poppy plant can chemically replicate the oxytocin we get from love or friendship or sex, and even that warm, gooey feeling when you’re holding a sweet baby. It’s why it feels so good. It’s an excess dopamine release in the reward center of the brain.
Hannah doesn’t have that sweet baby she wants to hold, but what is a baby, exactly? It’s someone to care for. Someone who looks up to you. Who depends on you. Someone who you want to be your best self for. Ideally, anyway. Maybe that’s her connection to Drew—maybe he provides oxytocin to her the way Ben provides it for me. But she needs a Ben, not a Drew. Not a drug dealer who is making her sicker. But she can get it from me, a little. It’s human connection that gives you oxytocin. Which is a very good argument for me staying in Boston.
I don’t want my sister to end up like Lenny Bruce. I want her to find other ways to kiss God.
“Nate?”
“Yeah?”
“I think that’s more data than I can handle right now.”
He nods. “Right. Sorry. Let’s do a puzzle.”
We do most of a puzzle. One of those color gradation ones that are really hard.
It doesn’t help.
* * *
It’s dark when they get back.
“Sit on the couch, Hannah,” Uncle Tony says.
His tone—I’ve never heard him angry. But he is now.
She storms past me and throws herself onto the love seat, arms crossed. A hospital bracelet circles her wrist, and there are dark smudges under her eyes.
Aunt Nora follows Uncle Tony into the living room, looking equally exhausted. Nate starts to stand.
“Do you want me to head out?”
“No,” she says. “This is a family discussion.”
“I don’t see how it’s any of their business,” Nah
says, glaring at me, then at Nate.
Uncle Tony spreads his hands. “Kid, when you put everyone around you through hell, it’s their business.”
“I didn’t ask to move here, to live with you. If I’m too much of a burden—”
“That’s not what I’m saying,” Uncle Tony growls. “You’re not a burden, you’re my niece, and I want you to have a good, long life.”
For just a second, a look of remorse covers her face.
We are so lucky. What if we hadn’t had relatives like them to take us in? Parents who could leave us money? What if we’d been poor, with horrible, abusive kin? What if they’d released us to the state, like my bio mom did?
So strange, to know we are the lucky ones.
“Everyone in this room loves you,” Aunt Nora says. “And we’ve been worried sick about you.” She fidgets with the little buttons on her blouse, and I catch her fingers shaking. “I should have seen what was happening. I thought it was depression.”
“It’s my fault,” I say.
“No,” Aunt Nora says, firm. “It’s a disease. Annie’s cancer was a disease, and it wasn’t our fault or hers. Your sister’s addiction isn’t her fault—that’s genes and bad luck and evil pharmaceutical companies the government isn’t regulating. This is one equation you are not a part of, Mae.”
I shake my head. “I should have told. It didn’t have to get to this point. I tried to fix things on my own—”
“Any other betrayals you want to add to the list, Mae?” Nah says. Sneers. She actually sneers. I hate her drugs, and I hate how she is when she’s on them, but I hate even more how she is when she’s not on them but wants to be.
“Just to myself,” I say.
I am tired of being seen as her enemy. And failing. Every day I fail with her, and I don’t know how to deal with failure.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” she says.
I look at her, Nate, my aunt and uncle. “I cancelled my Annapolis interview. I lied to all of you and said I did it, but it never happened. I’m staying here.”
“What. The. Fuck.” Nate’s staring at me. “Are you kidding me right now? That’s your future. You’ve worked your whole life for this!”
I keep my eyes on my sister. “You think I see you as some math problem I can fix. But I don’t. You’re my sister. And I love you.” I am leaning so far forward on my chair that I’m almost on my knees. Begging. “And I’m scared. So I decided to stay so that we could beat this thing. Together.”
Little Universes Page 25