The Opposite of Hallelujah (36 page)

“When have I ever done that?” I asked incredulously. I felt naked, like I was being read like a page. Sure, I liked order and efficiency—who likes chaos? It seemed pretty reasonable to me.

“How about when you didn’t want my help with the
science fair project because you thought it would make me uncomfortable to work with you?” he reminded me.

“One time,” I muttered, but I walked over to the passenger side and got in.

“It’s not a bad thing,” he said, laughing a little. He got behind the wheel and turned the car on. I cranked the heat up full blast, shivering despite my heavy winter coat. “It’s a sign of compassion, you know? That you put other people before yourself.”

“I’m not compassionate.”

“What are you talking about?”

“If I was
compassionate
, I would’ve been good to Hannah right from the beginning,” I told him. “She came home looking like this sad, starved little puppy and I kicked her—I kicked her over and over again. I never listened. I never stopped to consider how she might be feeling. All I did was think about myself. I wasn’t used to having her around, and I tried to push her out. My sister! What kind of a horrible creature does that to a person? To a person, by the way, who loves them anyway, even when they’re acting like a heinous bitch?”

Pawel shook his head. We were on the road now. I put my forehead against the window and let the streetlamps blur together into a steady stream of light. “I understand why you feel guilty. But you can’t put it all on yourself. You didn’t make her sick. It’s probably why she came home, don’t you think?”

“I don’t know,” I said in a small voice.

“You’re a good person, Caro,” he told me. “I’ve always thought so. We haven’t known each other that long, but I can tell that you try really hard to do the right thing. That’s rarer than you think, believe me.”

We sat in silence for a few minutes before Pawel spoke again.

“Jake was sick,” he said.

“What?” I asked.

“He was born premature, and he had lung scarring because of it,” Pawel told me. “I was only three at the time, but he was sick forever, and when he was eleven, he came down with a severe respiratory infection that almost killed him. He was in the hospital for weeks, so even though I don’t know exactly what you’re going through, I can imagine.”

“I’m so sorry,” I said, knowing just how useless those words really were.

He shook his head. “I’m not telling you this because I want sympathy, I’m telling you because … my family means a lot to me. Like, the world. More than anything, probably.”

I nodded.

“And I wanted to explain—I feel like I overreacted that day at your house, when I found out you lied about Hannah.”

“It’s okay,” I rushed to tell him. “We don’t need to talk about it.”

“Hang on,” he requested. “I’ve looked back on that
day a few times and tried to puzzle out just what was bothering me, why I broke up with you, like you’d done something to me even though you hadn’t really. People lie, all the time, for dumb reasons, I know that. I should’ve given you the benefit of the doubt.”

“Seriously, it’s fine.” I couldn’t have this conversation. My sister was in a hospital bed, being fed through a tube. I had enough guilt swirling around inside me already. I couldn’t stand being reminded of the way I had behaved. “I understand why it bothered you.”

“This isn’t coming out right.” He ran his fingers through his hair, tugging hard at the roots as if to anchor himself somehow. “I’m trying to explain—I guess I got upset because I looked at your sister and how sick she was and I saw Jake and I thought, ‘What kind of a person could turn her back on her family like that?’ ”

“Okay, enough!” I cried. “Please,
don’t
.”

But he barreled on. “Caro, I’m trying to tell you that I was an ass. I just figured, because we had such a great connection right from the jump, that I knew everything there was to know about you. But of course I didn’t. I still don’t. But I think you’re wonderful, and I should’ve known better than to assume
anything
about you. I should’ve listened when you asked me to. I’m sorry.”

I let out a deep breath. “Thanks,” I said. “Just so you know, I don’t normally do that sort of thing. It had nothing to do with you, it was all part of my insecurity about Hannah.”

“I get that,” he said. “I totally get it.”

We arrived at my house a few minutes later. Pawel got out and walked me inside. I was glad he’d come with me. It would’ve been so depressing to walk into that dark, empty house all alone. He followed me to my room and stood in the doorway as I switched on the light and let my coat drop to the floor.

“Do you want me to stay here with you?” Pawel asked. “I don’t mind.”

“No, thanks,” I said. “Thank you, though. For everything.”

“Anytime,” he said. He held out his arms and I fell into them, pressing my cheek against his shirt and breathing him in. I didn’t want to let go, so I stood there for what seemed like forever, clutching him and burying my face in his neck. Our chests rose and fell in sync. Finally, using all my strength, I pulled away.

“Good night,” I said.

“Good night,” he said back.

After Pawel left, I lay down on the bed, still in my clothes, and pulled a blanket over me. As tired as I was, I couldn’t manage to fall asleep. I stared at the ceiling in the dark, missing the sound of Hannah’s footsteps above my head. Slow, steady tears slipped down my cheeks, staining the pillowcase, and when I had exhausted every other option, I stopped struggling against the impulse and did the one thing I never thought I would do: I prayed.

Not knowing how to do it the proper way, or even
if there was a proper way, I inhaled deeply until it felt as though my chest had cracked open; the dark stillness of the night rushed in to fill up the space. I could hear the beating of my heart in my ears, and in my head I spoke the words.
Please don’t let her die
, I said.
Please don’t let her die. Please help her. Help me. Help us all. Help us help us help us. Please, oh please, don’t let her die
.

I didn’t stop praying until, without noticing, I fell asleep.

I awoke at noon to the sound of my phone ringing. I couldn’t believe I’d slept that long, but I still felt tired. I scrambled to answer the call, knowing instinctively it had something to do with Hannah. “Mom?”

“Hi, honey.” She sounded tired. “So Hannah’s awake now. She’s still a bit groggy from the medication, but if you head over now, she should be ready for visitors by the time you get here. Can you drive?”

“Yes, of course,” I said, jumping out of bed and grabbing my coat. “I’ll be right there.”

I burst into the waiting room twenty minutes later. “Can we go see Hannah now?”

“Hold your horses,” Dad said, putting a hand on my shoulder. “She’s not feeling very well. She’s been throwing
up all morning, except there’s no food in her stomach, so it’s mostly bile. The sedatives didn’t sit very well with her.”

“Okay,” I said.

“And she’s very thin,” he continued. “It was hard to tell with the clothes she wore, but when you look at her, it might come as a shock.” It hadn’t been hard to tell. We just hadn’t wanted to look.

“We want you to be prepared,” Mom said.

I nodded. “I’m prepared. Can we see Hannah now?”

“Sure,” Mom said.

I held my mom’s hand as we walked down the hallway to Hannah’s room. Dad pushed the door open and I caught my first glimpse of my sister. She looked ravaged. Her skin was pale and her hair was all greasy and matted against her head. Her hospital gown was so huge on her she looked like she was drowning in it. I thought of the matchstick girl, how Hannah had become her, or maybe she had been her all along. It was all I could do not to cry again. I didn’t know what was wrong with me. I’d never cried as much in my whole life before Hannah came home. But for the first time in the past twelve hours, I bit my cheek and held the tears back. I knew they would just upset Hannah.

“Hi,” she said as we filed into the room.

“How are you feeling?” Mom asked, sitting on the edge of her bed and taking her hand.

“Okay,” she said. “Tired.”

“I bet,” Mom said. “Are you thirsty?” Hannah nodded. “Caro, pour Hannah some water, please.”

“No, that’s all right,” Hannah said, but I was already doing it.

“Here you go,” I said, handing it to her.

“Thanks.” She smiled. “Shouldn’t you be in school?”

“Yeah right,” I said.

“Did you get any work done on your project?” she asked.

“Pawel and I ran the experiment, and it worked,” I said, feigning excitement for her benefit. I was just happy that she didn’t seem angry with me anymore. “It was totally cool, Hannah, you should’ve seen it—we
created
light. For a split second, anyway.”

“That sounds great,” she said. “I can’t wait to see your presentation at the science fair.”

“Hannah,” Mom said, stroking her arm gently. “You’re going to be in here for a while, you know that.”

She sighed. “I know. I just don’t want to miss it.”

“Well, don’t worry,” I told her. “We have the experiment on DVD, so I can bring it in and show it to you.”

“Good,” she said.

There was a knock at the door and a nurse with long black curls poked her head in. “Mr. and Mrs. Mitchell? The doctor would like to speak to you outside for a moment.”

“Okay,” Mom said. She got up off the bed. “Caro, you stay here.”

“Sure,” I said, flopping down into a chair. Mom and Dad left the room and I smiled at Hannah. “What do you want to do? I brought cards.”

“Actually,” she began, “can we talk?”

“Yeah, sure. What about?”

“They’re going to make me see a psychiatrist,” Hannah told me. “The doctor thinks that part of my problem is emotional and they want me to get treatment.”

“I’m not surprised,” I said.

“Me neither. But I know that when I see the psychiatrist, she’s going to ask me if I’ve experienced any traumatic events in my life.”

“Oh,” I said.

“And I think that before I tell
her
about it, I should probably tell you.” Hannah gave me a small smile, but she wouldn’t look at me. She wasn’t used to talking to people about her feelings, and now she was going to be expected to pour them out to a stranger. “Even though you already know some of it, I guess.”

I nodded. “I’m listening.”

“It’s really hard to talk about it—I never talk about it—so this is going to be difficult.” She stared at her lap. “It’s just really hard,” she repeated.

I didn’t say anything. I just waited for her to get to the place where she could form the words. I listened to
her breathe—deep, ragged ins and outs that seemed to shake the room. I watched her closely the whole time, studying her, the little movements she was making in preparation to say something. She’d taken hold of a piece of her hair and was absentmindedly stroking the end of it, like a baby with a security blanket. The things that comfort us.

“I’m sorry,” Hannah said. Her eyes were wet and she was struggling hard to keep it together. She twisted the sheets into knots in her hands. I put my hand on her arm.

“It’s okay. Take your time.”

After a few minutes, she opened her mouth to begin again. “When I was in middle school, I had this friend. This was when you were really little, almost just born. You were only a baby, so you won’t remember her, but she was over a lot. We used to play with you on the floor of your bedroom. She used to make your dolls talk. You loved that, she would do these voices …” She stopped and swallowed hard. “Her name was Sabra.”

I nodded. This I knew. I didn’t remember the part about the dolls, but that wasn’t really surprising; I had to have been pretty tiny for Sabra to be alive. Still, I felt like I could see it. It was funny the way other people’s stories could spring to life in wisps of smoke in your head and slowly congeal into something resembling a memory.

Hannah continued. “Actually, that wasn’t really her name. Her name was Sarah, but she had a brother, he was
two years younger—Byrne. And when she and Byrne were small, he couldn’t say ‘Sarah’ right, he used to call her Sabra instead of Sarah and the nickname stuck. Her family had been calling her Sabra forever by the time we became friends, so that’s what I called her, too. Everyone did. Sabra and I went to school together for years before we became friends. Everyone used to, you know, make fun of me, because I was a little strange. But Sabra and I sat next to each other in homeroom and she was nice to me. She just … liked me, for some reason, I guess.”