I don’t know what makes you a woman, but I don’t think it’s getting your period or losing your virginity or having guys suddenly notice you and the harassment beginning, especially when you have hips like mine. I think it’s the moment when you get to decide something for yourself, something that will affect the rest of your life.
And this decision: It grew me up.
I told the counselor that I’d had this idea, like this momentary thought that maybe, maybe if I had a baby, then things would be okay. Like, I’d have some value in the world. Someone would need me and maybe that need would be the thing, the thing that would make me good and also would keep me from the pills. And maybe take the sadness away. But the thought, the thought of ending up like Mae’s birth mother, with the drugs and child protective services and then this acorn-that-is-now-a-tree having to go into foster care because I’m such a fuckup—Micah was right. The clinic, it was the right thing to do. I’m glad I had the choice. That no one took it away from me.
I just wish I hadn’t had to make it in the first place.
The counselor looked at me for a long moment: She had red hair and green eyes and it was like this Celtic priestess had come to hear my confession. And she rested a hand on my knee and she said, “Whatever you decide, Hannah, remember this: You are enough.”
When she left the room, I put on the scratchy gown, lay down, and closed my eyes.
What haunts me isn’t what happened—I don’t think it was wrong. But what is killing me is how something got taken off the table. Taken by the look on Micah’s face when I showed him the stick with the two lines. And because I’d made other choices, bad ones. I didn’t really get to decide—am I ready to be a mom yet?—because of what was in my blood, all those diamonds I couldn’t stop swallowing because they fill me with sparkling, glittery light. Like binge-eating starlight.
But the universe gave me this wake-up call and I didn’t ignore it. I didn’t. Five months clean.
Until today. Because a drink counts. Which means I’ll be back to day one, if I get to day one, and day one fucking sucks.
They say you’re clean, but then why do I still feel so dirty all the time? There is no clean. Not for girls like me.
“Where’ve you gone, Nah?” Micah murmurs. He runs a finger between my eyes, to the thinking-too-hard wrinkles between them.
“Nowhere,” I say.
He smiles. He doesn’t understand what nowhere means to me.
“I miss you.” He rubs the tip of my nose with his. “I miss my girl. I know it’s been hard. That you’ve been sad. I want us to be okay. Me being here, in college—this isn’t going to change anything. I promise.”
And this is why love is so confusing: because now he’s my sweet surfer boy who makes my heart beat a little fast again.
“I love you,” I whisper.
“I love you more than the best wave in the ocean.”
I reach for the bottle next to his alarm clock and gulp down more fire. I notice the time, written in big red numbers that glow in the dark of the room: 8:06 p.m. I am suspended in this minute, just for a moment—drunk girl’s prerogative—and I see them, I see my parents. I conjure them.
It is morning in Malaysia, and the sun is beating down, and Mom’s wearing that wide-brimmed hat Mae and I got for her, the one with the red bow that matches her swimsuit.
Wow, Mom says, way out there on her island in Malaysia. The current’s strong today. Look at how the water is pulling back into the ocean.
Dad lifts up his phone and takes a picture to show to his oceanographer friend. Then he points.
Look at the water breaking, way out there. He takes another picture. It is a wave and it is coming.
Micah whispers, I remembered a condom this time.
* * *
“Holy shit. Wake up, Nah. Baby, wake up.”
Micah is shaking me and something has died in my mouth and my head is full of shards of glass. Fuck. Why do I do this to myself?
“The universe is telling you something, Nah,” Mom is saying when we walk out of the clinic. I ask her what the hell the universe could possibly be telling me other than to practice safe fucking and she doesn’t even blink at my use of the word fucking. She just shrugs and says, “She speaks through the gut.” But I can’t think about my gut because it’s empty now and all I want to do is fill it with pills, real pills, and those bitches inside only gave me Tylenol. And I don’t ask Mom what she means by speak. What does that mean when you can’t hear the universe—or when it doesn’t speak to you at all?
When we get home, Mom grabs a bundle of sage and sits me down in front of her altar. On it is a picture of Amma, this lady famous for hugging who Mom says taught her how to love, and also a picture of Yoko, looking kick-ass in a bowler hat and shades. “Okay,” Mom says, lighting the sage, “I’m gonna smudge the shit out of you.”
I have promised I will do better. No more almost-failing my classes, no more being stoned and pregnant and generally useless. I told Mom I was doing better. I was. Technically, I was. I told her to go on this trip. I wanted her off my back. And how was I to know I was going to drink half a bottle of vodka last night? I didn’t mean it, didn’t plan it.
Fuck. Fuck me and fuck my life and I fucking hate myself so much.
Hungover as a mother. But not a mother. Because who would want me, who would want to be a copy of this?
You’d think getting knocked up and almost failing the eleventh grade would be rock bottom enough for any girl. Ha.
“Hannah,” Micah says, his hand on my arm.
“Go to class,” I mumble, throwing his pillow over my head. “You can take me home after.”
It’s too late to go back to Venice and get to school on time. Ditching school on a Friday is what any self-respecting senior would do.
His phone rings. “Mae? Sorry—sorry. I just saw your text. Fuck. I’m freaking out. I just woke up. My phone was on silent, so I missed all your—No. She’s asleep.” Micah’s voice veers in my direction. “Nah. Seriously, wake up. Please.”
I turn over. “Just tell her I’m ditching. Christ, she has to stop micromanaging my life. Only one of us is going to be an astronaut someday, and it isn’t me. The world will be fine if I cut a few more classes.”
I wonder what it must be like for Mae, to know that she matters, that she will maybe change the world. Dad is delighted by her. Mom is in awe of her. It’s like the universe had to even out her being adopted. I might have my parents’ genes, but she’s the best of them.
I’m so fucking basic.
“I’m looking now,” he says to Mae. “CNN.”
The room fills with the sound of people screaming. I bolt up. Micah’s at his desk, staring at his laptop.
“What is that?” I’m getting out of bed. “What?”
He turns toward me. Tries to say words, but all that comes out is a croak. Like when I said, Hey, I have to tell you something, and held up that stick with the two lines.
And I know, I think. I don’t know what, but it’s like I know everything in my life is turning to utter shit. Again.
“Was there a terrorist attack?” I ask.
He shakes his head. What scares me isn’t the fear on his face. It’s the confusion. Like the tables have been turned. Like whatever is on CNN is actually personal, like it’s going to be more than just some randomness you talk about, not a school shooting across the country or a famine on the other side of the world.