about it. My sister has been drowning for months, and I’ve been standing on the shore so close—but instead of looking out for her in that water, jumping in and pulling her out, I’ve had my eyes on the stars.
Selfish. I’ve been so selfish.
Maybe I didn’t try to save her because a part of me knew that I’d have to give up Annapolis to do that. I’d hoped flushing her pills or calling Micah would do the trick. I was trying to pass her off to him, wasn’t I?
I was willfully ignorant. The biggest crime you can commit.
Drew stands. “Call the cops. Call the damn mayor, if you want. I don’t deserve her—that’s true. But she’s the one good thing in my life. And I know I can be a good thing in hers. And you’re not keeping me from her.”
I reach up and grab his arm, squeeze so hard he winces as I pull myself up. He’s tall, taller than Hannah, even, so I have to stand on my toes to say what I have to say properly.
“You’re right: You don’t deserve her.” I swallow. “But … you’re also right about me. I have to … to recalculate my course.”
He nods.
“Here’s the thing, though,” I say. “You almost took her from me. In a way, you already have. Her addiction isn’t your fault. It’s no one’s fault. But easy access to pills—that is your fault. Not talking to my family so we can all keep her safe—also your fault. If you really love her, you’ll stay away.” I drop my hand. “Our family can’t handle one more disaster, and that’s all you’ll be. You’ll hurt her. You already have. And she’ll hurt you. That’s what she does. And then she’ll feel bad about it. And it will make everything worse. We’ll take it from here. Okay?”
Drew grips the bar above us as the train takes a sharp turn. “The difference between you and me, Mae, is that when I look at your sister, I don’t see a problem. I see a solution.” The smile he gives me is sad, and old. It’s seen a lot of things maybe I haven’t. “She’s so much more than any of you have ever given her credit for.” He leans forward. “And I’ll tell you a little something I’ve picked up as a dealer. The pills, they have nothing to do with the stuff everyone thinks users take them for. Hannah doesn’t take them because of the wave or the abortion or because she fell in with the wrong crowd.”
“But … why, then?”
“I think you need to spend some time getting to know your sister better, Mae.”
The train stops, and Drew turns, folding himself into the trickle of bodies exiting at Harvard Square. I stare after him long after the doors shut and the train starts again.
I sit on that train and ride it all the way to the end of the line, ride it like my sister did that morning when she was alone and cold and desperate and scared.
He’s right: I don’t know her. Not really. I thought I did. But I had to ask her what she wanted because I had no idea. And when I think about her now, the only adjective that comes to mind is broken. I don’t know when she stopped being the person who sang along to Hocus Pocus or the fun girl who worked at the coffee shop by our house. The one who went to bonfires with surfers and loved jumping into waves and making goofy playlists.
I guess I wasn’t looking.
Jean Cocteau—artist, writer, filmmaker—said of opium: I owe it my perfect hours. It makes me so sad, to imagine Nah’s perfect hours being ones that are all alone, hiding, filled with pills to help her forget the wave and whatever made her start taking the pills in the first place. Covered in vomit, her lips blue from cold. Skin breaking out in a rash. I want to help her see what Ben showed me about time, how it can be a gift. How a minute, if you really let yourself live it, can be everything.
The past few days, I’ve been kicking my research into high gear. Thinking I was working the problem. I thought maybe if I could figure out why the pills were so attractive, I could provide an alternative. As though it would be a simple bait and switch. What, exactly, are the pills giving her that life isn’t? And then