The party had been an accident, since of course we were supposed to be with Mae, eating cake and opening presents. But Mae and Nate and Ben had gone off, and Micah, too—with them or on his own, I don’t know. They left me in the orchard because Nate said there was no way in fucking hell he’d play chauffeur to my dealer. Drew and I got a bus back to the city. Then we ran into someone. I needed the distraction. A few drinks, a joint. I haven’t even had a pill. I’ve been so good. After today? So good.

“I don’t deal anymore,” he says, quiet.

“So you want some straight-edge girl now. Fine. Go back to your soccer-playing Christian girlfriend. I’m sure she’ll be thrilled. Wish you had told me I wasn’t your type before I broke up with my boyfriend of three years.”

I can’t even think about that now. What he did to me. And how breaking his heart still hurt so much. I turned off my phone. He’d been calling and texting and I just turned it off.

“What the hell, Hannah? I don’t want—”

“Me.”

He pulls off his hat, runs a hand through his hair. “That’s not what I’m saying. Don’t do that.”

“Don’t do what? Say the truth?”

Stupid. I was so stupid to think that he would want me. Why would he? Micah certainly doesn’t. Cathy. Her name is Cathy.

Maybe it’s because she’s going to college. Not a C student like me. D student, actually. All those jokes with my dad I didn’t get. All the references. The books he’d read to impress Dad, letting Mom smudge him even though sage makes him sneeze. I’m Just Hannah. A going-nowhere, average girl who just wants to have kids and make soup and read tarot cards. Just a basic bitch. I asked Micah what he saw in me, not too long before we left for Boston, and he said, “The future.” And, at the time, I’d thought that was romantic—like we’d be together forever and he sees his whole future with me. But now I realize he didn’t see me. He saw a life with me. But those are not the same thing.

My sister’s birthday, and what did I do? Spent it getting fucked up with a guy who doesn’t even want to kiss me. What an idiot I was, to think he’d kiss the hurt and the guilt away.

Drew must have been watching me all night, trying to figure out how to get rid of me. Now that I think about it, he didn’t have a drink. Or take a hit of that joint. So it’s been me, looking like a drunk junkie whore loser all night.