Reasons to Be Happy (2 page)

My cities make me feel…peaceful, if that’s not too dorky. I can make a world where everything is okay, where everything is the way it should be. You can look at it and breathe a sigh of relief.

Those cities are the reason I have things on my list like:

25. Running my hands through a barrel of beads

35. Beach glass

37. Really great thrift stores

(Like once, I found an entire glass jar of buttons at this funky shop in Venice Beach, buttons that looked like typewriter keys, cameo buttons, yellow flower buttons, and tiny copper sun buttons.)

49. Finding surprise stuff inside boxes at yard sales

(One time I found this square, art-deco iridescent peacock broach inside a music box.)

61. Old-fashioned keys (and wondering what they open)

I was actually naïve enough to consider sharing these cities with my new “friends,” when Bebe yawned loudly—a fake, mean yawn meant to tell the art teacher how boring he was—and said, “Can you believe we
have
to take this class?”

Brooke rolled her eyes and cracked the enormous wad of purple gum in her jaw.

I didn’t tell any of them about the cities.

I still didn’t say anything at lunch when they invited me to their table. I gratefully let Brooke lead me, since there’s nothing so terrifying as facing a cafeteria alone. Brooke did her hyperventilating “Oh God, oh God” again when Kevin sat down at our table. She had it
bad
for him. He sat across from me and asked how my day had been. I stuttered like a moron. He kept bumping my knees under the table and every time he did, my brain fizzed with white noise for a full thirty seconds.

Brooke held up my baggie of homemade cookies and said, “Oh my God, that’s so cute.”

I snatched them back and shrugged. “My dad likes to bake.”

The girls fell on that like sharks on a bloody limb.

“Ooooh,” Brittany squealed, “that’s so sweet. Caleb Carlisle bakes cookies.”

Kevin laughed. “Caleb Carlisle does it all, man. He’s no joke.”

I smiled. When he smiled back, I got dizzy.

None of the girls brought their lunches from home. They paid for intricate, fancy salads, but then picked through them, eating only the lettuce.

The boys ate huge lunches, shoved each other a lot, and talked too loud.

“So, what do you guys do after school?” I asked. “Do you play sports or anything?”

“Tennis,” Bebe said. “And it’s not too late for us to get you on the team too.”

“Actually, I run. I was going to join cross-country this fall and track in the spring.”

Brooke grabbed me and put a hand over my mouth. “Never say that out loud ever again!” Brittany and Bebe collapsed in giggles.

I wriggled out from under her grasp, wanting to slug her, but before I could say anything, she said, “Only losers run track, Hannah Anne Carlisle.” She said my full name in that mocking singsong. “Don’t go hanging out with that geek squad.”

I blinked. Was there
anything
about me that was acceptable?

“I have saved you today,” Brooke said. “What would you have done without me?”

Maybe
been
happier
, said a little voice in my head. But my own actual voice seemed broken and out-of-order. I stopped eating my sandwich when I noticed all the girls had their giant salads still intact in front of them.

I recognized the piano-playing boy cleaning tables. Brooke followed my gaze and said, “He doesn’t pay tuition. He has to do school service.”

Kevin bumped his container of ketchup, sending a red dash across the table.

I handed him a napkin but he shrugged. “He’ll get it,” Kevin said, nodding at the piano-playing boy. “But thanks, Hannah.” The way he said my name made me unable to form words.

I’d walked in that morning, a girl who believed she could
Sit
with
a
different
group
each
day
at
lunch. Make friends with everybody!

By the time I left that afternoon, I doubted everything about myself.

66. Finally seeing a trailer for a movie you’ve been waiting for

67. That screeching sound of packing tape

68. Dogs wearing sweaters

69. Finger painting (especially when you know you’re “too old” to be doing it)

I sometimes read the list just to distract myself from the disaster of my life.

87. Wearing a costume

88. The scuttle sound autumn leaves make on the sidewalk

89. Getting yourself all freaked out after a scary movie

90. Warm, fluffy towels straight out of the dryer

91. The skin on top of pudding

92. That smell when the first drops of rain hit concrete

93. Dancing like an idiot when no one is watching

I read the list to distract myself from the fact my mom is dying.

She’s so brave battling her cancer that it’s not fair at all the cancer is winning. She’d tell me each update—like, “The treatments aren’t working”—all matter-of-fact and then say, “But I’m going to keep fighting.” Even as Dad started to fall apart in his sorrow, she stayed calm and focused.

94. Cinnamon and sugar on butter-soggy toast

95. Rubbing velvet the wrong way

96. Remembering dreams

97. Playing hooky with Mom

When Mom has really good days, Mom and Dad will let me stay home to be with her. We’ll walk on the beach, or watch movies we’ve already seen but loved, or just sit in the backyard.

Even sick and losing her hair, her beauty seems to light her up from the inside. I feel hideous next to her, all fat, ugly, and cowardly.

I’m such a coward I didn’t go out for the cross-country team.

I’m such a coward I didn’t join the Art Club.

I’m such a coward I kept sitting with those girls I
know
are horrible. I feel trapped. I don’t know how to break free, and each day I don’t speak up, it gets harder and harder to figure out how. I’m paralyzed.

Poor Mom. She thought it was
her
fault I’ve given up everything I love. That hurt worst of all, when she held my hand in the backyard and said, “Hannah Banana, you have to live, sweetie. Have friends. Do the things you want to do. Please, don’t stay home because of me. You’re so sad and I can’t stand that. The best medicine for me is for you to
laugh
and have fun with your friends.”

Friends? She wouldn’t wish these friends on me if she knew them.

“Are you
sure
you don’t want to run cross-country?” she almost begged. “I thought the coach was your favorite teacher.”

She is. Mrs. DeTello. She’d been bugging me to join too, but I can’t. But I’m
fat
. Poor Mom probably wants me to run because I’m fat.

I miss running. I have dreams about running, but instead of joining cross-country, I at least accepted an invitation to go to the beach with my “new friends” just to make Mom happy. It felt so good to make her happy.

When I said yes to the invite, I didn’t know that boys would be there too. My face blazed as I took in Brooke, Brittany, and Bebe in their bikinis. They looked like
models
. Like
women
. I was the dumpy little girl in a babyish one-piece. A
pink
babyish one-piece, just to make it worse. The boys ignored me, falling all over themselves around the toned bodies of the other girls. I finally waded out into the ocean. The water covered me up; its wildness made me happy.

“Hey, Hannah.” Kevin’s voice surprised me. He waded out to join me, dragging a surfboard.

“I’m gonna teach you how to surf,” he announced.

For a split second, irritation sparked through me.
Teach
me? I already
knew
how to surf. And how about
asking
if I
wanted
to…but the white static his dimples and eyes produced made me mute. I just smiled. What an idiot.

It was fun to be
doing
something, even though I knew Brooke would be jealous. Kevin thought he was an excellent teacher because I picked it up so fast (um, how about
me
being an excellent student?). Time flew and I felt genuinely happy, just the two of us out in the waves.

After a couple good runs in a row, I was just paddling on his board on my stomach and he was treading water near me. He tossed his wet hair out of his eyes, touched my hip, and said, so kindly and sincerely, “You wanna be careful, Hannah. Don’t get chubby. You’re cute, but you
could
be hot.”

I froze, wanting the ocean to swallow me up. I felt
sick
.
He
thinks
I’m fat.

Thank God the others shouted at us to come in. Brooke’s mom was there to pick us up. Everyone was waiting on me. The hatred and misery shining in Brooke’s eyes was sharp enough to cut. My breath dropped funny, and I broke out in a slimy sweat. “I-I have to run to the bathroom,” I said, ignoring her mom’s impatient sigh. I ran through the hot sand to the stinky beach bathroom, barely making it to a toilet before I vomited. Oh my God. It happened so fast!

Another wave of nausea punched me. I threw up again…and when I stood, the ripple of relief felt…
good
. I splashed water on my face at the sink, rinsed out my mouth, brushed my hair, then headed back to grab my stuff. I felt almost like I floated.

“Sorry,” I said, squeezing into the car.

Bebe stared at me, forehead wrinkled.

“What?” I asked.

“You look…I dunno, really good. What did you
do
in there?”

I laughed.
I
puked
didn’t seem a good answer. I craned my neck to see myself in the rearview mirror: bright eyes, pink cheeks, something…
alive
in me. I felt
happy
.

So happy that later, after dinner, I made myself throw up again just to feel that sensation.

I wrote in my journal,
I
think
I
discovered
an
amazing
secret. When everything is sucky—and when is it not anymore?—this will be my Secret Remedy, my SR.

I couldn’t wait to use it again.

My purple notebook might say:

77. Root beer floats

78. The smell of crayons

79. Blowing out birthday candles

80. Extra stuff after the credits at the movies

81. Those cool old-fashioned diaries with locks and keys

But my
real
reason to be happy was my secret remedy, my SR. My new best friend.

It was so
easy
.

I used my SR every day.

Mom noticed. It took about three weeks and she said, “You look so pretty.” I knew she meant
you’ve lost weight
. I lied and told her I’d been running. Even my dad said I looked really fit.

It took about four weeks for the kids at school to notice, but when we were at the beach again, I heard Kevin say to Max, “Hannah’s got a real body now.” Hello. I’ve
always
had a body. What, was it fake before? You’re not a real person until you have a certain kind of body?

That comment would’ve made the old Hannah mad. But what did I do? I floated on the compliment so much I used my SR twice that day.

When Brooke said, “Maybe you should get a swimsuit that wasn’t made for toddlers,” I invited the girls to go shopping with me—making my mom happy, going out with friends.

Turns out only Brittany could go. I was actually kind of glad. Brittany was a different person when she wasn’t around Brooke. I was sometimes tempted to ask her if she even
liked
Brooke, but that was too dangerous. Anyway, Brittany’s eyes got all wide when I tried on an emerald green bikini (crazy expensive for something so tiny) and opened the dressing room door to show her. “You look so totally
hot
in that. You
have
to buy it.”

When she said that I turned to look at myself in the mirror. I looked like the other girls at last—no more chubbiness, just curves where they were supposed to be, lean and taut everywhere else. The mirror made me blush.

I had fun hanging out with Brittany, but I was antsy, aware of the clock. The time for my SR approached, and I caught myself anticipating it,
needing
it, growing jittery and nervous until we finally left the mall.

When I got home, I tried to escape to my room, but Mom wanted to see what I’d bought first.

She had a conniption when she saw that bikini. She threatened to take it from me.

“I bought it with my own money!”

“The money is not the point,” she said. “This is too adult. It’s inappropriate.”

“All my friends wear bikinis!” I screamed.

She raised her eyebrows but not her voice. “Hannah.
I
wouldn’t wear a bikini this…small, even when I still had a figure.” She tried to joke, tried to deflect our argument by poking fun at her poor, pitiful cancer-ravaged body, but I felt like I was possessed. All I could think of was my overdue SR.

I stomped, slammed doors, and hid the bikini deep down in my dresser. I immediately hated myself for it. Mom was sick. Why would I waste a single second shrieking about some stupid scraps of material? I never
wanted
to act like such a brat, but I couldn’t stop. When those moods took over, those moods that only started once I’d begun my SR, I’d actually
yearn
to rant and scream. Like all this nasty poison inside of me—this rotten, festering secret—had to find a way out. As I stomped away from my mom that day, I kicked a chair and it hit the door frame where we had glued beach glass into a gorgeous mosaic. Even over my pounding footsteps, I heard the shimmery ping of several pieces falling to the floor.

“Hannah!” she called. “Would you stop? You take everything too far. You need to learn when to quit.”

What was she talking about? All I
did
was quit!

I’d quit everything. Running. Art. My cities. Being nice to people. Having a backbone.

The only thing I hadn’t quit was the one thing no one else knew I was doing.