This Is What It Feels Like

by Rebecca Barrow

  “Come on, Hanna,” her dad said, raking a hand through his graying hair. “Take this seriously.”

  Hanna looked at her hands for a minute, spread flat on the warm wood of the table. Then she looked up and blinked slowly. “Take this seriously?” she said. “Trust me, I am. I’m trying to make up for years of not being serious.” Her mom started to say something, but Hanna shook her head. “Can I talk for a second, please?”

  Her mom’s eyebrows rose, but she nodded anyway. “Sure,” she said, acerbic. “Talk.”

  Hanna leaned her elbows on the table and spoke with her hands, too. “I know,” she started, her voice as clear as she could make it. “I know I’ve done things in the past that made it hard for you to trust me. I’ve done things that have made it hard for me to trust myself, but I’m trying really hard to do the right thing. I know you don’t like the idea of me playing music again, and I’m sorry that I lied to you about it. I think I knew you wouldn’t want me to do it, and I didn’t want to give you the chance to tell me that.

  “And Mom, I know you were only trying to do what you thought was best for me. But what you think is best for me and what I think are so different. But you gave me the option to stay here and go back to the way things were before, or leave and do what I want to do. So I left, because I can’t, and I don’t want to, go back to the way I was. I don’t mean the way I was when I was drinking, I mean the way I was, like, two months ago. When I was lonely all the time, and constantly trying to do things to make you happy, and not making myself happy at all.” Hanna looked around the kitchen, the walls familiar sunshine yellow, the cabinets worn with years of their touch. “I haven’t been happy in so long. Making music again—I remembered what it’s like to have something I actually care about. And I knew you wouldn’t understand.” She shook her head, looked back at her parents, watching her warily. “Me and Dia and Jules, yeah, we’ve had our problems. The problems that I had, that I have, are not because of them. They’re not because of the music. My problems are because of me, and who I am, and how I chose to act. I’m not choosing that way anymore. That’s the real thing. I could be anywhere doing anything and still be falling apart if I didn’t choose every day to be sober and to be different than the girl I was.” She took a deep breath and met her parents’ gazes for the first time since she’d started speaking. “I know I can’t make you trust me, or trust that I’m doing the best thing for me, but I’m asking you to. I’m asking you to at least try.”

  Her dad watched her as she stopped talking, this look in his eyes like he was really processing what Hanna had said. But her mom looked upset. “I don’t know, Hanna,” she said. “I think you’re right—we don’t agree on what’s best for you. But I think that we can talk about it all and come to some kind of agreement about the music and what you’re going to do. Yes, Benjamin?” But then she carried on without giving Hanna’s dad a chance to answer. “But in the meantime, I think you should come home.”

  Hanna supposed she should have been relieved to hear that, but she wasn’t.

  She liked being out of the house, being responsible for herself with no one to approve or disapprove of her actions. Being on an equal level with Ciara instead of constantly watched over by her parents. The idea of coming back filled her with a sense of overwhelming claustrophobia. “Thank you,” she said. “Really, I mean it. But . . . I don’t think I should come home.”

  “What?” her mom said, lips disappearing into a thin line again. “Hanna.”

  “You said it, that day,” Hanna said. “I’m eighteen, I’m an adult. Old enough to learn what it is to take care of myself. I don’t think it’s good for me to be here anymore. Not that I don’t love you and miss you,” she said quickly. “Because I do, of course. It’s only been two weeks but I do miss you. But also—it’s only been two weeks, and I feel so much better. I think that being here with you watching me all the time makes me do things I shouldn’t. Does that make sense?” She leaned her chin on her hands. “The truth is, I like it with Ciara. I like cooking for myself and coming home when I want and saying and doing things without wondering how you’re going to react first.”

  “You might like it now, but it’s a novelty,” her dad said. “You won’t like it so much when most of your paycheck’s going to rent and you have to deal with mold and no one’s there to do your laundry for you.”

  “Yeah, but who likes that stuff?” Hanna said. “You just do it, right? Because you don’t have another choice.”

  “You have another choice,” her mom said, and she sounded a little shocked. “Hanna, sweetie, do you really feel like we’re always watching you?”

  “You are,” Hanna said. “But I don’t blame you. This is what I’m saying. I did things to make you have to do that. But now it feels like we’re stuck in the routine of you not trusting me and me desperately wanting to make you trust me, and I really want to stop.”

  Her dad cleared his throat. “Living by yourself,” he said. “That’s a big jump. Responsibility.”

  “I know,” Hanna said. “Once I start my job, I’m going to have some money. Ciara’s looking for a roommate, and she says I can live there officially if I can work it out. And I have to do it sometime—leave here. Now I feel like coming home would be a step backward. I want to keep going forward.” She shifted, her new shorter hair creating this breeze around her neck. “I want to know who I am on my own.”

  They talked a while longer, and eventually her parents were . . . not on her side, but accepting. Accepting that she wasn’t coming home and that she wasn’t giving up music and that, maybe, she was not exactly who they thought she was.

  But Hanna was more than ready to start becoming who she really wanted to be. It was only the beginning of a much longer conversation, Hanna knew, but at least it was a start.

  “This Friday,” her mom said, when Hanna was getting ready to leave. “You can come for dinner again, if you’d like. Maybe we can talk some more.”

  Hanna gave a small smile. “Okay,” she said. “But this week, I can’t. Next week, though.”

  “What are you doing this week?” her dad asked, as they walked out to the hall.

  Hanna cleared her throat. “It’s, uh . . . the contest. This thing at Revelry, where they’re going to announce the winner.”

  Theresa gave this soft smile. “Sounds fun,” she said, and those two words alone were enough to let Hanna know she was trying. Would this last, her trying?

  Hanna knew better than to hope, and yet, she still did.

  “Maybe you can come by on Saturday instead,” her mom said. “It’s okay if you don’t. Door’s open.”

  “I will,” Hanna said. “I have to get the rest of my stuff, too.”

  “Don’t worry about that,” her dad said. “We’re not kicking you out. You can leave things here until you have space for them.”

  Hanna nodded. “Thanks,” she said. They were at the door now, and this time she did hug them both, hard and fast, and felt tightness in her chest. Inside this house it was all she could do sometimes to breathe. Outside, the air came so much easier.

  “I’m going to say bye to Molly,” she said, and she ran upstairs. Molly’s room was empty, and so Hanna turned and pushed open her own bedroom door. “Molls?”

  Her sister sat on the bed, cross-legged with her back against the wall. “You’re not coming home,” she said, flat, accusatory. She looked over at Hanna. “That sucks.”

  “I know,” Hanna said. “You get why I’m doing it, though, right? It’ll be better this way.”

  “No, it won’t,” Molly said. “You’re supposed to be here. What about when I start school? Who’s going to help me? What if I need you?”

  Hanna went to her, sat down on the bed. “I’m right here, Molls. You need me, anytime, anyplace, you know I’ll be there. And I’m only a bus ride away. You can come hang with me and Ciara whenever you want.”

  Molly’s lip shook. “Promise?”

  “I swear.” Hanna shifted; she already fe
lt a little out of place in this room. “It’s weird, Molls. I feel like a grown-up and a little kid all at the same time. Like, I don’t know what the fuck I’m really doing, but I know I have to do it.”

  Molly turned to her. “Can I come on Friday?” she asked. “I really want to see you all play.”

  “I’ll see what I can do,” Hanna said.

  She scanned her room, the memory of so many years and so many versions of herself lingering in here. The Hanna who read horror stories under the covers by flashlight; the Hanna who hid bottles under her bed and kept the curtains closed against the light; the Hanna who listened to melancholy voices singing in the quiet dark hours of the night, and scribbled her own words to get them out of her head.

  She got up and crouched in front of her nightstand, opening the bottom drawer. The last of her notebooks were still in there, and she lifted them all out. “You want some advice, Molls?”

  “From you?” Molly said, and pretended to cower when Hanna whipped around to glare at her. “Kidding. What?”

  Hanna looked at her not-so-little sister, delicate and not, strong and not. “Life is too many strange and beautiful things to use it being unkind to yourself.” She paused. “People will try to make you into somebody you’re not. Even the people who are supposed to love you for who you are. Sometimes it feels like it would be easier to become that person. But that won’t make you happy. And if you can, being happy is the most important thing. So do what you have to so that the world does not get you. Do you hear me?”

  Molly looked like she wasn’t quite sure what to make of Hanna’s words, but then she nodded once. “I hear you.”

  Dia

  The moon was bright in glimpses between clouds, hanging low over Dia in the backyard. It was Thursday night—or Friday morning, now—and she’d spent hours lying in a puddle of her own sweat before accepting that she wasn’t going to sleep. So she’d grabbed the baby monitor and her acoustic, crept downstairs to sit out on the back steps.

  She’d thought she’d get some relief, but the air was thick like a storm was about to roll in—that’s what they’d been saying on the news all week. But they said that all the time, talked up these big thunderstorms, told everybody to be ready for the rain, and then they never came. No storms, Dia thought. They only wish for it.

  When the back door creaked open, Dia jumped, putting a hand to her chest as she twisted around. “You scared me,” she said.

  “I could say the same,” her dad said. “What are you doing out here?”

  “Can’t sleep,” Dia said.

  “Nervous?” Her dad sat down beside her, the reflective stripes on his EMT uniform shining.

  Dia ran her thumb across the strings of her guitar. “A little,” she said, honestly. “Mostly not. I just want to do it, you know?”

  “I know,” her dad said. “I’m sorry I can’t be there.” Neither of her parents could; they’d both been excited when Dia had told them about Friday, and then her dad had realized he was scheduled to work and her mom would have to watch Lex so Dia could go.

  Never mind, Dia had said. It makes me nervous when you watch, anyway.

  “It’s all right,” Dia said now, reassuring again. “You got all those people who need their lives saved. I guess it’s an okay excuse.”

  Max smiled, and he looked exactly like Lex when he did that: same crinkled corners of their eyes, same apple cheeks. “I’m real proud of you,” he said. “You know that, right? No matter what happens tomorrow, you did this.”

  “I know,” Dia said, quietly, into the night. “Hey, you want to hear what we’re playing?”

  Max held his hands open. “Hit me.”

  So Dia played a concert for her audience of one, under the clouds, and the moon winked in and out of sight, and she felt the anchor of the earth release her the slightest amount.

  Elliot

  NOVEMBER

  “We’re Graceland!” Ciara says from the stage. “Thanks for listening!”

  Elliot sticks his fingers in his mouth and whistles; next to him Jules has Dia on her back, and they’re both cheering.

  They’ve come out of town tonight, to Longport, where almost all the houses are the fancy kind. This one has a huge pool with a slide, a trampoline, a giant oak with a tire swing hanging from a thick branch. The yard is full of people, and Elliot recognizes fewer than usual.

  Hanna throws an arm around Elliot’s neck. “Elliot!” she yells directly in his ear. “How much you wanna bet I can do a backflip on that thing?”

  She’s pointing at the giant trampoline, and Elliot frowns.

  “Don’t worry,” Hanna says. “All that’s in my cup is soda, I swear. Here! Try it.”

  She thrusts her red cup at him and Elliot looks at Dia, who hops down off Jules’s back. “I’m good,” he says, but Dia takes the drink. She swallows and her eyebrows rise.

  “See?” Hanna says with a gleaming smile. “No lie.”

  “Okay,” Elliot says. “Ten bucks.”

  Hanna leads the way and climbs up on the trampoline, tugging her jeans up. “Watch this,” she says, and Elliot does watch as she executes not one but two perfect backward somersaults.

  “She did a lot of gymnastics when we were kids,” Jules says, and Elliot shakes his head as Hanna climbs back down.

  “Unfair advantage,” he says, but he hands over the ten bucks.

  “I never said anything about being fair,” Hanna says as she tucks the money inside her shirt. “Thanks!”

  Now Dia’s the one with her arm around his neck. “See?” she says to him as the others begin bickering about something. “She’s not always so bad.”

  Like he’s the one saying she is. But Elliot decides not to say that. Hanna is in a good way tonight and Dia’s laughed more than he’s ever seen her before and things are really good. Instead he says, “I’m going to get a drink,” and kisses Dia’s cheek. “You want one?”

  “Beer,” she says, and then frowns, and Elliot sees her eyes go to Hanna. “And a water.”

  “Coming right up.”

  When he gets back outside, Dia and Jules have joined Hanna back up on the trampoline. He can see them, rising and falling out of the deep blue sky, hair flying everywhere, laughter pealing over the music.

  He makes his way through the yard, and when he’s almost to them someone comes running past him—Ciara. She hauls herself up on the trampoline, too, and the four of them soar through the air.

  “Having fun?” he calls up to them.

  “Take a picture!” Dia calls back.

  He does as she says, capturing them in blurry speed on his phone, and when he looks at the picture he can almost see the magic they possess, right there on the screen. For all the heartache and mess and drama—shit, he gets it.

  These girls are something special.

  Dia collapses, breathless, and tumbles to the ground. “C’mere.”

  It’s almost midnight and Elliot already knows he has no chance of getting home before curfew, but fuck it. She’s lying in the grass now and Elliot lies next to her, smiles as she hooks her leg around his. There’s probably an empty bedroom they could make good use of—

  “I know exactly what you’re thinking,” Dia says. “Dirty.”

  “I know what you’re thinking,” Elliot says.

  “What?”

  “Something about the band,” he says. “You always are.” He touches a finger to her temple. “If I opened this up, it’d all come spilling out.” He lifts himself over Dia and stares down into her unblinking eyes. “You’re really beautiful,” he says, and maybe he’s kind of drunk but it’s true. “Really really.”

  Dia laughs, and the sound vibrates through his hand. “Thank you.”

  “I think you’re made of magic,” he says. Okay, he’s definitely drunk, but it’s still true. “You and Jules and Hanna. When I see you with them, doing this thing you love, you’re so alive and it’s like I’m seeing the truest you and”—he should probably not say this but it’s true—“I
think I could be in love with a person like that.”

  “Elliot,” Dia says, her smile so wide, and then she kisses him until they’re both breathless, and when he speaks again he puts his lips to her throat.

  “Made of magic,” he says, the words pressed into her skin. “All of you.”

  Hanna

  They stood together, the three of them, across from Revelry with the traffic rushing between. The marquee was all lit up tonight, in bright white: SUN CITY AND GLORY ALABAMA PRESENT THE ORIGINALS CONTEST.

  “So it’s not our name,” Hanna said. “But one day it will be.”

  They waited for a break in the traffic and then ran across the road, headed into the club. First they had to sign in, and Hanna tried to see the other names on the list, but the girl with the clipboard—a different girl this time—was too fast, whisking them through to backstage before Hanna could look. “Did you see?” she asked the others as they made their way through the maze of hallways. “Who else is on the list?”

  “No,” Dia said. “But it went up on the website last night.”

  “Who is it?” Jules said. “Do we know them?”

  “I don’t know them,” Dia said. “Knoxville Slums is one. And then Ursula Arrival. I don’t know if that’s a group or a person.”

  Hanna lifted one shoulder. “Never heard of them,” she said.

  A guy with the sharpest eyeliner Hanna had ever seen met them backstage, checked them off his list, and pointed them in the direction of the dressing rooms. “You’re in room three,” he said. “Sound check in five minutes.”

  They dropped their stuff in the dressing room, the flaking white walls and barely illuminated mirror unchanged since their last time here. Sound check blurred by, but afterward they waited in the wings to watch whichever act was checking next. They shouldn’t have, Hanna realized, as soon as this group of punk people came out and launched into noise. “Oh,” Jules whispered. “They’re good.”