At least he was safe from her.
Dia let out a slow breath.
After her shift, she headed to day care. When Lex came running out, Dia picked her up and swung her through the air, making the silly growling sounds that made Lex laugh so much. “Ready to go home, Lala?” she said, and smoothed her hand across Lex’s curls. Maybe she didn’t completely understand why Hanna’s mom had given that ultimatum, but she partly did. She knew what it was like to want only the very best of the world for your kid. To want to cling to them, curl them tight against you and keep the entire world out, if that was what it took for them to stay safe.
She kissed a graze on Alexa’s knee, and thought about it as they walked home. See, you couldn’t keep them safe, not completely. The world always got its way somehow, in painful bruises or boyfriends dropping dead, girls who wouldn’t love you back, or obsession, even addiction.
Dia called out when they entered their house. “Mom? We’re home.”
No answer, and Dia moved toward the stairs, almost bumping into her dad as he came down them, mid-yawn. “Hey,” she said. “Where’s Mom?”
“Taking a bath,” Max said, scrubbing a hand over his face. His knot of locs had fallen to one side and he had pillow creases in his cheek, but then his eyes lit up like Christmas morning. “Wait—how did it go?”
“It was . . . good,” she said. Trimming the truth a little, for the sake of brevity. “We did what we wanted to. It’s up to the judges now. If they liked us or not. But even if they don’t, we showed them exactly who we are.” Dia cut herself off, wary of saying too much, jinxing it. “I’ll tell you at dinner. What are we having?”
“Tacos,” her dad said, yawning again. “I’m going to get started now.”
She took Lex out in the yard while her dad made dinner, chased her back and forth. Her dad called them in after a little while, and Dia strapped Lex into her high chair as her mom came in wearing sweatpants and an army T-shirt, a silk scarf wrapped around her hair. She pulled plates from the cabinet and Dia filled glasses with iced tea and the four of them sat down to eat.
Dia filled her parents in on as many details of the day as she thought necessary, leaving out Hanna’s superlate arrival but leaving in her issues with her mom. Nina’s forehead wrinkled as Dia talked and then she shook her head. “That girl,” she said, and Dia thought she was about to go off about how bad she was, all the things she’d heard a thousand times before from a thousand different people, but then Nina said, “She doesn’t have the best luck, does she? You tell her if she needs anything, we’re here. Okay?”
Dia raised her eyebrows. “Seriously?”
“Yes, seriously,” her mom said. “What?”
“Nothing,” Dia said. “But . . . it’s Hanna. Usually you tell me how I should be careful with her and all that. Now it’s different.”
Her mom lifted one shoulder. “You know, you’ve been spending a lot of time with her, and you don’t do that with people you don’t trust,” she said. “So if you trust her, I suppose I can, too. And if she’s going through a hard time, we can be good people and try to help her out. Besides, she’s just a kid. And now she’s a kid out on her own. If it was you, I’d want someone to help you, too.”
Dia smiled. “You’re good people, Mama.” Then she looked at her dad. “I’m glad you let me stay,” Dia said. “I know it wasn’t what you wanted for me, having a kid, and everything with Elliot made it all worse and . . . I don’t know. I don’t know what I would do without you.”
“Are you for real?” Max said. “In this family, we stick together. That’s the way it is. Maybe we tell you things you don’t like sometimes, maybe you do things we don’t like sometimes, but that’s life. We’re all we have, right here.”
Dia looked at Lex. We’re all we have, right here. And how lucky they were to have it all.
Hanna
Hanna stood on the sidewalk outside Ciara’s place, the same small, one-story house she’d rented ever since Hanna had known her. Ciara had been nineteen then—see? Only a year older than Hanna was now. This could be her life. Why not?
This whole thing felt both incredibly final, a Big Deal, and also the most overdramatic thing she’d ever done.
Everything and nothing all at once.
She felt seven years old, stuffing a backpack full of Pokémon cards and Oreos, seven pairs of socks and one shoe, and “running away” to the house of the woman who used to watch Hanna after school. Like back then, some small, childish part of her believed that she’d only last until dark before her mom turned up to collect her, arms outstretched as Hanna cried, shocked by herself. The rest of her, though, knew that she had crossed a line that maybe couldn’t be uncrossed.
Hanna was at the top of the steps when the door opened and Ciara stepped out onto the porch. “There you are!” she said. “Didn’t you get my text?”
“Hi,” Hanna said, letting Ciara kiss her cheek. “Um, no. I turned my phone off.”
“Like, off off?” Ciara shuddered and took one of Hanna’s bags. “I would die.”
“Yeah, well, I’m avoiding the fallout.” She could only imagine the scene that would happen when her parents got home and discovered her gone, the note. She didn’t want to hear any of it.
Hanna followed Ciara inside and when the door closed behind her, she felt this jolt, all her adrenaline halting in her veins and pooling in the bottom of her stomach.
I am here.
I am okay.
“Lucky for you,” Ciara said, “I am currently between roommates. So instead of staying on the couch, you can have an actual bed.”
Hanna swallowed past the knot in her throat. “Thanks,” she said. “For the bed, and letting me stay, and . . .” She blew her cheeks out. “It’s been a day.”
Ciara stood in between the middle of the living room and put her hands on her waist. “What do you want to do?” she asked. “You want to talk about it? Want to talk about playing? Want to talk about nothing at all?”
“Honestly?” Hanna said. “I want to eat. I’m starving.”
“Let’s order in,” Ciara said. “Chinese?”
“Perfect.”
“You can go put your stuff in the other room,” Ciara said, crossing into the little kitchen. “I’ll order.”
Hanna nodded and hauled her stuff down the hall, past Ciara’s bedroom and into the small room at the end. It was empty except for the bed, a nightstand, and an unplugged lamp.
She set her bags down, put her equipment in the corner, and closed the door. Then she plugged the lamp in and flicked it on, the warm bulb emitting a surprising amount of light. It wasn’t dark yet, but getting there; the sky outside the window was more navy than light, orange-tinted clouds dropped here and there. She’d stood in the window at work and watched the world go by all afternoon, telling herself over and over that she could do this.
Hanna sat on the edge of the bed and exhaled into the emptiness.
What have I done?
When she turned her phone on it took a minute for the messages to come through: three texts from Dia, one from Jules, one from Molly, two from Ciara. Four missed calls from her dad, seven from her mom. Two voice mails.
She took a second before listening, running her hands over the sheets. Fresh, she could tell, they had that laundry smell. Ciara was so good to her.
Hanna texted Molly back first, short and sweet: Hey Molls, I’m at Ciara’s. I hope you’re not getting the fallout, if you are, I’m sorry. Call you later, I’ll tell you all about playing today, it went good :) love you xoxo
Then: voice mails.
The first was long, and Hanna held her phone away from her ear so she could only half hear what her mom’s angry voice was saying: This is beyond a joke, Hanna and Do you think this is funny? And This is exactly what I’m talking about, you have to take some responsibility for your actions, you think they don’t affect anyone but you? and How am I supposed to trust you when you do this?
Yeah, that was basically eve
rything Hanna had expected.
The second voice mail was shorter. Her mom, again. But different this time. This time she sounded like she’d been crying, and Hanna’s heart ached but did not break as she listened to Theresa say, Please call me. We can talk about this. I love you, Hanna.
Hanna tossed her phone onto the bed. She loved her mom. Under it all, she did love her. But god, she hated her, too.
She changed into pajama shorts and a T-shirt, and joined Ciara back out in the living room. “Okay, sunshine?” Ciara said from her place on the couch. “You look awful.”
“Thanks, and screw you,” Hanna said, and Ciara laughed.
“Sorry,” she said. “Food will be twenty minutes.”
“I turned my phone on,” Hanna said. “My mom is an excellent emotional manipulator even through voice mail.”
Ciara made a face, one hand playing in her hair. “Mothers,” she said. “Complicated animals.”
“So very true.” Hanna sat down next to Ciara and put her feet in Ciara’s lap. “Thank you,” she said, closing her eyes as she leaned back. “I know I’m a pain in your ass.”
“No pain,” Ciara said. “Well, sometimes a little. But you know me, Han, I’m a glutton for emotional distress. Can’t give up on the people I love. That means you.”
Hanna opened her eyes and looked at Ciara. “I know,” she said. “You’re the only one who hasn’t.”
“I don’t know about that,” Ciara said. “You spent all day with a couple of girls who could have iced you all the way out. You have Molly on your side, always. We’re here, aren’t we?”
Hanna nodded, and a surge of shocked sadness caught her. She had to look to the ceiling so the sudden tears threatening wouldn’t spill over. “Right,” she said, pressing her nails hard into her palms. “You’re right.”
“I always am,” Ciara said. “You want a glass of water?”
She nodded. Ciara was right; Hanna was not alone. This wasn’t like before, and she wasn’t the same girl as before.
No; that wasn’t right. Because she was the same. She was still Hanna with the drinking problem, Hanna who hated herself a lot of days, Hanna who would love nothing more than to give in to her addiction sometimes. What was different was how she dealt with all that now. She had changed, and she had stayed the same, and maybe Ciara or Jules or Dia didn’t get that. But Hanna knew herself now, for better or for worse.
Mostly better.
Elliot
NOVEMBER
“I think I want strawberry,” Dia says, putting her hand on Elliot’s shoulder. “Or cookie dough. Or both.”
“Both,” Elliot says.
“Good plan.”
She steps up to the counter and orders for both of them, caramel swirl with hot fudge sauce for Elliot, and then they take their ice cream outside. She climbs on top of one of the picnic benches, sits on the tabletop. “Are you coming tomorrow?”
Elliot sits on the bench between her legs, looking up at her. “Yeah,” he says. Is that even a question by now? Every weekend Dia goes somewhere, to play a show, to watch some other band, and almost every weekend Elliot follows her there. “Ciara’s band is really good.”
“Ciara’s band is excellent,” Dia corrects. “God.”
Elliot laughs. “Sorry.”
“You know, she took a chance on me,” Dia says, digging her spoon into her ice cream. “She gave us our first show. Without her we’d still be playing in Hanna’s garage.”
“Your hero,” Elliot says, deciding to sidestep Hanna for today. That night at that party is still making him uncomfortable. He had to lie to his cousin about the stain on the back seat and beg her not to say anything to his parents.
(Dia keeps saying Hanna is fine, that she has it under control, that he doesn’t need to worry about it.)
(Elliot’s pretty sure she does not have it under control, but then again, what does he know? He’s known Hanna for four months; she’s known Hanna for years and years. Who knows better, really?)
“I really think out of everybody here, maybe Ciara could be the one to actually make something out of music,” Dia says, waving her spoon in the air. “Besides us, obviously.”
“Obviously.” Elliot takes a bite of his sundae. “What’s the plan, then?”
Dia’s eyes flash and she puts her shoulders back and Elliot hides his smile by pressing his face into her knee. God, she’s so hot and determined and he’s pretty sure he’s going to be left behind in her dust, but at least one day he can say he knew her. “Okay,” she says, “so this year, we keep playing around town and playing with Graceland. That way people get to see us. Then next year we level up, you know? Start getting our own shows outside town—”
Elliot nods and asks questions in the right places and listens to Dia’s entire plan for Fairground’s world domination. She thinks about the future; so does he, a lot, and Elliot likes that they have this in common.
“What about you?” Dia asks. “What’s your plan?”
“I don’t know,” Elliot says. “I think I want to write a book one day.”
That takes Dia by surprise. “Really?” She reaches out and runs a hand through his hair. “You write?”
“I try,” he says. The most he’s gotten so far is half-finished short stories, but it’s a start.
“So what, you gonna go to a fancy writer school?” Dia teases. “Learn all about those boring books everyone pretends are genius?”
“I’ll probably stay close for school,” he says. “If I get the scholarships I need. That’s the only reason I’m still playing baseball.”
“Wait,” Dia says, eyes wide. “I didn’t know you were, like, scholarship-money good. I’m really dating a jock, aren’t I?”
“Admit it, you like the way I play,” Elliot says, abandoning his ice cream to slide his hands up her thighs. “Home run after home run.”
Dia bursts out laughing. “That is the cheesiest shit I ever heard,” she says, and Elliot can’t help but laugh too.
“See?” he says. “I got it all. I’m an athlete, I’m a writer, I’m a comedian.”
“Yeah, yeah.” Dia leans down and puts her hands on either side of his face. “You’re a prize.”
Jules
Now that it was over, their big moment, the throwing themselves in front of three strangers and screaming choose us, Jules felt . . . restless. Like, she had all this extra energy coursing through her and nowhere for it to go. Their practices had come to an abrupt stop with the loss of their usual rehearsal space. “We’ll find somewhere,” Hanna kept saying. “We’ll pool our money and hire some place.”
“Sorry, what money?” Dia had said. “My kid is about to be two. I have to buy textbooks. My funds are extremely limited.”
“We’ll work it out,” Jules had said.
But so far they hadn’t. Instead they’d been wasting time around town: hanging around the music store, rifling through clothes they couldn’t afford at the mall, watching Lex run around the playground. Jules had been working, and pretending things were okay with Autumn, and that her omission of truth wasn’t still hanging between their every interaction.
It wasn’t working.
A week later the three of them were at the movies, mostly for the AC, but they left halfway through. “Why do they always have to kill the black girl?” Jules said as they crossed the lobby. “And why can’t the women ever talk about anything other than some guy?”
“And why can’t the girl ever be the badass hero?” Hanna said. “How come she has to spend half the movie training some guy to be as good as her and the other half either falling in love with him or being killed?”
“Hollywood,” Dia said. “They don’t get it.”
They went over to the nearby McDonald’s instead and sat outside eating fries and drinking milkshakes, Hanna smoking. Jules squinted against the setting sun and looked at Hanna, about to ask the same question she’d already asked a dozen times over the past two weeks. “Did you talk to your mom yet?”
“No.” Hanna dipped a fry into Dia’s chocolate shake. “She’s left me, like, a hundred voice mails. I know I should call her back. But I’m waiting.”
Dia’s brows sloped together. “For what?”
“Until I know what I want to say,” Hanna said, and then she looked into the distance. “It’s harder than you’d think. To not say what you really want to, even when you know what you want to say is the worst thing. Even when it’s going to cause trouble. You have to hold it in. I’m not very good at doing that.”
Jules and Dia exchanged a look. “You’re better at it now than you ever were before,” Jules said. “Trust me on that.”
“Sometimes it’s okay to say the thing that causes trouble,” Dia said. “Sometimes the trouble needs to happen.”
Hanna looked at Dia. “You really think that?”
Jules raised her eyebrows, curious to hear Dia’s answer, too. That was so not a Dia thing to say. Then again, this whole summer was not what any of them had planned. Things were different now, in so many ways.
“Yeah,” Dia said. “Sometimes I do.”
Hanna ate another fry. “I think I’ll keep waiting.”
“Waiting, waiting,” Dia said. “Is this all we do now?”
“A week and a half,” Jules said.
Next Friday was the show at Revelry, where they’d announce the winner of the contest, and Jules almost had to throw up every time she thought about it. “I know we keep saying it doesn’t matter,” Jules said, and she twisted her fingers into the ends of her braids, the way she always did when she was nervous. “I know we keep saying we’ll still play and it’s not the end of us as a band and everything.”
Dia looked at her. “But?”
Jules pulled her hands from her hair. But she really wanted to win. Who wouldn’t? She wanted to walk around with the invisible approval on her, to play a show with her idols. Okay, and also—she wanted to drive around in the car she would buy with her share of the money blaring Formation with the windows down and waving her middle finger in everybody’s faces. “You know,” she said eventually. “I want it.”
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