This Is What It Feels Like Read online

  This was the thing. She missed the music, of course she did. She missed having her hands all beat up, the performing, singing behind Dia’s raspy voice.

  But mostly, she missed them. Dia. Jules.

  Jesus, I want a drink.

  And she hated that she missed them, when they’d treated her like so much shit. Left her all alone. Or, not alone. She’d found new people to hang out with, people who didn’t care how much she drank because they drank, too, and found it funny rather than alarming when she did things that ended in broken glass or scraped shins. They were fun, and not all bad like everyone else thought, and when she had to leave them behind, when she stopped drinking and couldn’t be around them anymore, she’d felt bad.

  No. No.

  I don’t need it.

  I am okay.

  But even though she’d liked those people, she’d never told any of them about how tired she was. How she worried about Molly being unhappy, being too old for her years because of everything Hanna had done, or what she thought about in the middle of the night when she lay staring at the ceiling. It hadn’t been the same. It hadn’t been them, us.

  She felt for the fresh pack of cigarettes in her pocket, the feel of them enough to calm her for now.

  “Wait until September,” Hanna said, under her breath, too quiet to hear over the music in her ears. “Then you won’t see them, and you’ll meet new people, and things will be better.”

  Hanna looked out of her window, at the tree branches out of reach—green leaves already curling brown at the edges, parched by the relentless, endless sun. Being lonely was so exhausting. It was like being tuned into the same station, day in, day out, with no ad breaks or off switch. And listening to her same constant stream of I’m so pathetic, I’m so lonely, why doesn’t anyone like me, I should disappear, what’s the point was beyond depressing. Sickening. Hanna was sick of it all.

  She sat up. I have to do something. I will do anything.

  What?

  Dia

  Dia worked the afternoon shift at the bakery on Saturday, swirling strawberry frosting onto a seemingly never-ending supply of cupcakes and fixing on her Customer Smile when she had to cover the register. She much preferred being in the back, getting into the rhythm of mixing, scooping, kneading. It was meditative, almost; it gave her time to think.

  As she added drops of coloring to the frosting, she thought about Hanna. Not the Hanna she’d known before, but the Hanna she didn’t know now.

  “What if she really has changed?” Jules had said yesterday, eating melting ice cream under the bright sun. “What if she’s really sober?”

  Dia wondered—how true could it really be? Hanna used to get so hammered she couldn’t play properly. Every party, every show was almost guaranteed to end in disaster, Dia and Jules left to pick up the pieces.

  Dia used an offset spatula to whip a pattern into the pink frosting clouds. She’d tried to slip it by Jules without her noticing, but Dia had meant it when she’d said she missed Hanna sometimes. The Hanna who was quiet, serious, and then would break out into a ridiculous impression or dirty joke when you least expected it. But Dia hadn’t seen that Hanna in years, and who knew what she was like now?

  She brushed blue edible glitter onto the peaks of the frosting and packed the cupcakes into boxes. It didn’t matter; Hanna was going to say no. After everything? After the things Dia had said?

  I’m sorry, but I don’t—I can’t have you around her. Not when you’re drinking like this. Do you see what I’m saying? I have to make sure she’s safe, Han. That’s all.

  It had been an easy way out, a way for Dia to distance herself from Hanna without feeling so guilty. It wasn’t like she was cutting Hanna out, of course not—they could still see each other at school, and they’d hang out when Dia could get her parents to babysit, of course they would!

  Pretending like she hadn’t already been pushing Hanna away even before Lex was born, like she wasn’t exhausted by Hanna already.

  Dia put the boxes in the cold storage and stood there for a minute longer, drinking in the dry air.

  Because truthfully: it was about more than the baby.

  Dia had been scared.

  It was New Year’s Eve, not even two months after Elliot had died, when Dia had had to call the ambulance for Hanna, praying that her dad wouldn’t be the one who arrived. They’d loaded her in so fast and sped away, sirens screaming, and by the time Dia and Jules had gotten to the hospital Hanna had had a tube down her throat and Dia was on the verge of a panic attack, thinking Hanna was about to die, too.

  And then Hanna was okay, but Dia wasn’t, because losing Hanna, too? It had been hard enough with Elliot, and she had liked him a lot, but Hanna was her girl, her love. So in a way it was a relief, to be able to distance herself. To know that the next time Hanna landed in the hospital, Dia wouldn’t have to be the one watching her, wondering if the damage she’d done would be irreversible this time.

  When her shift was over, Dia stood at her locker and texted Jules: Did you talk to her yet?

  She wasn’t holding out hope. Even if Hanna said yes, they’d be in trouble—the submission deadline was in four days and if they missed that, they’d miss the whole thing. They didn’t have time to come up with new material, not to record and submit in four days. Maybe they could re-record one of their old songs—but would it be better or worse than the tracks Dia already had on her computer? And how would they even do it? As of right now, they had no drummer, no recording space; they used to record in Hanna’s garage. And Hanna was going to say no, Dia reminded herself.

  She leaned against her locker and opened Facebook on her phone. She’d meant what she’d said to Jules at the playground: they’d find somebody new.

  Hanna could not be trusted.

  So: Plan B. She went to one of the Golden Grove groups she’d made herself stop looking at, a page crowded with musicians looking for bands, making equipment trades, plugging shows. Typing fast, she wrote up a post:

  Interested in Sun City? Drummer wanted immediately. No first-timers. Email [email protected] for details.

  Dia hit Post and exhaled. When she got home, she’d go through the recordings she had on her computer—one of them had to be good enough to submit, to get them through the door. And then, when people emailed her about the drummer position (because they would; multiple good, ready-and-willing people would email her, right?), she could get to work on new material and a new band.

  Easy.

  She started to tap out another text to Jules, then paused. Jules didn’t need to know about this. She could go on chasing Hanna, and Dia would deal with the reality of what was happening. It was easier that way.

  So Dia slipped her phone into her back pocket, waved goodbye to Stacey out front, and headed out, her brain running with the possibilities of everything.

  Elliot

  AUGUST

  Elliot watches from the edge of the yard, watches Dia dancing and playing her heart out. The party crowd is decent tonight; it’s the last Monday before school starts. Everybody wants that last night, the last chance for everything they promised themselves at the beginning of summer.

  When they finish playing, Dia searches him out, a light in her eyes as she stalks toward him, and the kiss she greets him with is both sweet and salty with her sweat. “Hi,” she says.

  “Hi,” he says back, slipping a hand around her waist. Her hair is piled on top of her head and the exposed skin of her neck is mesmerizing. “I like that new song. What’s it called, ‘Hills’?”

  “Yeah,” Dia says, and she twists out of his grip, looking back. “Where did Hanna go?”

  Elliot casts his gaze around. “I don’t see her.”

  Dia tenses and Elliot bites his tongue. In four weeks he’s learned that Dia does not like to be lectured, that Hanna makes this look appear on her face, that she likes people to think she’s intimidating. Which she is, to Elliot at least. A girl this smart and hot and talented? There’s no way he could
not be intimidated.

  “I can go look for her,” he offers. “Hanna.”

  Dia shakes her head. “No, I got it.”

  He watches her walk away.

  It’s almost eleven when he sees Dia again. The party has emptied out some; there was talk of a better, bigger thing a few blocks over, but she’s still here. She’s sitting with her legs in the pool, staring into the water, and Elliot hands his beer to Kwame. “Hold this,” he says, and he goes over.

  “Hey,” he says. “Did you find Hanna?”

  Dia doesn’t look up. “Yeah.”

  “Is she okay?”

  “Yeah.” She sighs. “Or no. Who knows?”

  Elliot kicks off his sneakers, rolls his jeans up, and sits next to her, letting his feet hang in the pool. This is a fancy house; all the houses on this side of town are. His dad’s realty business, the one his grandparents started after they came from Portugal, sells people these houses, the ones with the nice yards and shiny kitchens. His dad probably wants him to take over the business one day, but Elliot wants to be a writer. For now he works at the mall bookstore, which is always on the verge of closing down. “Is she wasted?”

  “Of course.” Dia’s answer is terse. “Don’t worry, though, Ciara’s coming to pick us up. Take Hanna home, tuck her up in bed, and tomorrow we’ll play along with whatever fairy-tale version of tonight she comes up with.”

  “So she drinks too much at parties,” Elliot says, nudging Dia with his shoulder. “Who doesn’t?”

  “You don’t get it,” Dia says sharply. “It’s not about parties. It’s all the time.”

  Elliot frowns. “What, like—all the time?”

  “Every night we play a show,” Dia says. “And every other night too, basically. Whenever she can get her hands on it. Sometimes even when we’re supposed to be practicing . . .” She shakes her head. “Sometimes you can’t even tell, until she says the wrong thing. But I can’t talk to her about it, because what do I know, right? Hanna says I have no idea what I’m talking about. Like I’m not the one holding her up at the end of the night.”

  “I’m sorry—”

  “Don’t apologize for her,” Dia says, and she looks at him, her eyes dark pools. “It’s nobody’s fault but her own.”

  Elliot looks at his feet through the water. He’s known Dia a month now, and by default Jules and Hanna, too. But Dia’s known Hanna years. He thought Hanna was just one of those people, sloppy drunk. But clearly it’s so much more than that.

  “I didn’t know,” he says.

  “Why would you?” Dia shakes her head again and when she looks at him this time, she smiles. “Forget it. You know what would really make me feel better?”

  “What?” Elliot starts to say, but it’s too late: Dia’s already pushed him and he falls sideways into the pool, water rushing around him and up his nose. It’s colder than you’d think and he resurfaces with a gasp. “Dia.”

  She’s laughing, claps her hands. “Sorry!”

  Elliot pulls himself over to her, puts his hands on either side of her legs and shakes his head, spraying her with water. “You think you’re funny, huh?”

  “I know it,” Dia says, and she runs a hand through his curls. “Come on. Let me get you out of those wet clothes.”

  Elliot does not have to be asked twice.

  Jules

  Jules leaned her upper body out of the only window in the break room, breathing in the outside air so thick it was like breathing underwater. According to Malai, there were storms rolling in all around them: “Hail and thunder and everything,” she’d said, hanging out between the registers yesterday. “Saw it on the news.”

  “Since when do you watch the news?” Henry had scoffed, and then they’d started arguing and Jules had gone back to separating coupons.

  Now, sticking her tongue out to taste the heat, Jules felt a prayer for rain forming in her. They needed it—a break from the building, crushing pressure. Relief.

  Her armpits stickier than before, Jules pulled back inside and took out her phone. She tapped the back of it on her knee. She didn’t even know if Hanna’s number was the same.

  Quit stalling, she thought. We don’t have time.

  She shouldn’t have chickened out the other day and let Hanna run away. If she’d asked then, like she had planned to—well, planned was taking it too far. But when Jules had seen Hanna looking at them, it had seemed easy to wave her over, to start up a conversation like they spoke every single day. And she’d thought it would be easy to ask, but it almost seemed like Hanna had known what she was doing, and then she’d left, and Jules had sworn at herself.

  She should have asked. If Hanna was going to say no, at least they’d have had her answer already. As it was, Jules’s phone kept pinging with Dia’s increasingly irritating texts, and the submission deadline was two days away, and Jules had no idea what to do except to beg Hanna to say yes.

  “Easy,” Jules said under her breath, and before she could put it off any longer she dialed Hanna’s old number.

  It actually rang—that was a start. Jules sank into the lumpy couch as she listened to the tone in her ear, going on and on. She brought her thumb to her mouth and bit her nail—maybe she wasn’t going to answer. Maybe this wasn’t Hanna’s number anymore, and someone else was about to pick up. Maybe—

  “Hello?”

  Jules recognized Hanna’s phone voice immediately—half polite, half who the hell is actually calling me? “Hi,” Jules said, swallowing hard. “It’s me. Jules. Hi.”

  Silence, except for the sound of Hanna breathing, and then, “Jules. Hi. What do you want?”

  It was a question, but the way Hanna said it was flat, robotic. Like she was so exhausted and disappointed already. “How are you?”

  “Please skip the small talk,” Hanna said. “You’re not calling me to chitchat. Are you?”

  There was a sharpness to Hanna’s words that left Jules irritated. Wasn’t she trying to do something good for Hanna? And this was the welcome she got?

  Think of the contest. You need her. “No,” Jules admitted. She pulled in a breath and threw herself all the way in. “I’m calling you,” she said, “because me and Dia are going to enter Sun City.”

  A moment of silence. “Really?” Hanna said, but her voice had lost a little of its edge. “Well . . . good for you, I guess.”

  “Yeah,” Jules said. “You know, the prizes this year are amazing. And we always wanted to do it, so.”

  “Yeah, we did,” Hanna said. We, it sounded like she was saying to Jules. Me. What about me?

  “The thing is, you know, we’re missing a drummer.” Jules paused for a beat, gathered the courage to say it. “We’re missing you.”

  Another silence from Hanna’s end, long enough this time that Jules thought she’d screwed the whole thing up.

  “So, what,” Hanna said, and the edge was back. “You need me now? All of a sudden, I have purpose for you? Wow. Thanks!”

  “Hanna—”

  “No, really,” Hanna said. “Thank you. Because the other day, when you spoke to me, I thought—huh. That was weird. Maybe she really wants to talk to me. Maybe she wants to know how I’m doing. Maybe she’s heard I’m clean! Because I am, you know? I’m clean and sober now, Jules. But no. I was right. You just wanted something. I should trust my instincts more often, huh?”

  Jules twisted her fingers into the hem of her apron.

  Clean and sober.

  Could she trust that? Could she believe Hanna when she said that?

  “Hanna, it’s not like that. I thought that—”

  “I know I fucked us all up, but I don’t think I deserve this,” Hanna said, and her voice cracked. “I got clean without either of you. Because you left me. And you thought, what? You could leave me when it was hard and pick me back up when I got my shit together? I don’t want to play that game.”

  “This is not a game, Hanna! Look—you’re my condition.”

  A pause. “Condition?” Hanna repea
ted. “What?”

  “I told Dia I would do it, on one condition,” Jules said. “That we would ask you to do it with us. Because it was always going to be us, wasn’t it? I thought—” She stopped short of saying what she really wanted to: I miss you, Han, we both do. Come back to us. “It wouldn’t be right, me and Dia doing it on our own. So, this is me asking you: will you play with us?”

  More silence. Hanna was really good at that. “It’s not that easy,” she said eventually, slowly. “I’m not—things are different now. We can’t forget the last two years and act like everything’s peachy.”

  “I’m not saying that.” Jules pressed her hand to her forehead. “I know where we are. I know what happened. But I know I don’t want to play music without you there, too.”

  “And Dia?” Hanna said. “What does she want? She’s not the one calling me.”

  “No,” Jules said. “But if she didn’t want to do this, then she wouldn’t have said yes. She’d have said no and told me to stop being annoying. Dia does what she wants, you know that.”

  That raised a tiny laugh from Hanna, involuntary, almost. “Right,” she said. “You know, I don’t need any pity favors. There are plenty of other drummers in town. You can take your pick.”

  “But they’re not you,” Jules said. It was too hard to tell whether Hanna was leaning her way, or pulling back. “Hanna, you and me and Dia, we’re the music. There’s no band without you in it, there never was. We stopped playing for a reason.”

  “Yeah,” Hanna said. “Because Dia decided I wasn’t worth her time anymore.”

  “That’s not true,” Jules said. “You know there was so much more to it than that. You know—” Jules stopped herself from saying what she really wanted to. You know it was your drinking that broke us in the end. She didn’t want to blame Hanna. It was hard to stop herself, though, when Hanna was being this way. Like the Hanna Jules had known before.