The Rules of You and Me (18 page)

He nodded toward me. “So do you.”

I ran my hands over the front of my red dotted dress to smooth out the folds of the fabric. It was one of my favorite dresses, cute in a retro way. My mom said it was too short and never approved of me wearing it.

Jude’s eyes flickered down toward my legs, so quickly I couldn’t be sure whether he was checking them out or just looking at something near the floor. Maybe the dress was a bit too short.

“
Are we ready to eat?” Aunt Lydia asked me.

“
Yes,” I said, clearing my throat as I tried to fight the flush that crept up my face. I moved the food over to the counter where we ate and then Jude pulled out a barstool for me. I gave him an appreciative smile as we sat.

“
What, no steak?” Jude winked at me.

“
Be thankful it’s not blackened,” I told him. “And I can’t guarantee it’s not still raw inside.”

“
Well, it smells good,” Aunt Lydia said, breathing deeply. “You certainly don’t have my bad luck in the kitchen. You must take after your mom.”

I picked up the carving knife and sliced into the chicken. It released steam into the air and juices ran down the meat. “Oh, Mom hasn’t cooked in years,” I said. “Not since we moved to the new house.” I cast a glance at Jude. I hadn’t told him about my family’s financial situation and there was no way I’d tell him now, not after seeing his home.

“
Yes, well,” Aunt Lydia said as she accepted the chicken I offered her, “your mother always did love to order people around.” She gave me a playful grin.

I laughed in spite of myself.

“
She really does take after her mother then,” Jude added.

I waved a fork at him. “You watch it, or else you won’t get anything to eat.”

He held his empty plate toward me. “I’m sorry. Feed me please. I’m wasting away.”

After we had all loaded our plates with food, silence fell as we started eating. A cold sweat prickled along my back. Was the whole night going to be like this? I glanced at the clock on the stove, watching as the time seemed frozen on this agonizing minute.

“
So, Jude,” Aunt Lydia said, wiping her mouth with her napkin, “does your tattoo mean anything?” Her gaze fell on the black lines peeking out from the edge of his sleeve.

Thanks, Aunt Lydia, for picking a topic that would point out how un-Mom-approved he was.

Jude pushed his sleeve up to show the black lines that twisted around his arm. “My brother’s initials are hidden in it.” He traced a finger along the tattoo, pointing out the L and the W that I hadn’t noticed before.

Aunt Lydia smiled. “That’s beautiful. My tattoo isn’t that nice. Just a wishbone.”

My eyes almost popped out of my head. “You have a tattoo? Why haven’t I ever seen it?”

“
It’s not exactly in a place that I’m in the habit of showing to people,” Aunt Lydia told me. She waved a hand. “I got it a long time ago, when I was much younger. A silly night out with your mom, back before she married your dad. We’d probably had a little too much to drink and so we thought getting tattoos was a good idea.”

Now my head really felt like it would explode at any minute. “My
mother
has a tattoo?” I shrieked.

“
She did at one time,” Aunt Lydia said. “We got matching ones. She’s probably had it removed by now, I’d guess.”

I sat back in my seat, stunned into silence. All that talk Mom had done over the years about how disgusting it was that people mutilated their bodies with tattoos, and this whole time, she’d had one? What other lies had my mom told me to keep up her image of perfection?

“
Do you have any plans for the fall?” Aunt Lydia asked Jude, clearly changing the subject. “Applying to any colleges?”

My head was still fuzzy with the idea of my mom with a tattoo, but I could have thrown my mashed potatoes at Aunt Lydia. What was this, torment Hannah night by asking every off-limits question she could think of?

“
Well,” Jude said slowly, “I have been doing some thinking lately about what I want to do with my life.”

My eyebrows shot up my head. “You have?”

“
There was something I always wanted to do, but haven’t yet,” Jude said. He looked at me with a look of certainty in his eyes. “I’m thinking about joining the army.”

I remembered him mentioning the army briefly after our awkward dinner with Ashton and her friends. But it had been such a quick mention and it had seemed like a closed case. He hadn’t joined the army, he had stayed here. Safe at home.

“
That’s a big commitment,” Aunt Lydia said, “joining the army.”

Jude nodded. “I know. But it’s something I always wanted to do.”

I opened my mouth. I wanted to say, “But you might die like your brother.” But I couldn’t even say the words. I had no right to say it. Jude and I weren’t involved, I had already established those boundaries with him. What he did with his future wasn’t up to me.

Jude’s gaze met mine again and we stared silently at each other. I saw sadness in his eyes, but I also saw hope and excitement.

“
Have you talked to a recruiter yet?” Aunt Lydia asked.

Jude shook his head. “Not since Liam…Not since he left.”

Aunt Lydia smiled. “It’s good to have plans for your future. You should go talk to someone and decide if it’s what you really want to do. I think you’d make a great soldier.”

Jude’s cheeks turned red and he looked down at his plate. “Thank you, ma’am. I don’t know if that’s true, but I’d like to be something I could be proud of.”

#

“
Thanks for dinner,” Jude said.

I wrapped my arms around myself and smiled up at him. It wasn’t cold out here on the front porch, but I suddenly felt like I didn’t know what to do with my hands as we stood there. Aunt Lydia was inside, washing the dishes, which Jude had offered to do and she had refused to allow. So here we were instead, saying good night.

“
You’re welcome. I hope it wasn’t too bad.”

“
No, it was good. You’re a better cook than you think.”

“
Thanks,” I said. “But actually, I meant my aunt.”

Aunt Lydia had done well that night. She hadn’t pestered Jude with a million questions and she hadn’t even mentioned the fight he’d had with Carter. I was sure Ashton had already told her all of the details.

“
Your aunt was fine too,” Jude said, laughing.

“
I think she thinks we’re dating,” I whispered.

He leaned down toward me until we were eye to eye. Twilight was falling around us and crickets chirped from the grass and trees. One by one, pinpricks of stars appeared in the night sky.

“
Maybe it doesn’t matter what other people think,” he whispered back.

I loved how easy he made that sound. As if other people’s opinions really didn’t matter. Reality was what we made it and our reality was that we were friends. We hadn’t let a moment of weakness ruin us. I liked that. I liked this, these little moments between just the two of us.

“
I wish I really could shut out the rest of the world,” I said, sighing.

Jude pushed my hair behind my ear and gave me a half-smile. “Liam always told me that the only way other people mattered was if I let them matter. Don’t let it bother you and it won’t.”

“
That’s easy for you to say,” I said. “You don’t have to live with my mother.”

I walked across the porch and leaned against the rail, picking at a piece of cracked paint that had started to peel. Jude leaned against the rail at my side, his arms braced against the wood.

“
I wish I had the courage to not be the person everyone expects me to be,” I said quietly. “It’s what this summer was all about, figuring out who I am underneath the Hannahs I created for everyone else. It is nice to not be so stressed out all the time, but I know that as soon as I get back to Willowbrook, nothing will have changed. My mom will turn me into the same Hannah Cohen once again. In a year, I’ll head off to Yale and then I’ll be some big shot lawyer at some big shot firm in some big city where I barely know anyone. Because that’s what I’m supposed to do.”

“
Do you even want to be a lawyer?” Jude asked.

I shrugged. “I don’t know. My dad says that’s what I said I wanted to be when I was a kid, but I don’t even remember that. Maybe it was one of those things where I’d heard about the job somewhere and so the next time someone asked what I wanted to be, I said lawyer even though I had no idea what it really was. I mean, I used to say I wanted to be a My Little Pony when I grew up and yet no one’s making me gallop around with a pink tail.”

“
I hear the interview process for My Little Pony is pretty tough,” Jude commented.

“
My point is,” I said, shooting him a scowl, “why do I have to be forced into this one idea based on something I may or may not have said when I was six? What kid knows what they really want to be when they grow up? How is it fair to put me into this little box labeled ‘lawyer’ and force me to do everything focused solely on achieving a dream I’m not sure I even want?”

“
It’s not,” Jude said. “So rule number one. Don’t complicate things. Be honest. What would you be if you could be anything in the world?”

I peeled off a piece of the old paint. “I don’t know.”

“
Seriously?”

“
Seriously.” I cringed. “Isn’t that sad?”

“
Nah,” Jude said. “You just need time to explore the world and the opportunities out there. You’ll figure it out.”

I raised my eyebrows. “So the army. Is that for real?”

Jude’s mouth pressed into a straight line. “Sometimes, Liam and I made so many plans together that it’s hard to tell which dreams were his and which were really mine. But joining the military was always my idea. I wanted to travel the world, help people, keep everyone safe.”

“
So why didn’t you join?” I asked.

“
Liam was older, and so he joined first,” Jude said. “I don’t know that he really wanted to, not like I did. But he said at least he’d get his college education paid for if he enlisted. So the plan was I’d enlist when he came back home to visit. We knew the odds of us ever being stationed in the same place were low, but we always did everything together. So Liam was going to go with me to cheer me on as I signed up. But then…” He rubbed at his chin. “Then just before he was scheduled to come home on leave, Liam died. Roadside bomb. Only one person in the truck survived.”

I imagined Jude out there, somewhere halfway across the world, riding along in that truck with his brother. I imagined him not being here with me on this night. My throat tightened at the idea of it being Jude who was killed by that bomb and not his brother. I didn’t know Liam, so it was easier for me to live with his ghost than to think about the guy standing next to me no longer being there.

Jude straightened, taking a deep breath. “Anyway, like everything else in my life, the army got put on hold. I still want to join sometimes, but other times I’m terrified. Sometimes I feel like it’s my fault he died, since it was my idea.”

“
It’s not your fault,” I told him. “He decided to join on his own.”

Jude nodded. “I know. But now I don’t know what I’m really supposed to do anymore.”

“
Join the club,” I told him.

He tilted his head. “You could do it, you know.”

“
Do what?”

“
Not be the person your parents want you to be,” Jude said. “Don’t go to Yale. Don’t be a lawyer.”

I snorted. “Yes, and then my mother will disown me.”

“
Don’t you trust that if she really loves you, she’ll support whatever you want to do?”

I had never thought of it in those terms, but now the question hung heavy in my mind as I considered it. “No,” I said. “She loves the person she wants me to be. I’m not sure that she really loves me as I am.”

My chin quivered just the tiniest bit. If I didn’t pull myself back together, I would crumble right there.

Maybe Jude knew. Without saying anything, he reached for me and pulled me into his arms, pressing my face against his shoulder. I breathed deep, inhaling the scent of him and closing my eyes at the comfort that spread through me.

“
I love you as you are,” he whispered in my ear. “I want to make sure you know at least one person does.”

I lifted my head. His face hovered only the slightest space away from mine.
I love you as you are,
his voice echoed in my head.
I love you…

No one besides my family had ever said those words to me. I opened my mouth, my body trembling just a little—

“
Hannah?”

I jumped at the sound of Aunt Lydia’s voice.

“
Yes?” I called back as I stepped away from Jude. I couldn’t keep doing this, letting myself lose control around him. I smoothed my hands over my skirt, as if smoothing that image of perfection back into place.

“
Just wanted to make sure you hadn’t run off,” Aunt Lydia called through the closed door. “Good night, Jude.”

I could take a hint. I glanced at Jude and then quickly away. “I should go back inside for the debriefing,” I joked.

“
Don’t talk about me too much,” Jude said.