Free Reasons to Be Happy by Katrina Kittle

and bringing me takeout dinners. Sean and Laila had become a daily presence too, and I knew they were as scared as I was because they were both way too cheerful and perky all the time.
    Kevin stopped me in the hall the other day. He’d grabbed my arm, hard, and said, really close to my face, “Your drunk dad better not wreck my movie.”
    “You better not wreck his movie,” I shot back, but the taste of rust rushed through me. Was my dad falling apart enough to derail a film? What Dad did in our house was one thing. What he did in front of my classmates was another.
    L.A. disappeared from view in its perpetual brown smog. We rose above it to pink cotton candy clouds. When the sky looked like a field of snow, I closed my eyes.
    I wanted to hurl myself out of the exit door when I remembered the conversation I’d overheard at home. Aunt Izzy called the landline and Dad and I both picked up at the same second in different parts of the house. He spoke first, and even though I hadn’t deliberately planned to do it, I stayed on the line, feeling more horrible and creepy with everything they said.
    Aunt Izzy got right to her point. “When are you going to get Hannah in treatment?”
    Dad sighed. “Izzy, you never quit.”
    “This is urgent, Caleb. You can’t ignore it. You both need help.”
    “What’s next, Iz? You going to tell me I’m anorexic?”
    “I’m talking about your daughter. Your daughter who is in a lot of pain.”
    “Of course she’s in pain! Her mother just died! That doesn’t mean—Izzy, you think everyone has an eating disorder. It’s just your thing.”
    “When have I ever suggested that someone else had an eating disorder?”
    “You just—you just, I mean, come on, Izzy, Hannah’s overweight .”
    I feared they’d hear my intake of breath from that punch to the gut.
    “You’ve never said that to her, have you?” She sounded like she might kick him if she could.
    “Well, not so bluntly…but, yeah. Annabeth…and I talked to her about it.” Dad tripped on my mom’s name.
    “Oh, Caleb, she’s in trouble. The stealing at school, the shoplifting, all of it is related.”
    Dad groaned. “Please. She just wants attention.”
    “Of course she wants attention!” Aunt Izzy snapped. “Her mother just died!”
    Silence. I bet my dad felt punched in the stomach too.
    “Think about it,” Izzy said. “All she wants is attention, Caleb, and is she getting any from you or are you—”
    She didn’t finish, but I knew what she was going to say and I knew my dad did too, because I’d heard them argue about it before. Or are you just drunk all the time?
    That’s when I’d hung up.
    A lot of good my little secret friend did me.
    But still, the SR was as close to a real friend as I had. I actually pictured her as a person.
    At least she never betrayed me like my breathing, living friends did. I probably shouldn’t even call them friends. I probably only did because otherwise I’d have to face the pathetic fact that no one who actually existed liked me.
    There had been someone who actually existed who’d liked me.
    Or maybe not liked me, but treated me like a human being. But I’d destroyed that the day before. It wasn’t enough that I’d said I didn’t like him in front of a whole art room of people. Or that I’d told him I liked Kevin. No, I had to make it worse.
    Oh God. I shrunk down farther in my seat, wishing I could curl in on myself and disappear. Jasper’d seen me. He’d seen me on a binge. It hurt me to remember the look on his face.
    I’d been standing in the corner by a trash can, in the tiny room between the kitchen and the cafeteria, the room where the doors could open for the delivery trucks. I stood there scarfing down trash—a bunch of grilled cheese sandwiches we hadn’t sold, about seven of them, one after the other—and a sound had made me turn.
    The sound had been Jasper. Oh God, the look on his face . He was appalled. Horrified.
    I froze, my mouth full, my