This Is What It Feels Like
Page 1
Dedication
To everyone sitting in their bedrooms in the 2am stillness,
listening to that song that makes your heart ache
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Dedication
Prologue
Hanna
Dia
Jules
Elliot
Hanna
Jules
Dia
Dia
Hanna
Jules
Hanna
Jules
Hanna
Dia
Elliot
Jules
Hanna
Dia
Hanna
Dia
Dia
Jules
Jules
Dia
Dia
Hanna
Hanna
Elliot
Jules
Hanna
Jules
Dia
Jules
Dia
Hanna
Jules
Dia
Hanna
Hanna
Hanna
Elliot
Jules
Elliot
Hanna
Dia
Hanna
Dia
Hanna
Elliot
Jules
Jules
Dia
Hanna
Jules
Hanna
Dia
Elliot
Hanna
Dia
Jules
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Books by Rebecca Barrow
Back Ad
Copyright
About the Publisher
Prologue
It’s hot the second the doors open. The kind of air that leaves you sticky straightaway, sweat trickling along your spine, and you almost can’t wait for the sweet relief of the cold shower awaiting you at the end of the night.
The stage is empty; music thumps out of hidden speakers instead, electro Biggie and Blondie covers and sometimes Aaliyah, because of course Aaliyah.
A light-copper-skinned girl in hacked shorts and a Bikini Kill tee cuts through the crowd, holding tight to the wrist of another girl with hair bleached whiter than her pale skin. The first girl, natural curly hair blown out to wild proportions, hoists herself onto the stage. A third girl appears from the wings, the lights setting a sheen of purplish-pink on her deep-brown skin, and holds a hand out to the blonde.
All three duck back into the wings together, grabbing guitars, picks, drumsticks, courage. Then the music cuts, and the purple-green-red lights flash down, and a person with lime-green lipstick and a buzz cut squeezes past them. “Ready?” they say.
The blonde nods. “Always.”
The buzz cut person walks out on the tiny stage, takes a position at the mic stand to cheers from the raucous crowd. “All right, everybody! Make some fucking noise for Fairground!”
The girl with the curls slouches up to the mic, a pick between her teeth. She tugs her shorts up on her hips and takes the pick from her mouth. She doesn’t bother introducing herself or the others, but hits a jarring chord and runs into their first song at breakneck speed, the blonde banging hell out of her drums and the bassist kicking into frenetic rhythm, sweat slicking away from her basketball jersey.
They only have fifteen minutes, but it’s fifteen minutes more than they used to have. They speed through their short set list, and the crowd cheers, raises their hands, and gives in to the weird mix of punk and grunge and R&B.
They sing themselves hoarse in that short time, and when it’s over—too fast, too soon—they leave the stage, clutching their guitars and drumsticks like precious jewels. The next band will start soon, replace them in the crowd’s memory, but it doesn’t matter. They did what they came to do.
Sometimes they stay to listen to the other bands and dance themselves silly, but tonight they’re forty minutes from home and they have a curfew. Out in the parking lot an older girl with lilies inked on her upper arm and locs to the middle of her back waits by a beat-up van. “Good set,” she says, and pulls out keys so they can load the drums into the back. “Dia, your turn to choose. McDonald’s or Dairy Queen?”
“DQ,” the curly-haired girl says. She craves a Blizzard.
The one in the jersey lifts it to wipe the sweat from her neck, sticky from in there. “They know us now, a little,” she said. “Hanna, get up.”
The blonde stands up from her crouch, unsteady. “You’re not my mom, Jules,” she says.
It’s late and dark, and Dia opens her red-painted mouth wide and yells a note out into the California night, a release of residual energy.
Their tattooed chauffeur laughs at the echo. “Come on, we gotta go.”
Jules rolls her eyes but doesn’t mean it. “Yes, Ciara.”
They pile into the front of the van, legs and arms and guitars. The blonde—Hanna—turns the radio to the nineties station and they wind the windows down and sing along to Mariah Carey as they peel off into the night.
Hanna
Hanna kicked her locker, the noise echoing down the empty hall. “Useless piece of shit,” she said under her breath. “Open.”
She gave it a final wrench and it opened, finally, the mess inside spilling out. Perfect.
She only needed her paper for last period, the last assignment she had to turn in before officially being done, d-o-n-e, with high school. Hanna found it, folded it in two, and put it in her backpack. Then she gathered everything else—old notebooks, candy bar wrappers, letters she’d never given to her parents—and carried it down the hall, where she dropped it all into a trash can. It made a satisfying thud as it landed, and Hanna smiled to herself.
Four hundred and seven.
She took her lunch outside, found an empty table, and ate her lukewarm slice of pizza while she watched her classmates whirl around without her. Everybody was so excited: all week long she’d kept seeing people hugging each other and bursting into fake noisy crying, everybody taking a thousand selfies everywhere she looked. Like now—Ali Siberski and Priscilla Nguyen posing by the vending machine, faces pressed together as they snapped away. Michael Brewer signing some skinny guy’s yearbook. Gloria Vazquez sitting on the lap of some kid from the basketball team—Hanna couldn’t remember his name. She couldn’t remember a lot of people’s names, actually, and yet still she felt a tug of sadness that this was the last time she’d see most of them.
She rested her chin in her hands and watched. They all probably knew her name, for the wrong reasons. But they wouldn’t miss her after graduation. She wouldn’t actually miss them, either.
Hanna tipped her face up to the sun. Five days till graduation. Four hundred and seven days since she’d given up drinking.
Given up drinking. That made it sound so much easier than it had been. It didn’t take into account the blackouts and fallouts, the repeated attempts and failures to quit. The night her little sister had found Hanna in her bedroom in the middle of the night, not breathing, and called the ambulance all on her own. The night when Hanna had to be treated for alcohol poisoning for the second time, when she woke up from the blur of the past couple of years and finally realized that her only options were complete self-destruction or sobriety. The pleading from her parents, and the promising from herself, and the ending up in a rehab facility four hours away.
Four hundred and seven days. How long it had been since she’d realized that no one would be surprised if she drank herself to oblivion.
At least she had one thing to be proud of.
Hanna sat the
re until the bell rang, listening to her classmates’ chatter, screams of laughter, plans for some “major prank” that Hanna was sure was most definitely not going to be good. When they all started to stream out, on their way to their last few classes, she joined them, let herself be carried back into the building and through the halls. And on the stairs up to her English class, she passed them.
Dia Valentine and Jules Everett. The two people who really weren’t going to miss her after graduation.
Whatever, Hanna thought. Who even cares anymore?
They were gone in an instant, disappeared in a flash of long braids and ripped jeans, and Hanna kept on to class, shaking her head as she slipped into her seat and slammed her bag down.
“Good afternoon, Miss Adler.” Mr. Matthews looked at her pointedly. “If you could try not to destroy my classroom before the end of the year, that would be great.”
Hanna rolled her eyes as she sat down, looking up to see the teacher still watching her with this expression that was equal parts Can you believe this girl is actually graduating? and How soon can I get her out of my class? It was the same expression she’d seen on pretty much every teacher’s face this week, with the exception of the few who’d actually helped her get back on track last year.
Well, sorry, she wanted to say to Mr. Matthews right now. Sorry I’m not giving you one last thing to hold against me! And really, really sorry for not being the complete train wreck you expected me to be! You must be so sad to miss out on telling everyone how right you were.
Hanna bit her tongue. That kind of stuff got filed away in the Don’t Say This Out Loud folder in her head, the one where she put everything that would get her in more trouble than she needed.
“Sure,” was what she said instead. “I’ll try.”
A few people snickered at that but Hanna ignored them, searching for a pen as Mr. Matthews walked up and down, handing out their final exam papers. “You have forty-five minutes,” he said. “Once you’re done, you can go, but make sure to hand your papers in on the way out. Okay?”
Hanna flipped to the first question: Compare and contrast the presentation of loneliness in Shakespeare’s Hamlet and To Kill a Mockingbird.
Easy.
Dia
“Dia Gabrielle Valentine!”
Dia rubbed her red-painted lips together before fixing a smile on her face and marching across the stage to meet Principal Cho.
Finally, she thought. Four years of one-a.m. assignments and sleep-deprived morning classes, Jesse explaining math to her and panic-inducing finals, all over now.
All ceremony long the clapping had been constant, punctured by an occasional cheer or ear-splitting whistle. Now it warmed Dia and sent a zip of staticky excitement down her spine, because everybody out there was clapping for her. She’d done it. She’d actually graduated.
How’s that for a Fuck You?
Dia shook Principal Cho’s hand, the last time she’d ever be face-to-face with her, probably, and the principal gave her this wide smile.
“Congratulations, Dia,” she said, and the unending applause played a perfect backing track to her words. “You’ve earned it.”
“Thank you,” Dia said, and as she wrapped her fingers around the diploma she smiled hard enough to hurt.
She looked out into the rows and rows of families: Jules’s parents and her brother, Danny, were right up front, and the sun hit right in her eyes as Dia searched farther back. She had to squint but there they were—her parents, cheering and standing up so Alexa could be hoisted high in the air.
She waved as she moved on, praying she didn’t trip in her heels, and then she was down the steps and in line with the rest of her class. And then they were tossing caps in the air and everyone was yelling and Dia turned her face to the open blue sky and finally, finally, finally.
Once the ceremony was done, the formality fell away. Families and graduates mingled together, a singular mass on the field normally reserved for the girls’ soccer team. Dia found Jules quickly, and they ducked out of the way of somebody’s family photo session. “Can you believe it?” Dia laughed. “We’re free! We’re actually free.”
“Oh, yeah,” Jules said. “So free. Until we have to go to work tomorrow.”
Dia waved her off. “Work, shmurk. At least work doesn’t involve ten-page papers on Congress or constant fill-in-the-bubble tests.”
“No,” Jules said. “Just getting yelled at by people who think they’re better than us and a hideous amount of polyester.”
Dia almost tripped as her heels sank into the grass, a last-second grab for Jules’s arm the only thing stopping her from face planting. “These shoes, I swear.”
“This everything,” Jules said, shaking her head so her box braids snaked over her shoulders. “I can’t wait to get out of this gown.”
“I can’t wait to get out of this dress,” Dia said, tugging at the stretchy green fabric that clung a little too much to her every in and out. “I feel like any second could be a nip slip.”
“The Valentine tits,” Jules said, cracking a smile and raising her voice. “They will not be denied!”
“Shut up!” Dia swatted at Jules, but she was laughing too much to get her aim right. She should have bought something new, but it seemed like a waste to spend money on a fancy dress she’d wear only once when there was so much else she needed.
“Okay, I have to go find my parents,” Jules said, sounding less than enthused. “You should hear my dad today. ‘It’s your graduation! It’s a big deal! You’re going to college!’ And I’m like, ‘Dad, I’m going to community college. The college that you teach at. I’ll still be tripping over your shoes every morning. Calm down.’”
“Don’t get down on us,” Dia said, narrowing her eyes at her friend. “This is a big deal. Hello, we are no longer high school students. We are college students. Sure, we’re still going to live at home and we’ll see your dad on campus, but we did it. We got ourselves here, so stop shitting on it.”
Jules rolled her eyes. “Fine,” she said. “It could be worse. But it could be better, too.”
Dia gave her a warning look. “Don’t,” she said. “Didn’t we agree not to play this game anymore?” The game where they fantasized about the life they could maybe have now, if things hadn’t fallen apart so spectacularly. The life where they were leaving for LA tomorrow, instead of looking forward to a summer of working their minimum-wage jobs and warming milk at three a.m.
It used to be fun to imagine that life, but now it was depressing, and so Dia had said they couldn’t do it anymore.
“Yeah, yeah,” Jules said. “Am I not allowed to dream?”
“Only for today,” Dia conceded. “And then we go back to reality.”
“Fine,” Jules said. “Are we still going to the party?”
Dia nodded. “Come over before so I can do your makeup.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Jules gave a mock salute. “Later.”
Dia watched her walk away, and then she heard her name being called and turned to the sound. Her mom and dad, Nina and Max, waved, Alexa propped up on her mom’s hip. “Over here!”
Dia steeled herself to cross the grass in her heels again, and began walking over. Alexa squirmed out of Nina’s grip, straining toward Dia as she approached. Her mom lowered the toddler to the ground and Alexa took a second to find her balance before breaking into a run. “Mama!”
“Hi, baby.” Dia crouched, holding her hands out toward her daughter. “C’mere!”
She ran into Dia’s arms, and Dia swept her up before peppering her apple cheeks with kisses. “Did you see me, Lex?”
The little girl nodded. “And I saw Juju,” she said before jamming her thumb into her mouth. Dia caught her smile before it really started—she knew that habit needed to be broken before it became a real problem, but god, if it didn’t look cute. “No, no,” she said gently, and eased Lex’s hand from her face. “We don’t do that.”
“Oh, leave her be,” her dad said. “It’s no
t going to kill her.”
“No,” Dia said. “But it is going to mess with her teeth, and in ten years I’ll be paying for braces.”
“She’s right, Max,” her mom said, smoothing down her cropped, relaxed, jet-black hair.
“Point taken,” he said with an easy smile. That was how it always went: her mom laid down the law and her dad gave in to whatever her mom said, too easy-going to ever want to cause an argument. Her mom the engineer, former military, sharp and strong, and her dad the musician, now EMT: an opposites-attract pair, always had been, always would be.
Her dad took out his phone. “Now, smile nice for me, both of you. Lala, say cheese.”
“Cheese!” Lex yelled, and Dia laughed.
“Okay, okay,” she said. Dia shifted the baby onto her hip and straightened the bow around her curls. She put on her brightest smile as her dad snapped picture after picture, hoping that her boobs weren’t spilling out and that there wasn’t lipstick on her teeth and that she didn’t look too much like she was about to cry.
Because she really had done it. Graduated! Two years ago, no one had believed she could. Or, not no one: Jules had been behind her all the way, and her parents, and Jesse. Principal Cho, too, pulling strings and signing off on extra credits and making sure Dia got her chance. Without them, I wouldn’t be here, she thought.
But everybody else? People she’d called her friends, teachers she’d liked, her mom’s coworkers? They’d rolled their eyes when Dia had said she was still going to graduate and go to college. When she insisted that yeah, she had a baby, but that didn’t mean those things were completely impossible.
You have no idea, people said. Having a baby changes everything. She imagined them thinking, You’re going to end up on welfare anyway, why put it off? And Stupid slut. Way to ruin your life.
“Dia!” her mom called. “Look happy, huh? It’s your big day!”
Alexa laid her head on Dia’s chest, and Dia raised her chin, her skin almost vibrating with all the love she had for this little girl. Yeah, having Lex had made things more difficult, and yeah, she could have made a different choice, but in the haze of everything back then, this was what she’d decided on. And when she looked into her daughter’s big, brown eyes, she knew that she wouldn’t change the way things were. Not for anything.