day, diamonds are just rocks. And we’re the suckers who empty our pockets for them.
Micah wanted me, too, at first. I could feel it, the way he couldn’t keep his hands off me. Drew can’t even touch me—look at him, look at him not even wanting to touch me, like I’m contagious or dirty. Because maybe I am. Dirty.
I pull my coat tighter around me. Back away. “I know what it’s like to be with someone who wants me. This … doesn’t feel like that.”
“Because it isn’t like that,” Drew says, louder. “I’m not just trying to get down your pants, okay?”
“Well, obviously you’re not trying to do that.” Maybe I’m ugly now. The sadness, the pills. Maybe that’s why he doesn’t want to kiss me.
“Hannah, I…”
He stops. Looks at his feet. Canvas tennis shoes soaked through with snow. The storm caught us by surprise. Doesn’t everything?
I am so cold. Every part of me is frozen. Snow whips between us, and I back away a little more.
Drew’s thinking. Deciding. If I’m worth it. But we both know the answer.
I’m not.
“This was a mistake, Drew.”
He doesn’t look at me. “What?”
“Being here.”
“With me.”
As soon as this is over, I’m taking a pill. Fuck it. Fuck everyone. Fuck me most of all.
“Yeah,” I say. “With you.”
When I walk away, part of me hopes—thinks—he’ll run after me. Or call my name. But he doesn’t.
He lets me go.
Like a shell you pick up from the beach, admire for a moment, but then throw back into the water. You don’t see where it lands.
The ocean doesn’t whisper, Hannah. Hannah.
It doesn’t say anything at all.
* * *
The pill is in my mouth before I reach the end of the street.
If I pulled a card right now, I’d get the Devil: the card of addicts everywhere. The devil made me do it. My favorite Devil is in the Shadowscapes tarot, because it shows exactly what it feels like to be in prison. The Devil in that one is this beautiful but terrifying winged monster standing on top of a cave, juggling a heart in its hands. In the cave is a naked girl in chains, curled in on herself. I don’t see how she’ll ever get out.
I jump on the next train and ride the T all morning long. I like the C Line, even though it’s more of a trolley than a subway, because it goes aboveground part of the time. So I just ride it up and down Boston, and I keep drawing a D, over and over, in the steam on the window—Drew, Drew, Drew. I go past Fenway, the “Cathedral” where the Sox play, and when the train slides underground I look up and imagine my angel as we zoom under Boston Garden, then we rumble beneath the dystopian buildings of Government Center. I have to get out at the end of the line, North Station, and change directions, then I ride the train back to Cleveland Circle, to the reservoir in front of Boston College, where I walked with Mom last Thanksgiving. We drank pumpkin spice lattes, and she told me it was okay I didn’t want to go to college.
Then she fucking died, and now I ride trains by myself and think thoughts like: Anna Karenina was brave.
It takes brass ovaries to throw yourself in front of a train.
I only saw the movie, because I’m not smart enough to read the book. Mae read the book.
And then I have to try hard not to cry in public. Because it’s wrong to want to die so badly when someone spent twenty-one hours in labor to bring you into the world.
It’s warm in these old, cranky cars and I’m clean and young and don’t look homeless, so no one bothers me. That’s what you call privilege, I guess. It’s a Sunday morning, and the other passengers are carrying shopping bags and children and are too busy planning next week’s Thanksgiving dinner to notice the girl at the end of the car wrapped in an olive-green wool coat, her tangled hair covered with a thick knitted hat a drug dealer—former drug dealer—bought her on a whim because it has a pouf on the top that he thought might make her smile.
Just when I’m about to start feeling sad about Drew, my diamonds start to shine inside me. Pretty, pretty Oxy (Percocet’s for babies) wraps itself around me and we are woven in each other, in love.
I smile.
I forget.
I float.
Pro Tip: Wear sunglasses. Put in earbuds.