The First True Thing

by Claire Needell

  Andy and I hung back in the kitchen, away from Alex and the whole tense scene. Occasionally, I felt Alex’s gaze on me, but he kept his distance in the living room.

  I’d had a beer over at the quarry, but for me one beer had zero effect, and I was feeling jumpy with Alex around, so I hit the vodka hard. Andy seemed to get my mood. He watched me do two shots in a row without saying a word. Then he poured himself a shot, drank it, and poured another for each of us. “Cheers,” he said. I took a step closer to him, so we were almost touching—hoping he’d put his arm around me, or even kiss me. That’s when he turned cold.

  “I can’t do this, Marci,” he said softly.

  “Do what?” I asked.

  “You get too drunk,” he said. “I tried to tell you that night after Alex’s. If we’re going to get that fucked up together, we can’t—I can’t, you know, hook up. I can’t be that guy. I don’t want it to be like it was over the summer.” He took a couple of steps away, and leaned against the greasy-looking green-and-black kitchen counter.

  “You mean because of the night in the woods?” I asked. Andy stared at me, his usually spiky hair starting to droop over one eye. He looked, for a second, like a slightly older version of the twelve-year-old Andy I remembered from middle school, the kid who Ms. Billings made cry when he forgot his homework, the kid who hated to share anything he’d written, even if he’d gotten the best grade in class. He blinked a few times, and looked at the ceiling.

  “Yeah,” he continued. Then he lowered his voice. “I don’t want something bad to happen,” he said. “You were really fucked up that night. We both were. But I don’t want it to be like I took advantage of you. I don’t want to do something and then wish we didn’t.”

  I felt a lump in my throat, but I choked back the tears. Andy watched me silently as I turned my head away, and tilted back two or three more shots. If he wanted me to choose between him and drinking, I’d show him which I was more into. Anyway, how could I be sure Andy liked me at all—maybe his saying I got too drunk was just an excuse not to hook up?

  Either way, it wasn’t fair he got to decide.

  When I left that night, I heard Andy behind me, calling my name. But I had my bike with me, and I rode away too quickly for him to catch up on foot. I cried in the dark with the wind in my face. I cried and rode faster and faster. I rode straight into the darkness of the Death Wish path. Then the clouds must have cleared, or the moon came up over the hill; a faint light shone deeper in the woods. I rode toward that light, although I could barely see the path in front of me.

  This is the story I told in Group on Friday. Cyndi congratulated me. She said, “You were crushed by your crush. That’s such a great start!”

  “Andy actually sounds like your only friend,” James added.

  I cried a little when I finished talking. I didn’t say what I thought—which is that I wished Andy didn’t have to be so good. It would be easier if he were bad like me, if he would let things happen however they happened, even if that meant no one was in control.

  The so-called “modeling” Hannah was doing for Alex was supposed to be a one-time thing, so Hannah and Senna could get twice as much coke from Alex. Senna kept saying he didn’t want his girlfriend to become some kind of webcam whore. Hannah complained about it one day when we met for lunch at the diner—how jealous Senna was of Alex, and even of the guys who paid to watch her. “In a way it’s ridiculous,” she said. “In another way, it’s sad. But really it’s kind of like nothing. It’s boring, unless I try to entertain myself, and think about it like a movie, and like I’m some kind of star.” She made it sound almost like a joke, or something anyone would do.

  Hannah didn’t ask me about my life, or how I was doing at the Center, and it made me think about what the kids there all say about friendship, and having friends who do drugs and fuck up. They say everyone has that friend, the one who you’ll follow all the way down.

  Six

  MY MOM OPENS my door halfway, peeks in, then stands in the doorway in her baby-blue bathrobe and bare feet. “I’m too tired for this, kiddo,” she says. Her voice is deep and rough-sounding.

  “I just got a call from Elise Scott, looking for Hannah. Do you have any idea where she is? Elise seemed to think she was here studying. What is this nonsense, Marcelle?”

  A part of me wants to spill everything, to tell my mother about the text Hannah sent hours ago, and how I’ve heard nothing since. How odd it is. How Hannah never turns her phone off. But I can’t. Hannah’s lie tonight is a loose thread, and there are too many ways that Hannah’s life and mine are woven together.

  “I have no clue,” I say. I pull my covers up to my neck, and try to sound sincere.

  “She was in town earlier, and said she wanted to come by, but I told her I couldn’t hang out. She said she’d walk over to Senna’s instead. She probably fell asleep there.” I yawn. Everything I say is plausible.

  “I guess it isn’t our problem if Hannah doesn’t tell her mother where she goes,” Mom says. “But this gives me pause, Marcelle. The fact that Elise Scott is completely in the dark about where Hannah is on a school night does not sit well with me.”

  “What is it, Jude?” Dad calls from the bedroom. Shit. The last thing I need is both my parents on my back about where Hannah is. I don’t need to get busted on the smallest of lies, covering for Hannah when I don’t even know myself what the fuck she’s doing.

  “It’s fine, Jim. Just something with Hannah. Marcelle says it’s nothing.”

  “I’ve got to get some sleep, Mom,” I say. I try to sound nonchalant. Mom limps toward my bed. Her knee arthritis has been acting up, which happens, she says, when she’s stressed. She leans down to kiss my forehead, a thing she hasn’t done in years. I want to jerk away, but I let her kiss me, then inspect the rough skin where the stitches were.

  “I’m glad we got that plastic surgeon, Marcelle,” Mom says. “I don’t think you’ll have much of a scar.”

  Mom and I look at each other for an awkward moment. I feel like I’m about seven, with my Mom tucking me in. She stands up and pulls her bathrobe close to her chest. “Good night, sweetheart,” she says. “I’ll pick you up right at three tomorrow. Please don’t make me wait. I have a call.”

  “No problem,” I say, and roll over. For half a second I thought maybe Mom had forgiven me for being such a fuck-up, but no. She had to get that last dig in about how her whole life has been thrown into chaos because she has to work from home and drive me back and forth to the Center every day.

  Mom shuts the door, and I close my eyes. I need rest, but my mind is racing. There are facts that add up to something, I tell myself.

  When Hannah texted for me to cover for her, I figured she was with Alex, and just didn’t want Senna to know. But it’s strange for her to stay out so late on a Sunday, when she knows her mom will start looking for her. What kind of story did she expect me to tell?

  I try not to think about tomorrow, or tomorrow night, or all the endless days and nights I have to get through without drinking a single drink. It’s like holding on to a rock in a high-up place, and not being afraid of falling so much as having to hold on, because I know how it will feel when I fall. I know that if I drank, even just a couple of beers, that I could let go, let go of trying to be what I’m supposed to be—to my parents; at Group—I’d fall, and I know the fall would be soft, and the darkness would welcome me, because drinking is always like that—it’s oblivion—it’s bottomless, an actual pit sometimes, but it also feels just like home.

  Seven

  “SPEAK, MARCELLE. GIVE it up.” I’m confused. Senna is on the attack and Hannah is nowhere to be seen. It’s Monday morning and the bell is about to ring. Senna’s been looking for Hannah since before she texted me last night, and he seems to think I know more than I do.

  “She was just checking up on me,” I say. “Making sure my parents hadn’t shipped me off somewhere.”

  Senna shoves his big, pale face in front of mine. I
shrug and look at my feet. Apparently Hannah hasn’t answered any of his texts or calls since yesterday afternoon. “I went everywhere I could think last night—Harbor Park, down by the marina, even walked over to the quarry, but I didn’t see anyone.” Senna blinks his narrow eyes rapidly and shakes his hair off his forehead, as he scans the school parking lot for some sign of Hannah.

  “Then, I drove all the way the fuck over to White Plains and got Alex up,” he continues. “He and that freak roommate of his came to the door carrying. Guy holding a baseball bat. Alex with a big-ass knife. Alex was like, ‘What the fuck do I know about some little girl?’” Senna pauses, takes a deep breath, and turns to Andy. “Where’s your bro, anyway? Maybe he has something the fuck to say.”

  “I saw him last night. He came by for dinner. My parents are pissed because he was supposed to get his applications in for spring semester and he’s still blowing it off. It was not a pleasant evening at my abode,” Andy said. On the rare occasions Andy and I talk about anything personal, it’s the same—Andy’s parents fighting either with or about Jonas.

  “Let me see that text she sent you,” Senna says, putting his meaty hand out for my phone. I shoot Andy a look. “I deleted it,” I say. “My parents take my phone away at night. I delete pretty much everything.” This is a lie, but I can’t let Senna see that Hannah was avoiding him.

  Senna narrows his eyes. I shiver. I know Senna suspects something, but nothing good can come of admitting that Hannah wanted me to lie. Senna’s story about going to Alex’s freaks me out even more. Like Senna, I suspected Alex was somehow involved in whatever Hannah was up to last night. Was Alex lying? Did he come to the door armed with a knife because Hannah was there, and he knew her boyfriend would come looking for her? A thousand thoughts run through my mind.

  First bell has rung, but all three of us stay put, under the big oak, as kids start to move toward the school entrance. Senna sighs and kicks at a tree root. If only Hannah would show up. She sometimes comes late, but I know she has Photography first today, a class she hates to miss. Senna was out half the night looking for Hannah, and Hannah never got in touch with him. She asked me to cover for her, but never explained why. It’s like she didn’t want to be found, not just for a few hours, but for the entire night.

  Lost in my own swirling thoughts, I don’t notice Chuck until he’s standing right next to me. His eyes are red and puffy. “You okay?” I ask, but he acts like I’m not there, and directs his attention toward Senna.

  “What’s up?” he says. But Senna is too preoccupied with Hannah to respond.

  “Maybe she’s at her dad’s,” I say. “He’s out of the country a lot. She could have just wanted a break, get out of town for a bit.”

  Senna eyes me suspiciously. “Why would she want to get away? For what?”

  I shrug.

  “You’re a big fucking help, Marcelle,” Senna says sneeringly. To my surprise, he’s getting teary.

  “Easy,” Andy interrupts. “What’s Marci got to do with anything?” I feel myself flush when Andy comes to my defense.

  “What the fuck are you guys talking about?” Chuck asks.

  “Hannah’s kind of gone,” Andy says. “Since last night. I bet she’s at her dad’s, like Marci says. Maybe she got in a fight with her mom and took off.”

  “She’d tell me that,” Senna says. “I saw her in the morning, yesterday. She came by, then left at, like, noon. She said she was going home. She had an audition with some lady in White Plains for singing classes today. She wanted to practice by herself and nail the vocal.”

  “The audition is this afternoon,” I say. “She won’t blow that off.”

  “No, uh-uh,” Chuck adds. “The three of us practiced that one song all last week.”

  “That’s it,” Senna says, shaking his head. “She blows this audition off and there’s no way I’m listening to you mangle a pulse one more time, Glasser.”

  “Forget you,” Chuck says. “I’m not even responding to that shit.”

  It’s late and Andy and I have English, but I’m too freaked out to leave the tree, or to walk away from Senna and Chuck and their stupid bickering.

  “This is majorly messing with my head,” I say. Andy looks solemn, and I think how much he has to deal with having that fuck-up Jonas for a brother, and two idiots like Chuck and Senna as his best friends.

  “Yeah, well,” Senna says. “Maybe you should have asked what the fuck was up with her last night, Marcelle.” He turns his head and hisses, “Bitch.” It’s unclear whether this is directed at me or Hannah.

  “Shit,” Andy says. “We’ve got to stay cool, and think what’s logical here.” People stream into the building and the four of us drift that way too. I scan the front parking lot, yet again, for any sign of Hannah. With each step I take, I feel an increasing sense of dread, a chill that spreads throughout my body. The guys and I all pause at the glass doors. I’m grateful when Senna and Chuck take a left toward the math building, and Andy and I go right.

  “What do you think?” Andy asks. He shoots me a look, his eyes wide and dark, so dark you can barely see the pupils. I want to ask him what he thinks—about Hannah, about us, but I’m not feeling very brave.

  Everyone calls the path through the wooded part of our town the Death Wish path, because of a story from the nineties. People say that some girl was found out there in the woods with her neck slashed; they say anyone who goes there at night must have a death wish. But I didn’t want to die that night. I was afraid of what would happen if Andy and I were never anything real, and Hannah was always off with Senna and Alex, and I was left alone for the rest of high school. Andy said he “couldn’t be that guy.” He didn’t want to get with me when I was drunk. I know I should feel good about that, like Cyndi and James say. But it also scares me. I think once a guy gets turned off by you, it’s kind of like a switch that might never go back on.

  I pause at the door to Bartow’s classroom. “A part of me doesn’t want to think about Hannah at all,” I say. “I have enough to worry about.”

  “Yeah,” Andy says. “That makes sense. You need to focus on you.”

  I blush. “You sound like my dad,” I say. Andy shrugs, and opens the classroom door.

  “I just think Hannah can take care of herself.”

  Andy and I spend most of English listening to Ms. Bartow lecture us about basic punctuation rules, and then we get about five minutes to peer edit each other’s “This I Believe” essays. We exchange papers and he, annoyingly, finds multiple errors in my first paragraph.

  Sitting next to Andy, and thinking about Hannah, I can hardly concentrate. My heart beats too fast and too hard. I watch the clock and wonder if Hannah has come to school yet. My phone is on silent. I think ahead to the end of class, when I can check to see if she texted me. I want to believe that Andy is right—Hannah can take care of herself. But there’s another part of me that thinks that’s wrong. It’s the opposite. She just thinks she can, no matter what kind of fucked-up situation she gets herself into.

  I can’t concentrate on Andy’s paper, and instead of making editorial comments I decide to take a chance and type right into his document: She told me to lie to Senna.

  I wait for his response. Senna is his friend. But I need to know if I can trust Andy—if he’ll keep this secret from Senna and help me find out where Hannah went.

  When we pass each other back our iPads, Andy has erased my note. At 9:05, we’re dismissed. Andy walks out ahead of me. In the hallway, he pauses. “We should talk,” he says.

  “I’m going to Mr. Figeroa at lunch,” I say. I need to make up a chem lab from when I was out. “Then Mom gets me at three. Then I have jail until six,” I say.

  Andy reaches over and brushes an old brown leaf off my book bag. This is the first flirty gesture he has made in weeks. “How about later?” he asks.

  “I’m going to Michiko Sakuna’s. You know, the lady who lives in that modern house off Summit?” Andy nods. “My parents are making
me do chores for her to thank her for saving my life,” I say. “I’ll be there around six fifteen to six thirty or so. I can call you from there. I’ll be alone.”

  Michiko Sakuna is the neighbor whose car I landed under, and who called the cops the night of my accident. I used to take care of her pets back in middle school, when she and her son went away. My parents wanted me to pay her back for her trouble, and for leaving a pond of blood in the middle of her driveway where I fell. For the next few months, I’m committed to feeding her pets every night, since she usually doesn’t get home from work until after eight. It’s a joke of a job, but I like her and her house.

  “Did you see my note?” I ask, dropping my voice to a whisper.

  Andy nods. “If she doesn’t show this afternoon for that audition, I think you should tell someone.” I feel my throat tighten. Andy looks at the floor, then back at me. He clears his throat. “It’s not just Hannah,” he says. “Jonas is messed up, too. Doing coke all the time. He’s always over at Alex’s. But this whole tech company, you know what it is, don’t you? She told you what they’re doing, right?”

  Hannah made me promise on my life not to say anything to Andy, but it turns out he knows? I nod. “Yeah, she told me. I wasn’t sure if anyone other than Senna knew. I don’t understand how she could be involved with Alex. I just don’t get it,” I say.

  Andy shakes his head. “Jonas told me a few weeks ago. He was really jacked up and couldn’t stop talking. He said he needs to get away. Get away from Alex. I hope he can. I hope he can get his shit together, before my dad gets a fucking heart attack.”

  The hallway has filled with people, and Andy and I are getting pushed closer and closer together, until our shoulders touch. “Shit,” he says. “I’ve got to go. Let me know what happens—if she texts you or anything, okay? Call me from Michiko’s. I’ll see if I can find out anything from Jonas.” He gives the end of my braid a tug, and joins the throng of kids headed toward the science wing. Usually Andy talks to everyone, but as I watch him walk through the crowd with his hood up and his head down, everyone seems to move out of his way.