Read Online Reasons to Be Happy by Katrina Kittle - Free Book Online Page B

all signed. Pam and the others all wrote really sweet, real things. I got teary-eyed again, but it made me feel good . In the kitchen, with those people, was the only place I felt human.
    • • •
    In geography, we watched a video about the diamond mines in Sierra Leone. There were all these kids with missing arms or ears or eyes. Rebels had hacked them off with machetes to “send a message.”
    I closed my eyes. I thought of Aunt Izzy and her documentary. I knew she’d interviewed orphans in Sierra Leone. Aunt Izzy. Aunt Izzy. You’ve got to save me.
    • • •
    I lay in bed breathing my mother’s pink cardigan, seething at my dad “sleeping” on the couch, and actually thought, if I were missing an arm or an eye, no one would expect anything from me. If I’d shown up at school with some kind of handicap, the B-Squad would never have given me the time of day. I might still be the authentic Hannah.

38. Chocolate-dipped strawberries
    39. Rock climbing
    40. The way ducks sound like they’re chuckling
    41. The scent of vanilla
    42. Revenge movies
    43. The word “peevish” (I just like it)
    44. Manatees
    45. The way patriotic marches played by whole orchestras make me feel like I’m going to cry
    I sat on the plane, on my way to Ohio, flipping through the list I’d started way back in seventh grade. I hadn’t added anything to my purple book since the blue icing day. I tried to think of something to be happy about: getting away from Dad (but that didn’t count because he’d forced me to go), getting away from the B-Squad…but those weren’t things worthy of my list. They were only temporary reasons. I needed real ones.
    Starting a new adventure?
    Please. Brooke would laugh at that. I was going to Ohio . What kind of an adventure could I possibly have in Ohio, I could hear her mocking.
    Brooke was going to the Bahamas for the two-week vacation. Brittany was going to her condo in St. Thomas, and Bebe to Mexico City. Me? I was being banished to Ohio. Woo-hoo.
    There were two saving graces in the B-Squad’s eyes: Aunt Izzy won an Academy Award for her last documentary Need , which was about addiction . Even though none of those losers watches documentaries—they’d think I was an even bigger geek if they knew I loved them. Watching documentaries is #76 on the list — an Oscar is an Oscar and carries clout. That and the fact that Izzy was in an inpatient program for eating disorders when she was in high school. (I didn’t tell them that—they knew because it’s always in the coverage about my mom and dad.)
    “Cool,” Brooke said, with wide, admiring eyes as we waited for algebra to start. “That’s hardcore. That’s serious.”
    I nodded.
    “Maybe,” Brooke said, “she could teach you a thing or two.”
    I thought my face would explode.
    “Ouch, Brooke,” Bebe said, but her eyes were bright and gleeful.
    Brittany just stared down at her book.
    My eyes burned. Don’t cry, don’t cry, don’t cry . I could not bleed for these sharks.
    “Oh, for God’s sake, lighten up,” Brooke said. I wasn’t sure if she was talking to me or Bebe. “I just meant that your aunt really knows what she’s doing, if she had to go into a hospital. Wouldn’t we all love to be anorexic? I just meant that you’ll be with a master, so pay attention. Bring some tips back for the rest of us.”
    When the plane finally took off, my chest convulsed as I fought not to cry. I missed my mom. I should’ve been nicer to my dad. I should’ve stayed home to help take care of him. I shouldn’t be such a monumental screw-up. If I was a normal, good daughter, he’d want me around.
    Dad had been scaring me lately. I hated that he scared me—a father’s supposed to comfort you. He drank way too much. He forgot to do basic stuff at the house, like buy groceries and have the grass cut, and his publicist and assistant were around a lot more than they used to be, doing things like picking me up from school, doing our laundry,