that we could beat this thing. Together.”
Her skin goes blotchy. “I don’t want that. Call them back, Mae. I didn’t ask for that!”
“If you had cancer, like Annie did, I’d stay. This is the same thing. Like Aunt Nora said, you have a disease. You’re sick. And if we don’t treat it, you could die. Or at least have a really awful life.”
“You are making too big a deal of this!” Hannah says. “Seriously. Like, I’m sorry I didn’t come home one night—ground me or whatever. I don’t need this, like, this fucking intervention, and I don’t need you to give up your dreams, and this is so stupid, it’s just so—”
Aunt Nora stands. “This isn’t about last night. It’s about all the weeks before that.”
“But we’ll start with last night,” Uncle Tony says. He shoves his hands in his pockets. “You didn’t even call, Hannah. Your sister’s birthday, the first without your parents. We couldn’t believe it. Thought something terrible had to have happened for you to pull something like that. Didn’t want to worry Mae because she was already so upset about your dad, so we tried to handle it on our own. Your phone was off. I was getting ready to call the cops this morning, but then Mae told us about the pills. We were terrified. You were out in a snowstorm, on drugs. And then, considering who you were with—”
Nah throws a look of pure hatred toward the chairs Nate and I sit in by the fireplace. “You don’t know Drew at all. You’re just judging him because he’s not like you, all brilliant and—”
“We’re judging him because he sold you drugs, Hannah,” Nate says.
“Not in forever!”
Nate rolls his eyes. “Forever? Considering you’ve known him for about a month, that means he sold you some, what, last week?”
“Fuck you.”
“Hey.” Aunt Nora glares at Nah. “There’s no excuse for that. Your cousin loves you. That’s why he’s here. I’m sure there are a lot more things Nate would rather be doing.”
“Then he should go do them,” she snaps.
Who is this girl? Where is my sister, who rubbed Mom’s lotion into my hands when I was sad?
Aunt Nora seems to read my mind.
“She’s in withdrawal. They said she’d be … irritable. Among other things.”
Nah gives an inarticulate growl. “I don’t appreciate being talked about like I’m not here.”
“And none of us appreciate being talked to like we’re the enemy,” Aunt Nora says. “We have to make some decisions about next steps. All of us.”
She looks around, and I swear we’re suddenly in a courtroom and she’s about to give one of her opening statements. She’s decided Hannah is guilty, and now there will be consequences.
“What are her options?” Nate asks.
“They want me to go to fucking rehab,” Nah says. “Just because I came home one time on something—”
“It wasn’t just one time,” Uncle Tony says. “You already admitted that at the hospital. You’ve relapsed, and we have to—”
“Let’s see both of your parents die in a tsunami and see how you cope, Tony,” she says.
He gives her a hard stare. “Let’s see you watch your daughter die of leukemia and see how you cope.”
All of us flinch—Nah included.
“I’m sorry,” she whispers.
“Do you see what this shit turns you into?” Uncle Tony says. “Do you know how lucky you are to be alive?”
“Tony.” Aunt Nora gives a slight shake of her head, and he stands and crosses to the far side of the room, stares out the window. His hands are shaking. He’s not mad, I realize: He’s scared.
He doesn’t want to go to another funeral.
Nah’s hand floats to her stomach. I can see my sister retreating to wherever she goes when she thinks about the clinic.
“It helped last time, when you did the outpatient program,” I tell her. “People often have to go more than once. When I was doing research—”
“I don’t want to hear about your goddamn research, Mae!”
“Hannah, you have a serious addiction,” Aunt Nora says. “You’ve already been in detox and outpatient group therapy this year alone. On top of that, you’ve suffered enormous trauma losing your parents, and the move, not to mention—”
She stops, uncertain, and Hannah stares at me.
“You told them about the clinic?”
“I had to, Nah. The secrets aren’t helping.”
“That wasn’t your story to tell. Mom and Dad said that all of this was my story to tell!”
“When they were HERE,” I yell. Then I remember that I have to be calm under pressure. I take a breath. “They said that