Miss You Love You Hate You Bye Read online

  I opened my new unicorn journal from Zoe and jotted down:

  watch the news?

  turkey drive for the homeless?

  Because those were the only things I’d done that were remotely close to activism.

  “Right. So who would like to share with us first?” Mr. Harvey commanded.

  This time, he waited for approximately ten seconds. Then he took a copy of some hefty textbook off his desk, raised it over his head, and dropped it to the floor. The smack was so deafening, it got a few gasps. Mr. Harvey was pleased. He smiled with all his teeth showing before saying, “Participation is mandatory. In this class and in life. So now, who would like to read aloud?”

  All the Madisons shot their hands up. I did too, though I had no idea what to say yet. I really didn’t want to be first. Or last. Or anywhere in between.

  Mr. Harvey nodded approvingly. He let Madison Thompson talk about how she recently went to a life-changing town hall meeting. Madison Ramos said she was part of a social action committee at her church. There were a few accounts of going to DC for the Women’s March, and Mike Bendetti asked if online petitions counted, because he signed a ton of those.

  Mr. Harvey didn’t exactly answer. He stood at the front of the classroom with hands on hips, chewing on the inside of his cheek and taking it all in. Everyone was tumbling and rushing over one another in a storm of words and excuses. I just kept my hand raised, desperately scrolling through my lackluster past in my head. Hoping I could figure out something to report before he got to me.

  And there he was. Standing over me with his big jowls and eager eyes. He was demanding but also encouraging.

  “Yes? Hannah?”

  I opened my notebook to the first page, where I’d written some random thoughts. Or at least that’s what I thought I was doing. Only the first page must have been actually the second. And when I flipped back the unicorn cover now, it said in big block Zoe letters:

  PUSSY POWER!

  “Oh,” I heard Mr. Harvey say to me. To my pussified notebook. I shut the book closed and squeaked, “Um, sorry … I mean, yeah. Sorry.”

  “Aha!” boomed Mr. Harvey. “Sorry.” Then he said it slower. “Sooorrrry. The most detestable word in the English language. Besides quinoa, I guess.”

  The class chuckled. But Mr. Harvey was not smiling now.

  “I joke about it, but I’m deadly serious.” Now his eyes were laser-focused on me. “Sorry is never the answer. It’s one of those words that I just don’t trust.”

  * * *

  Forty-three minutes later, I was sitting on top of Weiner Hill, listening to a chorus of sorrys. It was incredible how many people came to this place to cry. When Zoe and I first staked out our spot by the chain-link fence as our lunch meet-up two years before, we had no idea it was such a mecca for breakups and meltdowns. It made sense though. Reggie’s Weiner Hut was conveniently located directly across from Meadowlake High’s gymnasium. It was a hot spot for people to neck over two-dollar milk shakes and French fries. Then they strolled back up the hill for fifth period, arm in arm, sometimes pausing to have a serious—that is, teary—talk about where this relationship was going anyway. And then to end it in a flurry of apologies.

  Each lunch—or really, the twenty-nine minutes called lunch when Zoe and I caught up on people-watching and bitching about how horrible our lives were—I was reminded of how small my universe was and how many reasons there were to sob. There was a whole hierarchy to this small tuft of land too—the cliques of the cool or even semi–socially acceptable dotting the brown grass in prescribed order. Preps by the maple tree. Piercings on the crumbling brick wall. Artsy misfits lugging random set pieces through the back entrance to the auditorium and kids from the low-income apartments staking out the one picnic table.

  I was feeling really low after that exchange with Mr. Harvey and just wanted to talk to Zoe one-on-one. It wasn’t exactly her fault that I’d opened to her PUSSY POWER note, but it did feel like we needed to check in about it. Only Zoe was holding court with Colette, Freyja, and a posse of lacrosse guys that I didn’t even recognize. It was hard to catch Zoe for some eye contact. I pulled out my yogurt and the rest of my bagel from breakfast and sat down. I really wanted to see how Gus was doing, but his lunch period was before mine and I knew he wouldn’t dare keep his phone on in class.

  “Whatcha doin’, lady love?” Zoe said. She did a dramatic fall into my lap and I extracted my yogurt cup just before it exploded all over us both. “Oops, sorry about that!” She grinned and gave me a peck on the cheek.

  “S’all good. Did you have your bagel already?” I asked.

  She narrowed her eyes and tried to push out a smile, but it looked pained.

  “Mmmm,” she said. Then she tucked her head up under my chin and sang, “Sooorrrry.”

  Let’s not forget the other half of the lie, though.

  The believer.

  Um, that’s you, Hank.

  And you know that I know that you know that the world knows you’re too smart to have bought any of those make-believes I fed you. Sometimes I watched you pause or raise an eyebrow. And I thought,

  Today’s the day when she’s going to crack me open and make me come clean.

  Only you never did.

  Whether consciously or not, that was a CHOICE you made.

  To accept, ignore, spruce up, and bedazzle all my lies so they fit into your life easily too.

  I know, I know. You hate confrontation.

  Who knows if you’ll even read these words one day.

  But it’s true.

  In some ways you wanted me to lie.

  It gave you an excuse to pull away.

  And then at some point, I know you started hurling your own lies back at me. Was that fun for you?

  There’s a hell of a lot more you can do once you decide to live in a pretend world, right?

  And yes, the same rules apply, and I could’ve should’ve needed to call you out on it. But I was busy.

  I guess the point is,

  I don’t want you to ever whitewash this into your tragedy, Hank.

  It’s not.

  You were dishonest and deceptive, and you betrayed me. More than once.

  But I digress.

  Where were we?

  Oh yes, the joys of lying. Which I guess we’re both experts in now.

  Can you at least admit that yet?

  Yours till the coco puffs,

  Z

  CHAPTER 6

  fpoe

  I texted Gus during last period: Want me to drive your balls home?

  No thanks, trying out for freshman choirballs, he wrote back.

  After walking halfway home by myself, I realized I’d driven to school for the first time today and turned around to get the car. Then I forgot where I’d parked the car and lost another twenty minutes to my sad sense of nondirection. Finally I located HOT RIC in the staff parking lot, with a handwritten warning from the vice principal that I did not have a staff permit and was in danger of being towed. At last I came home.

  I had a ludicrous amount of homework—proving some hypothesis in Chemistry, disproving another in Pre-Calculus. One hundred pages of a biography about Cesar Chavez and an openended and unanswerable question about what it means to be an active member of society. I had no idea how to tackle that one. I did do my googling though, and I found out that the Queen of Percussion was a kickass lady named Sheila E. I got lost in a video of her hammering away on the drums for at least an hour. Amazed by her boldness and the number of sequins on her jacket. She was one of those rare musicians who really lived inside the music.

  “Helloooooo!” shouted Mom some time later. As I looked up from my computer, I saw the sky was already lowering its shade into night.

  “Hey!” I yelled down. “Gus was trying out for choir! I haven’t heard from him since three!”

  “Got him!” Mom replied. “Come on down and join us! I got you both a delicious treat!”

  I was a little terrified t
hat the treat would be Elan and a tub of his special lentil-seaweed chili. Surely Mom wouldn’t be that clueless and cruel. Besides, I really wanted to hear how Gus’s first day went and obviously I was getting nowhere on my actual assignments.

  “Pace yourself,” Mom was telling Gus when I came down the stairs. He was inhaling a slice of Sicilian from Village Pizza in the middle of the kitchen. He hadn’t even taken off his backpack yet.

  “My girl!” Mom cheered, drawing me in for a hug. Her breath was leaping with garlic.

  “Whoa.”

  “I know. Gus and I couldn’t help ourselves on the way home. There’s two more with pepperoni and three slices with mushrooms.”

  Most important, there was no Elan. He was realigning someone’s coccyx or busy with a men’s mah-jongg tournament tonight. It didn’t matter. I was just thrilled to have this much mozzarella cheese and unaccompanied time with my mom and Gus in the same room. I swiped a plate and a slice from the counter and chomped down gratefully.

  “How was Social Studies?” I asked Gus.

  “Eh,” he answered.

  “You find that shortcut behind the gym we practiced?”

  He nodded, mouth still too full to elaborate.

  “Choir?”

  I got a thumbs-up and a grunt for that. I tried reading between the lines, but Gus wouldn’t look at me. With his face tilted down I could see that Zoe was right—his upper-lip fuzz was getting darker. As in, moments away from being an undeniable mustache.

  “What about your day?” Mom asked me. I wanted to tell her that everybody was phony and self-obsessed, and that Zoe was getting dangerously thin. And that instead of running the rat race that was college applications, I wanted to travel to Greece and work on an olive oil farm or build schools and freshwater wells in developing nations while listening to Sheila E.

  Only Mom looked so serene. And I didn’t want to ruin this family pizza party with my sad life. So I settled on, “All good. The usual.”

  “How about … Did either of you ask any good questions?” This was Mom’s favorite conversation starter with us. Only I truly couldn’t recall asking a single thing.

  Gus swallowed a lump of crust and wiped the pizza grease from his chin with the back of his sweatshirt sleeve before raising his hand.

  “Yes,” Mom said with a smile. “Gus, you may speak.”

  “Well, I asked Ms. Nelson whether a thesis statement always had to be summarized at the end of a persuasive essay,” said Gus. Mom nodded slowly, obviously pleased. “And then I also asked Mr. Teller how many lockdown drills we would be doing over the course of the school year.” I watched Mom take in that information and sort of wince. Last year there had been a school shooting in a high school two counties west of us. One fatality. Gus had been pretty fixated on the story and we even talked as a family about where our meeting point would be if there were ever a violent incident and we couldn’t get straight home. I thought after that he’d let it go. But obviously not.

  “That’s a great question,” Mom said. “And what was the answer?”

  “Between ten and twelve,” Gus reported. “Standard for this part of the country.” He did not emote at all. Just put another piece of pizza in his mouth and kept chewing.

  Mom looked at me and smiled—a little less brightly now, but still keen to connect.

  “And how about you, Miss Hannah Louise?”

  “Sorry, but no. I mean, I’m not sorry, but no I didn’t ask any questions really. I mean, there’s not much time, and we have so much curriculum to cover.”

  Mom did this awkward thing where she tried to rub my shoulder and Gus’s at the same time, but she also had this floppy piece of mushroom pizza in her hand so it sort of shook sauce all over the table.

  “Well, I am so proud of you both for having successful first days. And in case you were wondering, my budget meeting went swimmingly and I had a remarkable conference call. So l’chaim!” She lifted her slice in celebration.

  Mom still taught ESL part-time. She also did public relations for a human rights nonprofit in Newark, which she said was only mildly stimulating but perfect for her needs. It meant her commute was just twenty minutes and she could be home for dinner with us, which was vital to her.

  “Oh! And I looked into getting a few two-person tents for this weekend, just in case you change your mind,” she began. “Would that be more fun than a giant tent for all four of us? Maybe you want to invite some friends to come with?”

  I had to shut down that line of inquiry before it went anywhere farther down this twiggy trail. I didn’t want to hurt her feelings, but I knew she would research every tent on the market if I didn’t stop her now.

  “Sorry, Mom. There’s just a lot of stuff going on this weekend. I’m fine staying here. Gus, you probably have a ton of stuff too, right? First weekend of … choir?”

  I wanted to give him a better out, but I hadn’t really thought through the possibilities. As Mom turned to Gus, I pushed more pizza into my mouth so I couldn’t physically say anything stupider on his behalf.

  Gus didn’t sound like he needed my help anyway though. “Yeah,” he said. “I think I’d rather stay home.”

  “Fair enough. I’ll ask Ricky to come stay with you guys.” Mom wiped her mouth and gave us a satisfied smile. I wondered if she was contemplating more alone time with Elan in a slippery sleeping bag. Then I started thinking about what they could do together in a sleeping bag and I forgot how to breathe and swallow at the same time. Mom had to thwack me on the back a few times to keep me from choking.

  “All right,” Mom announced. “Dinner adjourned! I’m sure you two have a bunch of homework and I’ll go call Ricky.”

  Gus gave her the thumbs-up and headed for the stairs.

  “Oh and don’t forget—school schedule is in effect. Lights out by ten thirty.”

  Yes, I was almost seventeen years old and had to be in my pajamas by ten on school nights—lights out by ten thirty at the latest. Not something I liked to admit in mixed company. Or to myself for that matter. This was perhaps the lamest trait of my mother’s. She was a fanatic about everyone in our family getting eight hours of uninterrupted sleep per night. She always had been, though it didn’t really humiliate me until I hit middle school and hosted the most pathetic slumber party in the world. Seriously, I loved and admired my mom. I could even look past the fact that she wore orthotic insteps and still said things like “coolio” and “dis.” But her sleep requirements were beyond annoying.

  Zoe knew about my sad curfew too. So when my phone buzzed at ten fifteen that night, I was trying to wrap up this Chemistry problem set and felt like it had to be an emergency or else she wouldn’t have dared.

  Deck door, was all she wrote.

  Mom was spooning out her decaf coffee for her morning routine as I tried to slip past her.

  “Um, excuse me, young lady. Where are you going?”

  “Mom, it’s Zoe.”

  “I’ve told you that the average teenager needs at least eight to nine hours of sleep per night in order to develop a healthy metabolism, bone strength, and mental—”

  “I’m so sorry, Jean,” Zoe gushed as I opened the sliding door. Mom had never invited Zoe to call her by her first name, and it still made me cringe.

  “It’s okay,” Mom said in a measured tone. “Just make it quick, please. It’s late.”

  “I know. I totally forgot about the time. I’ll be really quick, I promise.” Zoe rushed at me and fell into my arms. I could feel her body vibrating as she burrowed her nose into my shoulder. She was so cold and damp that I looked outside to see if there was a monsoon, but everything was dark and dry.

  “Is your mom still here?” Zoe scream-whispered.

  “Yes,” I hissed back. “She lives here.”

  Mom looked torn between watching us and the clock on the stove. She rinsed out a mug that was already clean and returned it to the dish rack.

  “Listen girls, I’ll give you a few minutes to talk alone, and then �
�� you know the drill. It is a school night.”

  As soon as Mom’s foot landed on the first creaky step upstairs, Zoe wormed her hands into my armpits and started tickling me ferociously. She knew all my most ticklish spots too—I was helpless when she did this.

  “What … is … happening?” I eked out in between giggles.

  Zoe pulled away from me and flashed her widest, soggiest puppy-dog eyes.

  “Please don’t be mad at me,” she said with a coy smile. “I did this because I think you’re incredibly talented and smart and I know you don’t like to be in the spotlight but maybe if we’re in it together it could be superfun…?” She started doing one of her goofy dances that looked like a rubber chicken on crack. Twirling me around and trying to dip me, but she lost her footing and crashed into the refrigerator door.

  “Girls?” called Mom from upstairs.

  “All good!” I hollered back. I focused back on Zoe. “You know we have only like eight minutes so please tell me (a) are you drunk, and (b) what is going on?”

  “Ha!” Zoe laughed, then tried to steady herself. “Okay, not drunk. As you know, I think that’s a waste of calories. But I could use maybe a glass of water. Wait, let me tell you what’s happening first.”

  I got her the glass of water, but she couldn’t stop talking long enough to drink it.

  “So you know how Alli’s been saying that if I get my grades up she would take me to meet her commercial agent?”

  I nodded, though I had no memory of this deal and it sounded shady. Zoe was ecstatic, however. Swinging my arms and tap dancing while she narrated her tale.

  “So I took this new dose of Ritalin the last two weeks and when I got to school today, Madame Sharp tested me and said I placed out of Beginning French! Which I guess was all Alli needed, because…”

  Somehow, Zoe wove together her new attention span with a trip to see Alli’s commercial agent who apparently didn’t have much in the way of work for Alli but loved Zoe’s new Meowsers video—calling it “lit.” Also, he was the same agent who represented Taylor Swift’s pet llama and he had offices in LA and New York, but he enjoyed the grit of New York better because he felt like even the sidewalks were more authentic.