This Is What It Feels Like Read online

  Jules stared out of the window as she spoke, her last effort. “This could mean something for us,” she said. “Winning. Not just the money, either—more than that.” She paused, listening to a moment of Hanna’s breath down the line. “Don’t you want to do something? We were something, before. Maybe we could be that again. Hanna? What do you say?”

  “I—” Hanna’s sigh crackled in Jules’s ear. “I don’t know. I have to think.”

  Jules nodded to nobody but herself, a little relief slipping into her veins. “Okay,” she said. That was better than an outright no; it meant Hanna was tempted, at least. Wanting. “Okay. The first round closes in two days, so—”

  Hanna laughed shortly. “No pressure,” she said. “All right. Two days. I’ll let you know.”

  “Okay,” Jules said again. “Bye, Hanna.”

  “Bye.”

  Hanna disappeared, replaced by silence and Jules let out a long breath as she let her head hit the couch cushions. It could have been worse. But Hanna was hard to figure out, always. She’d sounded clear, though, and Jules could imagine her, lying in her bedroom beneath the window, the way she always used to. Maybe she was telling the truth, about being sober. If she was lying, though, it wouldn’t have been the first time.

  Jules closed her eyes. She hoped it was true.

  Hanna

  Is this for real?

  That was Hanna’s thought as she listened to Jules’s casual pleading, as she hung up, as she tossed her phone skittering across her bedroom floor. Was Jules for real, honestly asking her to come back? To play with her and Dia again, for—what?

  Sure, Jules said it wasn’t all about the money, but that could be her way of reeling Hanna in. Making her think it was about more than that, it was about them, and then when—if—whatever, at the end of it all, they could drop her as fast as they wanted to pick her back up.

  For Jules to try to spin that on her, call her up out of the blue and—she thinks she can pull me back, now she has a need for me again? Hanna thought as she lay beneath her bedroom windows in the afternoon. She tamped down the part of her that wanted to give in to the fantasy, because none of it was actually going to become real. Her flash-forward visions of practicing, laughing together, making righteous, raucous, riotous sounds were not reality. She needed to remember that.

  Do they expect me to fall at their feet and beg forgiveness? she thought. All so they can use me to win some contest? No fucking way.

  The ember of anger burned in her all day long, while she picked Molly up, and sat through dinner with her parents, and stood under the icy cold shower before bed. She stoked the fire, justifying her rage, watching imaginary sparks fly out from old words she’d buried in her deepest heart: I can’t trust you, Hanna and What is happening to you? and Clean yourself up.

  The fire slowed a little once she was in bed, became a slow, quiet smolder that let the underlying guilt make itself known. She hated them and she blamed them, yes. But she hated herself, too. And she blamed herself. Who was the one who’d made it so they couldn’t trust her? Who had pushed them so far that it was easier for them to walk away than stay and clean Hanna up again and again?

  Her fault. Her mess.

  Hanna lay there wide awake, Sufjan Stevens singing to her through her headphones, and trying not to think about Jules or any of the things she’d said. Around three a.m. she gave in and got up, stealing out of the house and down the street to the all-night convenience store, where she bought a pack of cigarettes, a green plastic lighter, and two candy bars from a gray-eyed boy.

  She lit her first cigarette on the walk home, the click-hiss-exhale an instant sort of soothing. Hanna held her hand out and examined the way the thing looked between her fingers. She’d never been a big smoker, before. But without the drinking, she needed something else to latch onto. Her writing was the healthy version of that. The smoking, not so good. But it worked, as a way to not drink.

  Four hundred and twenty-five days.

  And what she wanted right now was a drink.

  The sky felt close tonight, and Hanna’s shirt stuck to her clammy skin. She hoped that Jules couldn’t sleep either, that Dia’s conscience was keeping her up.

  No, she thought. They don’t care. They’re right and I’m wrong, they’re good and I’m the pathetic, useless failure. That’s the way it is for them. Why would they ever change?

  Hanna had thought about the other day, standing there talking to Jules outside the café—she’d analyzed it and played it back and come to the conclusion that it hadn’t been a ploy. There hadn’t been any ulterior motive, or setup—Jules really had just wanted to say hi. It had felt almost too good to be true, if Hanna was being honest. And look. Here was the truth: Jules did want something. She always did.

  Hanna got back home and walked out into the yard, where she sat in the least-rickety plastic chair. She dropped her cigarette on the ground, grinding it out with her flip-flop. Then she lit another and tipped her head back to stare into the murky sky. “You are okay,” she said to the night, and she took a drag, holding the smoke in her lungs for as long as she could before letting it all rush out, leaving her dizzy. “You are not broken. You are here.”

  Her voice seemed tiny in the gaping dark and Hanna thought, like she always seemed to in the small, lonely moments, that the world was so vast and she so insignificant and her troubles so trivial, truly.

  “Hanna?” Molly’s sweet voice floated out from somewhere above, and Hanna craned her head back to find her sister hanging out of her bedroom window. “What are you doing?”

  “Nothing,” Hanna said. She dropped this cigarette on the ground, too, so Molly wouldn’t see. “Go back to bed.”

  Molly disappeared back inside and Hanna dropped her head, satisfied. But barely a minute later the back door creaked open and out Molly padded in bare feet, flannel shorts hanging low on her hips. “What are you doing?”

  Hanna snapped her fingers. “You are a pain in my ass, you know that?”

  Molly settled into one of the other chairs, her grin lighting up the night. “I know.” And then she lifted her nose in the air and sniffed noisily. “Are you smoking?”

  Hanna looked in her sister’s wide eyes and felt the energy she needed to lie slipping away. “Don’t tell Mom,” she said, flicking the lighter on and off, sparking like her nerves did at the thought of their mother. “You know how she is about it.”

  Molly pulled her feet up on the chair and wrapped her arms around her knees. “Can I have one?”

  “No!” Hanna said. “Come on, Molls. Do you think I have a death wish?”

  “That’s not fair,” Molly said, and the indignance in her voice made Hanna laugh. “You get to do it, so why can’t I?”

  “Because you’re thirteen.” Hanna turned the pack over and over in her hands, shaking her head. “And you’re my little sister and I’m supposed to stop you from making all the mistakes I do.”

  “I’m going to be fourteen in three months,” Molly said. “I’m going to high school. I’m not some little kid, y’know.”

  “Right,” Hanna said. “But I’m still not going to let you smoke.”

  Molly made a noise. “Whatever. Why are you out here?”

  Hanna shifted, wincing as her skin peeled away from the plastic. “Thinking,” she said.

  “About?”

  “Pointless things.” Hanna looked at Molly’s bright-orange pedicure, and the boring state of her own feet in comparison. “You know Jules? And Dia?”

  “Uh-huh.” Molly jutted her chin out. “What did they do this time?”

  “It’s so ridiculous,” Hanna said. “They want to enter the Sun City contest. And they want me to do it with them.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah,” Hanna said. “Jules called me up today. Said all this stuff about how they miss me . . . whatever.”

  Molly blinked. “But they were so mean to you,” she said, her younger side slipping out. “Weren’t they?”

  “Yeah,
” Hanna said. “They were.”

  That was the thing: Dia and Jules acted like what they had done had been necessary. Maybe a little cruel, but only in the name of kindness.

  But it wasn’t true. They had hurt her. Real, bone-deep, jagged hurt that never went away, no matter how much booze she drowned it in or how much she swore she was past it. How could she be? They had been her best friends. For all the shit that came with being a teenage girl, Hanna had always thought it would be bearable if she could go through it with them. Only, when it had gotten hard, they’d turned on her. And that hadn’t been the promise they’d made to each other.

  “So they only want you back to help them out?” Molly said.

  “Yeah, I guess so.” Hanna twirled the lighter between her fingers. “But I’m not doing it, so they don’t get to use me.”

  Molly touched a hand to her hair, the blond of it darkening nearer to Hanna’s natural shade. “Do you want to? If they weren’t involved, would you want to do the contest?”

  “No. Maybe. Who knows?” Hanna flicked the flame on, off. “I haven’t touched my drums in forever. And I don’t think I could do it on my own.”

  “Hmm.” Molly tapped her feet on the chair. “Maybe—I know this is going to sound ridiculous, but listen—what if you did do it? You could use them, a little.”

  “What?”

  “I know you miss playing music. And if you wanted to enter, you just said you couldn’t do it on your own. You’d need somebody else. Why not them? You could tell them you’ll do it, and they’ll think they’ve won, but really, you’re the one holding all the cards. And if you won the contest, you’d get your share of the prize money and then you could leave them.”

  Hanna looked at her sister with a mixture of awe and fear. “Molly! When did you become a scheming mastermind?”

  “Seventh grade,” Molly said. “It was a real power struggle.”

  “Wow.” Hanna rubbed her neck. Pretending to be okay with them, so she could get the money? That would be too far.

  But Molly was right—she could just pretend. They didn’t have to be friends again (like that would ever happen). They just had to be able to make music without killing each other. For the greater good. It would be a start for New Hanna, for the girl she claimed to be now. This Hanna wouldn’t let herself be pushed around. This Hanna could rise above their past bullshit and do it because she wanted to.

  At the very least, this Hanna could pretend all that was true.

  Molly was looking at her expectantly. “So?”

  Hanna flicked the lighter again and watched the flame burning in the darkness. “I’m tired, Molls. I’m too tired to go on being angry and alone and hating them.”

  She extinguished the flame and looked at her sister. “And I wasn’t so good back then, either. I did awful things, too. It wasn’t only their fault. But that’s just how it is now.”

  Molly nodded, a small smile on her face. “You weren’t awful,” she said. “Just not the real you. It could all be different now. Isn’t that what you want?”

  What do I want? Hanna pulled at a piece of her hair, tugging hard enough that it hurt. An apology. Their sorry. And at the same time—their forgiveness. “I don’t know what I want. I don’t even know who I want to be.”

  Molly leaned forward, her hair swinging. “I think about what I want to be,” she said. “And I can’t decide. But I think when I’m older, I want to still live here.”

  “Yeah?” Hanna said. “Well, there are worse places to be.” She looked past Molly. “I used to think I’d leave Golden after school. We talked about it, the three of us. We were gonna go to LA and live in a terrible apartment. Get terrible jobs and make music the rest of the time.” She looked back at her sister, shook her head. “You shouldn’t limit yourself, Molls. Think of the thing you most want to do in the entire world. If you’re lucky and the world helps you out, you might actually get it.”

  “You could still—”

  Hanna shook her head, cutting Molly off. “Not going to happen,” she said, and then she stood and grabbed Molly’s arm. “Come on. We should both be in bed.”

  “Ugh,” Molly groaned, but she got up and let herself be led back into the house without resistance. Upstairs Hanna waved goodnight to Molly and slipped into her bedroom. She sank down to the floor and stretched her legs out, resting in the square of moonlight there.

  Say yes, or say no.

  Maybe she said yes and it went terribly, and they ended up hating each other more than they already did. No loss, Hanna thought. Hate on top of hate, it is what it is.

  And if she said no—everything stayed the same. Boring, bored Hanna. No music, no nothing.

  But if she said yes and it didn’t go terribly, and they made great music and got into the contest and maybe—don’t say it too loud, don’t jinx it, whisper—won? She thought about Molly, making plans for her life. Dreaming her dreams. Hanna could still do that, if she wanted to.

  She pressed her hands together. What had she told herself? I have to do something. I will do anything.

  She got up and grabbed her phone from her bed, and she wrote the text before she could talk herself in any more circles.

  Okay. I’m in.

  Dia

  Dia’s alarm went off at seven on the days she wasn’t working the early shift, and the days Lex didn’t wake her. This morning it felt like she’d barely fallen asleep before it went off, her phone buzzing underneath her pillow like the most annoying gnat. “Mmph,” she said into the sheets, searching with one hand. “Shut up.”

  She wiped her other hand across her mouth, yawning as she managed to open her eyes all the way. The light around her curtains was still muted, a fact Dia registered right as she realized that the noise coming from her phone wasn’t her alarm but her ringtone.

  “Shit.” She fumbled her phone, yawning wide again as she glanced at Lex, still mercifully sleeping. JULES, her phone screen said, right below the time: 5:27. Why is she calling so early? “Hold on, hold on—” She recovered her phone and managed to answer this time. “Juliana, you’d better have a good reason for waking me up, I swear to god.”

  “I do,” Jules said. She sounded out of breath, in movement. “I know it’s early, but I’m on my way to work. And I thought you might want to know that Hanna said yes.”

  “Yeah, you’re right, it is early,” Dia said. “I was—” She stopped, rerunning what Jules had actually said. “Hold on. Go back. What?”

  “Hanna’s in!” The sound of a car horn came crystal clear through the phone, and Jules swore before continuing. “I got a text from her last night, this morning, whatever, and she’s in.”

  “She said yes?” Dia sat up, a little stunned. Hanna said yes.

  This was not how it had played out in her head.

  Okay.

  Forget Plan B. (Sorry, in-box full of hopeful applicants. Your window has closed.)

  Switch to the Break in Case of Emergency plan.

  “Yeah!” Jules said. “So—now what?”

  Now what?

  Dia was wide awake all of a sudden, her mind whirring into overdrive. Okay, okay, Hanna was in. That meant they had—she pulled her phone away from her ear to check the time, 5:31 now—forty-two hours and twenty-eight minutes until the submission window closed.

  Forty-two hours and twenty-eight minutes to record themselves playing one of their old songs. They had to; they had to at least try. Submit their best and know that then, if they didn’t get in, they’d done all they could.

  (Yeah, it wasn’t so much a plan as a fevered grab at the near impossible. Dia already knew that.)

  Step one: Find a time to get together in the next forty-two hours and twenty-eight minutes.

  Step two: Play together for the first time in two years.

  Step three: Set up recording equipment.

  Step four: Get a perfect-enough take.

  Step five: Upload to the Sun City site.

  Dia rattled through it in her head, trying to convi
nce herself it would work. If we focus, if we remember, she thought, it’ll work. We’ll record, and okay, the timing’s not great but it’s good, actually, it’ll push us and—

  Better to try and fail than give up without even attempting.

  (Optional Step six: Do all of the above without killing each other.)

  “Hello? Dia?” Jules was saying. “Are you there?”

  “I’m here,” Dia said, swinging her legs out of bed now and beginning to pace in front of the window. “Okay. This is beyond ridiculous, but Jules—” Dia stopped and pushed back the curtains, allowing the rising sun to flood her room with light. “I have a plan.”

  Hanna

  Hanna watched her parents rushing around the kitchen, the usual routine of coffee and hastily retrieved papers. She’d have to shoot now; there wasn’t time to tiptoe around it.

  “Hey.” She leaned against the door frame, her arms folded in a careful imitation of casual. “Is it okay if I bring the drums down?”

  Her parents exchanged the Look. “How come?” her dad asked.

  “To play around,” Hanna said. It wasn’t a lie, really. She was going to be playing. She just . . . wasn’t going to tell them about the rest of it right now. Because what if she and Dia and Jules found they couldn’t even all be in the same room without combusting? It’d be over with before it started, and then she’d have created another reason for them to grill her for nothing. “Y’know, for fun.”

  “You’d have to move stuff around in the garage first,” her mom said. “Clear some space.”

  Hanna looked between the two of them. “Is that a yes?”

  Her mom got this pained look on her face, but her dad spoke first. “You’ll have to clear it with the neighbors,” he said. “But sure, bring ’em down.”

  So later, after their parents had gone to work, Hanna and Molly climbed up into the attic, taking careful steps on the beams so they didn’t fall through. They brought the drums down piece by piece and put them out in the garage, and Hanna went back up for the things she hadn’t mentioned to her parents, stashed in a trunk that she hadn’t opened in a long time.