“Excuse me?”
“I was just sitting here, waiting to walk to the train with you, and you come up and make all these accusations—”
I throw up my hands. “It’s a fair question, Nah!”
“No, it’s not. When you don’t trust me, it makes me feel like shit. And when I feel like shit, I use. So I need you to trust me, Mae.”
This manipulation technique worked on me last year, and it took a family therapist to explain what was happening. My own sister is gaslighting me. Just because I don’t get vibes like her and Mom doesn’t mean I don’t know when someone’s lying to me.
“Your logic’s faulty,” I say. “It sounds like you’re reasoning that if you use, it’s my fault.”
I stand up and I try to take her hand, but she backs away, this tide of her always receding.
“You’re lying to me.” I say this very nicely, but her reaction is immediate, as if she’s cesium—one of the most reactive alkali metals—and I’m water.
There is an explosion.
“Wow. Wow, Mae. Well, you know fucking everything about everything and I’m just your dumb sidekick, so, yeah, sure, you’re probably right. I’m lying to you. That’s all I do, right, because I’m an addict and I’m opening my mouth, so I must be lying.” She throws her backpack on. “I wish I could get tested right now just to see the look on your face when you find out I’m not fucking high right now and you’re actually, for once, wrong about something.”
She’s shaking, and her voice carries on the breeze so that her anger surrounds us completely, a whirlpool. I could stop right now, stay on Hannah’s good side, apologize. But Mom and Dad would never forgive me if I let her do this to herself. I would never forgive me.
“Maybe you’re not currently high, as you say, at this moment. But you were at lunch.” I step closer to her. “You’re lying to me. Every day. I know you are. I know you have more pills.”
“And why is that, Mae? Hmmmm. Could you have reached that conclusion because you stole the ones I did have from under my goddamn pillow after pretending to have a sister moment with me?”
“No. I reached that conclusion because you didn’t say a WORD to me after I threw those pills away. Which was very suspicious.” I cross my arms. “You would have been a lot more mad at me if you couldn’t have gotten more.”
“Oh, so now you’re Sherlock fucking Holmes. Whatever, Mae. Also, for the record, trust me, I am a lot more mad at you.”
Sometimes, trying to talk to Hannah is like attempting to solve the Riemann hypothesis. My sister is a pure mathematics conundrum.
“You have to stop this, Nah. It’ll get bad again—it already is! I know it’s so, so hard. Everything is mostly horrible right now. No one understands more than me! But, Nah, what would they say if they knew—”
As soon as the words are out of my mouth, I regret them.
Hannah looks at me like I am a waste dump being sent back to Earth. She looks at me like she wants me to disappear.
“Fuck you, Mae.”
Abort mission. Abort.
“Nah, I didn’t—I’m sorry. Sometimes I don’t say things in the most helpful way. I know that. I’m sorry. I’m trying to keep you safe.”
Hannah turns around, starts crossing the parking lot in the direction of the T. Her legs are so long, I’d have to run to catch up to her. I want her to choose to stop. To not make me always have to run after her.
“Hannah!” I yell.
She doesn’t turn around.
I watch my sister stomp away, arms wrapped around her against the cold, and I think I know what it would be like to be on a space walk and have your tether break.
All you can do is float in the darkness, watching the light slip away.
* * *
If my sister were a weather system viewed from the ISS, she would be great big storm clouds sweeping over the face of Earth, covering whole landmasses, blocking out the sun.
More and more I keep thinking about the Little Prince’s rose and how he left his planet, Asteroid B-612, even though he loved her, because she was impossible to live with. No matter what he did, it wasn’t enough. And she was always waving her petals, so to speak—saber rattling, raring for a fight. Snapping at him. Refusing to accept his help. Totally self-absorbed.
Sometimes I feel like I’m stuck on Asteroid B-612 with Hannah.
Honestly, I am growing very tired of it.
And I don’t like being cursed at.
Or walked away from.
And I don’t like being lied to.
I found a postcard. I don’t know when it came in. Why she didn’t tell me. And I can’t even say anything because I found it when I was going through her stuff, looking for more pills to throw away. Why would she keep that from me? Their last words to us. As though, by rights, they belong to her more than they do to me. She is part of them. She is made up of their genes. So maybe they are more hers.
But maybe the worst part of finding that postcard was: What was the joke Dad was going to tell me?
It might make me insane, never knowing.
I don’t need to be the center of attention—I never have been, and it’s not a place I like to be. Nah always needed that, needed applause and good jobs and people blowing kisses. And that’s fine. But right now, when we’re all trying to figure out how to deal with Mom and Dad being gone, suddenly it’s become about keeping Hannah okay. Everyone tiptoeing around her, worrying about her depression (because that’s what they think the whole problem is), knocking on her door, wringing their hands. Uncle Tony trying to ask about school, meeting with Hannah’s teachers. It’s the Hannah Show, and we all have front-row seats. And I want to stop going.
Aunt Nora keeps trying to do all this nice stuff for us, and she has no idea we’re both lying to her face every single day. Hannah, because she’s using, and me, for not telling my aunt and uncle what’s going on. Not telling them there are drugs under their roof and a drug addict sleeping on their bed. They deserve to know, but I’ve got one more card to play. And then, I don’t care if it’s disloyal and Hannah never talks to me again, I’ll confess. Everything. I’m scared that they’ll send her away somewhere, that her life will be even worse, but I have to take that chance. For her.
I want her to make Mom and Dad proud. Not turn into my bio mom. Because that’s what she is going to become, maybe for life, isn’t she? Isn’t that what happens when you can’t ever stop? And how am I supposed to deal with that? What am I supposed to do?
So I have to fix this. I have to fix her. I have to work the problem.
But how do you fix someone who has broken into a thousand pieces?
The data is terrible. My sister is refusing to go to the counseling sessions; the school has called about her ditching. After I confronted her today, she shut her door and refused to come out.
So I do the only thing I can think of: I call Micah.
“Hello?”
A girl’s voice. I look at the screen, thinking—but, no, definitely Micah’s number.
“Hello. Can I please speak to Micah?”
“What?”
It’s loud in the background. A party, probably. It’s Friday night, after all. Well, it’s only four in the afternoon there, but surfers get started early.