Underneath Everything (15 page)

I click the lighter shut and grab for the door handle; but my palm is sweaty and my fingers are stiff and I can’t grip the slick metal. I wipe my hand on my jeans and try again. This time it gives.

I get out of the car, then turn around and stick my head through the window to say good-bye, but Kris keeps talking.

“I mean, who would have called it? Bella!” Kris tilts a fresh cigarette out of her soft pack and shifts her car back into gear. “I didn’t know she had it in her.”

“Me neither,” I say.

But I wonder if Jolene did. If she knew exactly what Bella would do, like she knew exactly where I’d be when she needed me.

I knew you’d come.

“Time to get back to the big house,” Kris says. “Those college apps aren’t going to write themselves.”

She lifts her fingers to her forehead in a mock salute.

I do the same, then step away from the car. Kris pinches her cigarette between her lips and peels into the street.

I watch her leave. Usually she sticks her hand out the window and gives me a wave, or the finger—but today the window stays closed. I can’t see anything but smoke.

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

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CHAPTER 15

I MEAN TO go home. Really, I do—it’s not like I don’t have my own college apps to complete. I even pull into the dead end that is Cherokee Court. But when I see my mom unloading the dishwasher through the kitchen window, I change my mind. She’s not mad at me like my dad, but it’s only because she wants details: why I was late, who I was with. She’s probably dying to comment on my change in clothes too, to tell me whether or not they flatter my body shape. But I can’t do mother-daughter girl talk right now. I still have Bella’s story in my head. I keep trying to make it fit with my memory of the rest of the night: Hudson’s hand on my knee; Jolene’s breath on my neck, sour and alcohol soaked, as I dragged her across Bella’s lawn. But every time I get close, I feel the weight of Jolene again, not on my shoulders, but in my throat and behind my eyes.

So instead of going home and locking myself in my room, I get in my car. At least in here I can move through town for real. I don’t have to imagine myself on the black lines of a map, driving through divisions, following the same worn, paper path over and over again.

I zigzag through the streets as they switch from moss green to pepto pink to egg-yolk yellow to cornflower blue and back again. Eventually the small, wooden houses with faded paint give way to large homes with square lawns and meticulous landscaping. Hudson’s is up ahead, on Arlington Avenue. It looks exactly the same: white brick, mowed lawn, curved slate path, black front door. I stare up at his window and wonder if he’ll think I’m a stalker for showing up like this. Even though it’s his fault. It’s not like I could send him an email or text to let him know I was coming.

Hudson’s front door opens as I step out of my car. I freeze when I see him, but he doesn’t look up. He shoves his hands into his pockets and bows his head. His worn, ink-soled sneakers are silent on the slate path. I want to call out to him, to hear his voice and the things he says about me. But there’s something about seeing him like this, when he thinks no one’s watching. It’s so private.

So I don’t move as he pulls his keys out of his pocket, or when he stops short of his car—a used, blue Honda with faded white streaks on the bumpers. At first I think they’re scratches, but then I realize they used to be stickers. He must have scraped them off, but he couldn’t get them unstuck completely.

I lean back, thinking I should go—he looks so comfortable and sure, so happy to be alone—but my car door isn’t completely closed, and when my full weight falls against it, it lets out a loud
click
. Hudson’s head turns toward the sound. His face rearranges when he sees me—his eyes ease into a squint, his freckles fall into place, his chin tilts—until he’s someone I know again and not the person he is by himself.

“Covert mission?” he calls out, sliding his keys back into his pocket. They clink together inside his cargo pants as he walks across the street.

“Wouldn’t really be covert if I told you,” I say.

“You’ve got people to protect; I get it,” he says, nodding. He leans in and lifts his eyes to me like someone might be listening. “We better get out of here.” He holds out his hand.

“Good thinking.” I take it. It’s warm and strong. He leads me to his car.

“Ignore the dirt on the floor. And the notebooks. And the old cleats and empty water bottles,” he says, pushing his hair back from his face. “Actually, ignore pretty much everything.”

“Except the company,” I say.

“Right,” Hudson says with a closed-mouth, comma-shaped smile. He shuts the door for me and takes his time walking around to the driver’s side. In front of the car, he tips his eyes to the sky and considers the cloud-covered sun, which is already sinking. When he’s finished, he gets in and revs the engine. “You have anywhere to be?” He slings his arm over my seat and reverses out of the driveway.

I check my watch. “Not until dinner.”

“Good,” Hudson says, taking his arm back. He doesn’t tell me where we’re going, and I don’t ask. My mind races at first—rolling out routes, running through blocks and divisions, reorienting with each turn—

but I force myself to stop. I can’t possibly guess. I settle into my seat.

“Didn’t
you
have somewhere to be?” I ask. Hudson doesn’t have a cell. He can’t call or text if his plans change. He could have practice, something for the team. Someone could be waiting. Cal. Jolene. I wonder if he knows where she is. If she’s been in touch with him.

“Yeah,” Hudson says, putting his fingers on my knee and spreading them out into a starburst, “but then you came.”

Hudson flips down his visor. Attached to the back is a sleeve of silver discs tucked in black vinyl pockets.

“You’ve really got a thing for CDs,” I say.

Hudson runs his fingers along the curved, shiny edges and shrugs. “Small price to pay for a little privacy.”

“Right,” I say, remembering Hudson’s ban on all things digital and why he stuck to it:
What we did . . .

it’s not for anybody else.

What they did. Jolene and Hudson. In this car, probably. I lean forward, so my back isn’t touching the seat.

Hudson slips out a disc and guides it into the player without taking his eyes off the road. “Tell me what you think of this,” he says as the first track spins, then begins. I open my mouth, and he laughs. “Once you’ve heard it.”

“Right.” I shut my eyes—so I can’t peek at street signs—and listen.

The speakers thrum with a deep, slow bass, mixed with soft chords from a piano, then a drum kicks in with a light cymbal, marking the rhythm. I keep waiting for words, but none come. The longer I listen, though, the more the instruments sound like people. The saxophone especially, soaring and sliding like it’s crying. It makes me feel like an open-ended question. Unwritten. Ready to spin out in any direction. I grip my seat and open my eyes.

“You like it,” he says.

“I like it,” I tell him.

“Cool,” he says, fighting back a smile. “Thought you would.”

“Why’s that?” I ask. But I must have said the wrong thing.

Hudson’s smile fades. The muscles around his mouth tense. He tightens his hold on the steering wheel.

And I don’t ask him anything else. I might not know what the problem is, but I know this: Hudson will talk when he’s ready.

I look out the window. The bright white clouds from earlier this afternoon have gone gray. Front porches are lit. Streetlights, cut lawns, and close-curtained houses go by. The song ends, and a new one begins. It’s different from the last. A deep, somber voice croons over an acoustic guitar.

“My mom made me this CD.” Hudson’s jaw clenches the second he says it, like his mouth is a trap and the words weren’t supposed to get out.

“Oh,” I say. The last time we talked about his mom, on that short call before the manhunt game, Hudson was pained, pleading. I inch my hand over the middle console and slide it onto the gearshift, under his.

“I used to think she was weak. I used to hate her,” he says, swallowing. “I used to think she hated me.”

“No,” I say, squeezing his hand. But he sits up, pulls his hand away. I put mine back in my lap.

“It was the only thing I could come up with. Why else would she leave?” he asks, turning to me. “Why else would you?”

I freeze.

But Hudson continues.

“Then she got into all these things.” He shakes his head. “They were stupid, right? Book clubs.

Charities. Traveling. She was busy half the time and gone the other. At first I thought”—he pauses here, blinks a few times, grits his teeth—“I thought she liked being away from me. It made sense. She spent more time traveling than she did in her house across town. But after a while she seemed, I don’t know.

Happy. Way happier than she ever seemed with my dad.” Hudson hits his turn signal, and we make a sharp right off Lawrence Avenue and onto Route 22. We head away from Westfield. And in the green glow of neon lights advertising chain restaurants and car sales, Hudson looks at me. His eyes move over my face the way they did in Bella’s basement.

“She left because she needed to. My dad’s a jackass, right? So she stopped taking his bullshit. She left. Just like you.”

His words hit me square in the chest. “Hudson—”

“That’s why I like you,” he says, taking a hand off the wheel and running it along my jaw. “You did the same thing. You left because you needed to. You did what you wanted and didn’t care what people would think. You don’t give a shit.”

I let out a hard breath as his fingers graze my mouth. It reminds me of the park, the blades of grass, the way he laughed. I lower my head until my lips graze his skin, let out my breath along the length of his hand, the inside of his wrist. Kiss it.

The car goes over a small hill, a rise and fall that plunges my stomach in a way that feels familiar, and when I look around I realize why. Hudson took a right off 22, onto a pitch dark street.

We’re at the reservation.

Trees climb on either side of us, bending over the road like a canopy. Hudson takes back his hand and jerks the wheel to the right. The Honda shakes and vibrates underneath my feet. I lean forward to look out the window.

The sign says Johnston Drive. I didn’t think this section of it actually existed. It’s only marked on one of my maps, so I always assumed it was a trap street—something the mapmaker put in to catch plagiarists.

“Sit back,” Hudson says. Before I can ask why, the street drops out from under us, and for a second the car is suspended, then the front tires hit the ground. Other than a little bit of bouncing, we’re fine. I turn to Hudson, my eyes wide. “Told you,” he says, smirking.

After that I stick myself to the seat. Each time the street bucks beneath us, I hold my breath until the tires hit the ground again.

“There are thirteen,” Hudson says, when we reach the intersection at the bottom.

“Guess this isn’t your first time,” I say, my heart still racing.

“First time with someone else in the car,” he says.

He never did this with Jolene. “I’ll take it,” I say, facing away from him. It’s dark enough now that I can see my reflection in the window. I forgot I had my hair down. I let it fall over my eye. The girl in the window stares at me.

Hudson rolls the car to a stop at the foot of the cliffs. After the rush of the thirteen bumps, stopping here feels like sinking.

Hudson kills the engine, cutting off a drum solo on the stereo, and we get out. Gravel crunches beneath our sneakers. We’re on a piece of land that overlooks the town. It’s mostly dirt and rocks—the same place Bella, Kris, Jolene, and I used to park our bikes before heading up the trails. I always assumed it belonged to the house next to it.

“Are we allowed to be here?” I ask, stepping closer to the edge. Hudson stands next to me, the arm of his jacket touching mine.

“It’s just land,” he says, “why not?”

“I wasn’t sure if it was private.” I tip my head in the direction of the house. The light goes on in the window. A woman walks into the kitchen.

“Maybe. Maybe not,” he says. “Why, you scared?”

The wind whistles around us. Dry leaves rustle in the trees, bending and breaking off in the breeze.

Then the wind dies and there’s silence. And it’s strange and empty, and suddenly that’s how I am too. And I’m afraid that if I don’t move—if I don’t do something soon—the empty feeling will grow and grow and grow until it takes me over.

So I grab Hudson’s hand and run. I don’t look down as my feet hit the narrow path that winds around the house and up into the forest. Hudson runs behind me, clutching my hand tight. I think he’s saying something, but his words get caught in the wind. I can’t hear him. I can’t hear anything but the air in my ears. I can’t feel anything but the rocks under my sneakers. I can’t see anything but the end of the path.

When we get there, I laugh with all the breath I have left. A strange, happy howl.

Hudson is breathing easy, but he has an odd look on his face. Like he can’t believe what I just did.

I smile. It feels wider than usual.

Then a quick buzz comes from behind us, and with a crackle and click we’re caught in a flood of light.

The back door squeaks open, and a voice shouts. Hudson takes my hand, and we run across the front lawn toward the car, our laughter trailing us. Nobody catches us, but it feels like we escaped something when we’re safe in the car and the drum solo is back on the stereo, beating in time with my heart.

We drive deeper into the reservation. It’s completely dark now, the night pulled close and tight around us. No late-afternoon glow streaming through the leaves, no short blast of brightness from behind the clouds, just the ripple of moonlight across the water and the thrill of all the things that happen when the sun is down.