Now Is Everything

by Amy Giles

  His pencil digs deeper into the paper as he writes. “I could. But Suffolk is cheaper.”

  “There are scholarships—”

  “Let it go, Hadley.” His eyes flash as he looks up across the table at me. “I don’t have a buttload of cash like you do, okay?”

  I flinch. “I didn’t . . . that’s why I mentioned scholarships . . .”

  His cheeks turn red, whether in anger or embarrassment, I can’t tell. “I have a plan,” he says, focusing on his paper. “I’ll go to Suffolk for two years, keep working, save up more money, then finish the last two years at a better school. That way I won’t be stuck with huge student loans.”

  “There’s also financial aid—” I stop when his shoulders stiffen. “Okay, sorry. I’m just trying to help.”

  He glances up at me, his face firm. “I just don’t like talking about money. Not with you,” he adds, as if to clarify especially with me. It stings.

  My spine straightens, filling with indignation. “Hey, wait a minute. I’ve never said anything to make you get all defensive about this.”

  He shakes his head. “No, you don’t have to say anything. But every time you offer to pay for dinner or the movies, you’re apologizing for having way more than me.”

  “What the hell, Charlie? I didn’t take you for a Neanderthal! You don’t have to pay for your date every time we go out!”

  He bristles but tries to shrug it off. “It’s just me, okay? It bugs me. It’s how I feel. I can’t help it.”

  I nod. “Okay. I can’t help how you feel. But you can’t make me feel bad about my father making a lot of money. It’s not even mine, anyway.” He rolls his eyes but nods. After a few awkward minutes, he reaches across the table to squeeze my hand.

  “I quarter apologize,” he teases. I squeeze his hand back, glad our first fight is over.

  “Quarter apology accepted.”

  A few more silent moments pass. He takes a deep breath and then throws his pencil down. “Truth?”

  I glance up at him and nod.

  He gnaws on his lip. “It’s not just the money. I’m afraid once I’m gone, my mother will have no reason to stay sober.”

  This time I’m the one who reaches across the table to squeeze his hand.

  I stare at my calendar pinned to my bulletin board, at the condemning tiny red dot on the day that came and went.

  I’m late.

  As I take my last placebo pill, I count the empty deflated bubbles in the plastic dome in my hand. I didn’t miss one pill. It’s impossible. I did everything right. I followed the rules to the letter, even taking the pill the same minute every night.

  I do a quick search online.

  If you have not missed any pills, it is very unlikely that you are pregnant if you miss one period. It may just be your body acclimating to the Pill.

  It’s only one period. I’m okay. I’m not pregnant. I’m not.

  now

  Group therapy is like show-and-tell. Tell us who touched you, punched you, hurt you. Then show us the scars, visible or lurking just below the surface. And remember to take turns.

  “So then he dragged me to the bathroom by my hood. She didn’t wake up when he was kicking my ass. But the sound of my head splashing around in the toilet . . . that woke her up.” Rowan looks around at the small group sitting in a circle, arms outstretched, unintentionally showing off the crosshatch pattern on her forearms.

  Linda turns to me after Rowan is done.

  “How about you, Hadley? Anything you’d like to share today?”

  I shake my head. “No, thank you.”

  Franklin rubs his chest with a smug smile. “You’re a hoarder.”

  Tabitha snickers. “It’s like a clusterfuck up in there,” she says as if I’m not sitting in the same circle as her.

  Like an elder statesman, Franklin leans back in his chair and imparts his wise counsel. “You gotta unload some of that shit.”

  Linda turns to me. “Franklin’s right, Hadley. You get what you put into group.”

  She then hands us each a stubby pencil and a sheet of paper and tells us to write down one negative thought and three positive ones to counteract it. I leave the negative blank, focusing instead on the first positives that pop into my head: Lila, Charlie, Meaghan, Noah, Grandma.

  “Everyone done?” Linda pans around the group. “Okay. Let’s share them with the group. Maria, why don’t you start.”

  Maria crosses her legs at her ankles and clears her throat. “My negative: that I’ll never be okay again.” She takes a deep breath to steady herself. Franklin reaches over and rubs her back. “My positives: my best friend, Angela; the beach, especially if I have it all to myself; and running. God, I miss running.”

  “Very good, Maria,” Linda says. “Franklin?”

  Franklin clutches his list with both hands. His knee shakes back and forth. “My negative: when I found Lenny.” He stares at his paper. His throat bobs as he swallows, once, twice. He finds it in him to keep going in a tight voice. “My positives: the Rangers, my grandma’s empanadas . . . and my mom,” he finishes, blushing.

  Linda reaches over and squeezes Franklin’s shoulder. “Great job, Franklin.” She looks around the group, her eyes coaxing us to support Franklin. Franklin had a breakthrough today. Even I know that, and I’m the new kid. Franklin never says his brother’s name. He was mad at Lenny for killing himself. “It was the ultimate fuck you!” Franklin said last time, his eyes bloodshot with rage. “How do you fucking kill yourself before you make it right with the people around you? It’s like . . . it’s like he did it just to fuck me up! He did it to get even with me!”

  “Donnie? Are you ready, sweetie?” Linda looks over at Donnie, whose shoulder blades still poke out of her shirt like bird wings, even though her calorie intake is being carefully monitored.

  Donnie immediately starts sobbing.

  “Everyone keeps telling me I’m here to get better . . . but I’m fine!” She looks up at the group, tears running down her face. “I’m not like any of you! I just want to go back home! Zane’s going to find someone else while I’m here . . .”

  Thankfully, Donnie runs out the clock, because I misunderstood the assignment. All I did was make a list of people who made me happy before. No amount of talking or therapy can absolve me of my guilt, which weighs on me like a collapsed building.

  At the end of the session, Linda makes certain we each return our dull, stubby pencils so we can’t find a way to pierce an artery with them.

  Out in the hallway, I see him at the nurse’s station, talking to Janet. The same guy with the kind eyes the day of the crash. Janet has her arms folded, shaking her head.

  A hand clamps down on my shoulder.

  “Time’s running out.”

  I spin around. “Huh?”

  Rowan wrinkles her nose and grins. “Linda’s gonna make you talk next time.”

  The man at the desk sees me standing in the hallway with Rowan and waves.

  “Hadley!”

  Janet yanks his arm back down. “That’s enough!”

  The walls close in on me, pressing down. I lean my hand against the cinder block wall so I don’t tip over. Rowan grabs my arm and drags me into our room.

  “Sit down,” she orders me, and I fall back on my bed. “Put your head between your knees.”

  Janet comes in a few seconds later. I hear them talking over me, but they sound far away, like they’re underwater.

  “She looked like she was gonna pass out,” Rowan says. “Or puke. Hadley, here’s the trash can if you’re gonna puke.” She shoves it under my face.

  “Hadley? Are you okay?” Janet kneels down next to me.

  I nod, even though, no, I’m not okay.

  I’m not going to be able to put off talking much longer.

  then

  Another party is coming up, and Meaghan wants a new outfit for a new love interest, someone to get her mind off Mike. After school on Monday, Noah and I go with her to the mall, which is d
ecked out for Christmas, three weeks away. Santa has his workshop set up in the center of the first floor between Kate Spade and Michael Kors; a long line of kids wait their turn to put in their toy requests. Is wishing your father would disappear something Santa would consider?

  We stroll around aimlessly, sharing a batch of Auntie Anne’s cinnamon sugar pretzel nuggets.

  “I’m just saying, I think I counted a total of two menorahs in the entire mall,” Noah argues, glancing around at what could technically be considered nondenominational holiday decorations, though we all know they’re really for Christmas. If there’s any doubt, Santa’s booming ho-ho-ho punctuates Noah’s point.

  “I’ll buy you some gelt at the Godiva store.” Meaghan pats him on the arm, then turns to me. “So what are you getting Charlie for Christmas?”

  “I don’t know,” I say. “I don’t want to buy him something that will make him feel like he didn’t spend as much on me.” After our argument about money, I don’t want to push it.

  At that exact moment, we walk by Victoria’s Secret.

  “Come with me!” She grabs my arm and drags me in. Noah follows.

  “What are we doing here?” I look around at the near-naked mannequins with their firm plastic butt cheeks hanging out of satin and lace thongs.

  “You are going to get something pretty to wear for your man. That will be your present to him!” She navigates me to the back corner with the sexy, sexy things.

  I put my hand behind a see-through black bustier hanging off a rack, with a bunch of clasps and hooks and straps.

  “There is no way in hell . . .” I step back as if it has teeth and is ready to take a bite out of me.

  “No, not that.” She shakes her head at the contraption. “That’s way too advanced for you. No I was thinking about something like this.” She holds up a sheer baby doll nightie in red, with a lace bodice and matching panty, if you can call a fragile, dental-floss G-string a panty.

  Heat climbs up my neck just picturing that encounter.

  Noah holds it up high and cocks an eyebrow. “Not in red. She’s going to look like an heirloom tomato with all that blushing.” He flips through the rack looking for another color.

  “Guys, seriously. I can’t,” I protest.

  Meaghan is relentless. She whips out her phone and takes a picture.

  “Let’s see what Charlie thinks.” She hits send before I can stop her.

  “Meaghan!”

  She throws her phone back in her purse. “Hey, you’ll both thank me for it, I’m sure. Fa-la-la-la-la.”

  My phone rings a second later.

  “That was fast!” Noah laughs.

  I don’t recognize the phone number; maybe he’s calling from work? I answer my phone with a groan. “I swear this wasn’t my idea.”

  “Hadley?”

  I pause, forcing my brain to switch gears. “Mom?”

  “Hadley . . . there’s been a misunderstanding,” she says in a strained voice.

  Something is very wrong.

  “Mom, what’s going on?”

  She sighs, but it warbles. “I’m sure we can clear this up quickly. But they’re being very unreasonable. I think they’re just trying to make an example—”

  Loud voices swell in the background, followed by someone yelling, “Get off me!”

  “Where are you?”

  She tries to inflate her voice with haughty self-confidence but fails.

  “I’m at the second precinct.”

  “The second precinct? Why?”

  “There’s nothing to worry about. I just need you to come down here and get Lila.”

  “LILA!” I cry. “Mom, what . . .”

  She exhales, exasperated. “Hadley, please. Stop asking so many questions. Just come now.”

  She hangs up. I stare blankly at my friends.

  Noah stands frozen like a mannequin, holding a lavender nightie up in the air. Meaghan has her phone in her hand.

  “Um.” Meaghan holds the phone up. “Charlie likes the nightie.”

  Noah walks over and wraps me in his arms, which makes me want to cry.

  Lila’s toes barely graze the floor from the police station chair. She’s staring down at her feet, but I can see that she’s gnawing on her bottom lip.

  “Lila!” I call over to her.

  She runs into my arms, burrowing her head into my chest like she’s trying to disappear. I hug her and lean to her ear.

  “Was she drunk?”

  Lila nods against my chest. This is bad. Really bad. Felony bad.

  The officer she was sitting with walks over to me.

  “Are you the older sister?” she asks, her face stern but somehow also compassionate.

  “Yes. I, uh, my mother called me to come down. I’m not sure what I’m supposed to do.”

  “Can I see your ID?” She juts her hand out.

  I open my purse and hand her my license. She looks at it for a second and then hands it back.

  “Why is she here?” I ask, afraid to hear her answer.

  “DWI. Left the scene of an accident. She hit a parked car on Willow then tried to flee. We pulled her over a block away.”

  I close my eyes trying to shake the image. What Lila must have seen, felt . . . Why did I leave her alone with Mom, knowing she was drinking more? Why did I think Mom would have the common sense not to drink when she still had to drive Lila?

  “Do you have any relatives you can call?”

  I blink back. “Did . . . uh . . . was my father notified yet?”

  She nods, her face not giving anything away. “He was.”

  I look down at Lila.

  “He’s mad,” she whispers. I close my eyes.

  “Can I bail her out or something?”

  The officer shakes her head. “Afraid not. Your father or another adult over eighteen is going to have to take care of that. Until then, she stays here.”

  “Did he happen to say when he’s coming?”

  She shakes her head, her lips a straight line.

  “Okay, we can call our grandmother.” I pull out my phone.

  She nods. “Let me know when you get her on the line.”

  Sitting down in a chair, I stare at my phone in my hand. Lila takes the seat next to me. What am I supposed to tell Grandma? This will break her heart.

  I look at Lila. “Are you okay?” Her forehead has those tiny wrinkles she gets when she’s really worried or sick, both of which are rare for Lila. Her chin puckers and her lips twist, trying to hold it together, trying to be cooler and older than all of her ten years. But she can’t hold it anymore. She buries her face in my armpit and sobs.

  I hold her and dial. She answers on the second ring.

  “Hi, Grandma.” I press my cheek against Lila’s soft hair. “We need you.”

  Grandma and I meet in my bedroom after we convince Lila to take a hot bath to calm down.

  “That bastard! He won’t pay the money to bail her out. He’s letting her stay there tonight to teach her a lesson,” Grandma says with a huff as we listen to the tub fill up with Lila in it across the hall.

  “He has to eventually,” I answer. “Just so it doesn’t get all around town. It’ll be all over Facebook if he doesn’t.”

  Grandma stares at me for a while, her blue eyes turning glassy and pink around the rims.

  “Hadley, I don’t know what happened to my daughter. I didn’t raise her to be like this!”

  She sits down on my bed, picking up the faux-fur throw and staring at it like it’s the stupidest thing she’s ever seen. “We were happy. We struggled, but we were happy. I don’t know how this became so important to her.” Her hands wave around my room in disgust.

  I plop down on the bed next to her. Maybe Charlie was right. Maybe Grandma is the answer. I bite my lip and turn to face her. I want to tell her everything.

  “You know what your father told me? He told me he has a lawyer on it. He’s going to make it go away.” She snaps her fingers, her eyes flashing. “That�
��s what money does, you know? Makes bad things just go away.”

  With a snap of her fingers, all those dangerous maybes and what ifs starting to take root inside me are gone.

  Charlie’s hopefulness infected me. I allowed myself to start to believe maybe Grandma was the answer to our problems. And now I know it would be no use to tell her. Because Dad has the kind of power that makes people and things go away. Even Grandma.

  Useless words lodge in my throat. They’ll only upset her because there’s nothing either of us can do about it.

  “Oh, sweetie.” Grandma pats my knee. “Everything will be fine. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to frighten you.”

  I nod and wipe the tears that escaped.

  “I know,” I assure her.

  That night before bed, I check my texts before setting my phone to quiet. There’s one from Noah.

  I have a feeling things may not be all sunshine and magic at the homestead tonight. You know you can talk to me about anything, right?

  I text him back a quick X and O, then add a gif of a dog chasing its tail in circles before I shut my phone off.

  Mom comes home the next day. Dad is now giving both Mom and me the silent treatment. He runs by himself every morning and comes home late from work every night, if at all.

  Mom focuses all her energies into getting ready for Christmas. The tree goes up, and she decks the halls from top to bottom. The ten-foot Scotch pine is decorated in gold ribbons and delicate red ornaments. Year after year, the handmade ornaments we made in school never make it onto her perfect tree.

  For a few weeks, the house is quiet. I get to sleep in for the first time in years, spending my free time in the afternoons with Charlie when he’s not working. I haven’t had a flying lesson with Phil since October. After canceling three times in a row, he left it in my hands: “Call me when you’re ready to come back.” I haven’t scheduled a lesson since. Even with all this free time, I don’t bother to reschedule just because I don’t feel like going.

  My life feels almost blissfully normal.

  The Monday before Christmas, the atmosphere shifts again. Dad makes his coffee downstairs, the buzzing of the coffee grinder waking me up. Then the footsteps come up the stairs and down the hallway. The bang on the door should come right about . . .