It wasn’t until I got home later that I felt the shock of the Hanna visit in my own body. I had been too busy worrying about Claude, and Hanna, and even Bennett, to think about myself or to feel anything myself. But once I was home, in my house, in my own shower, with the hot water beating on my back, it finally sank in what was happening. Hanna was in serious trouble. We were all in trouble, in a way. We were about to graduate from high school. We were all going to be thrown out into the real world, where God knows what would happen to us. The days of Claude and me being best friends, the days of our gang, our popular friends, being the untouchable, superior people, all that stuff was over. Real life had caught up with us. There was no protection anymore. Not for any of us. If Hanna could go down, anyone could.
I was curious what Antoinette would make of all this. The next day I grabbed her after school and we drove to Burrito Express. “It was so weird,” I said, describing the psych ward. “We got there, and she was acting pretty normal, and I was like, okay, this isn’t too bad. But then I started to see this change. At first I thought it was an act. Like she was pretending.”
“Doesn’t sound like an act,” said Antoinette.
“No,” I said. “That’s what I realized. Definitely not an act.”
“Have her doctors said anything?”
I shook my head. “Not that I know of.”
“There’s stuff that happens to people our age,” said Antoinette. “Different things. Mental illness.”
“Is that what happened to your brother?” I asked Antoinette.
She shrugged. “Possibly.”
“You ever talk to Bennett?” I asked her.
She shook her head no.
“He seemed pretty shook up about it.”
“I’m sure,” said Antoinette. “He adores her.”
We sat there in silence. “I wish I’d taken pictures of her,” I said, almost to myself.
“What for?”
“Just to have. Just to remember what she looked like.”
“Does she really look that different?” said Antoinette.
“She kinda does,” I said, nodding slowly. “She’s kind of a whole different person.”
• • •
Claude and Petra broke up not long after that. This was a short week, before Thanksgiving. I think Petra couldn’t handle that Claude was so worried about Hanna. Poor Claude and his girlfriends, he was always caught in some bind.
And speaking of binds: My own Thanksgiving got very complicated very fast. My father wanted me to come to his new apartment downtown and have dinner with Alexis and her brother from Arizona. I was like, Thanks but no thanks. My mother had said we could go to the Oswalds for Thanksgiving, which is what I wanted to do. But at the last minute she decided to have Thanksgiving in San Francisco, with her sister, who had a man-friend she wanted my mom to meet. That was awkward. And then my mom said, “You should have Thanksgiving with your dad. You need to be nice to him. He’s going to pay for your school. You have to think about that now.”
I did think about it. And it made my stomach hurt.
• • •
I convinced Kai to come with me to my dad’s. We developed a plan where we’d have dinner with her family first and then we’d drive downtown and go to my dad’s. It was Kai’s idea, actually. It gave us an excuse to not stay anywhere too long.
I showed up at her house about one. They had a full house, with Kai’s family and an aunt and some cousins and some grandparents. Her aunt thought I was Kai’s boyfriend. When we explained we were just friends, she looked hard at the two of us and said, “I don’t think so.”
It was okay though. I liked Kai’s mom. She was funny and said interesting things. Her dad, the dermatologist, was a jolly guy and smart, too. You could see where Kai got her “secret good student” thing. Everyone in her family was smart.
By the end of the dinner, Kai’s dad was looking at me in an odd way. Not bad, but with a little extra attention. He knew about Kai’s many escapades and the places she hung out. She was a father’s worst nightmare. (She was at that moment wearing a very short skirt, black tights, and pink underwear, which you could see occasionally.) I think I might have been the first boy Kai hung out with who he could have an actual conversation with.
• • •
After that we got in Kai’s Subaru and headed downtown to my dad’s. On the drive, I said something about Hanna, who was never far from my mind. Kai continued to insist she was a terrible person, which seemed kind of mean, considering. At one point I hinted that Kai was jealous. That really pissed her off. She got so mad she pulled the car over.
“Gavin,” she said, slamming the transmission into park. “I wasn’t going to tell you this before, but I’m going to tell you now.”
“What,” I said, sulking in my seat.
She took a long breath. “When I was in sixth grade, I wore glasses. Big, stupid, embarrassing glasses that my mom bought me. One day in gym class, Hanna walked up to me, took them off my face, dropped them on the floor, and stepped on them. She said, ‘Someday you’ll thank me for this,’ and everyone laughed. Then she walked away, with all her little friends trailing off behind her.”
I sat waiting for the rest.
“No.”
“I went home and made up some story about how I sat on my glasses. Because I didn’t want Princess Hanna to not like me because I had told on her. That’s right. I protected her. I actually helped her humiliate me. Because she was Hanna Sloan. She was the golden girl. You couldn’t go against Hanna. Nobody would dare go against Hanna.”
I said nothing.
“And you know the worst part? Hanna didn’t even remember me after that. Freshman year at Evergreen, I had her in one of my classes. She started talking to me one day and I realized she didn’t know who I was. She didn’t even remember stomping on my glasses!”
“Okay,” I grumbled. “So she’s horrible sometimes.”
“Yes she is,” said Kai. “And not just sometimes. If you’re capable of doing things like that, there’s something wrong with you.”
“You’ve been cruel to people.”
“Not like that I haven’t. I wouldn’t know how to be that cruel. I’m not capable of being that cruel.”
“Well, you got your revenge, then,” I said. “Now that she’s locked up in the psych ward.”
“I don’t want revenge! Don’t you understand!? I don’t want to hate her! I don’t want to hate anyone! I just want you to stop talking about her! Gawd!”
“Okay, okay,” I said. “Jesus.”
• • •
We didn’t talk again for the rest of the drive. We pulled into the underground parking garage and walked up the stairs to the lobby. We stood at the elevator and continued our silence. I pushed the up button a couple extra times. Kai looked at herself in the reflection of the elevator door.
“I’m sorry,” I said, finally breaking the silence. “I’m sorry about your glasses.”
“It doesn’t matter. I’m over it.”
We stood there looking at ourselves. You could hear the elevator making faint noises as it made its way down to us.
“Is this skirt too short?” she said, looking at herself.
“It’s pretty short.”
“Can you see my underwear?”
“Only when you sit down. Or bend over. Or walk.”
She pulled down on her skirt. Then she fluffed her hair and combed her bangs to one side with her fingers.
“I’m sorry I constantly talk about Hanna,” I said.
“It’s all right,” she said.
“Seriously. I am.”
“She’s your friend,” said Kai. “I get it. I understand.”
“She’s not my friend, though,” I said as the elevator doors opened. “She’s never been my friend. You’re my friend. Not her.”
We rode the elevator to the eighteenth floor. This was the first time I’d seen my dad’s apartment. It was big and elegant and very high up. You could see over the entire city. You could see down onto the rooftops of other people who could see over the entire city.
Kai was nervous with my dad. But she shook his hand and said all the right things. Alexis was there, with what appeared to be a slight bump in her midsection. Her brother was also there. He was visiting from Arizona, where he trained horses. His story was vague. He was good-looking, though. Like Alexis. He seemed excited about his sister being with my dad despite the bizarre age difference.
The food was very good. It was catered. When we’d finished, we sat at the table and talked. But the conversation never got any rhythm to it. My dad figured out that Kai’s dad was a dermatologist and inquired about that, in his weasely way, trying to figure out who he knew socially.
After dessert Kai and I stood together at the big main window, staring down at the city below. “What do you think of Alexis?” I asked Kai.
“She’s a lot younger than him,” said Kai.
“She’s not that smart.”
“Maybe that doesn’t matter,” said Kai.
“I don’t know,” I said. “I have a bad feeling.”
“Yeah,” agreed Kai.
I stared down at Portland. “Well, it’s his life,” I said.
“Yeah, but it’s your life too,” said Kai. “He’s your dad. What he does affects you.”
“I guess so.”
“You guess so?” said Kai. She sipped her drink. “You should know that better than anyone.”