Underneath Everything

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Underneath Everything Page 7

by Marcy Beller Paul


  “I’ve got better things to do than watch you chug beer,” I say, wishing it were true.

  “Your loss,” he says as he walks down the hall. “Take a shower, by the way. You reek.”

  “Leave!” I call out to him. And he does.

  Later that night I lie in bed, listening to the rush of water from the kitchen sink downstairs, the careful clink and zip of china being packed away in special storage bags, and the never-ending sound of whistles and fouls and football fans cheering. I lie perfectly still in my perfectly clean room with my messy thoughts. There’s a string inside me, a teensy-tiny string, and I’m pulling on it. I know I shouldn’t. But. Hudson. He told me I was hard-core. Brilliant. He made me believe in something I thought was long gone: him and me. I pull the string a little more. I’m back there again, weak with wanting. And where is he? He hasn’t texted or called, and I’m unraveling. I close my eyes. Try to ignore the string. But his hands in my hair. His eyes. Why do I let him do this to me? Why, after all his talk of loyalty, did I expect him to ditch Jolene? Why, after all this time, did I expect a different ending?

  I roll onto my side and stare at the hand-drawn map I made in sixth grade. It is Thanksgiving. Maybe he’s with his family. Maybe he’ll call tomorrow.

  But Friday comes and goes and I still haven’t heard anything. Not from Jolene, whose car I drove. Whose front door I opened, slowly at first, then quickly, so it wouldn’t creak when I carried her through it, even though her parents weren’t there and wouldn’t be back until some small hour of the morning, long after I’d walked home and opened my own front door.

  Not from Kris, who’s grounded.

  Not from Hudson, who held me.

  By Friday night I can’t fight it. I pull the string and paw through every jealous memory I have of Hudson and Jolene: her upturned smiles; his downcast eyes; the way he kissed her in the hall, like no one else existed. I force my eyes open, make them see—Jolene didn’t take Hudson. Hudson chose Jolene. He’s chosen her every day since the manhunt game.

  That’s loyalty.

  I flip over and bury my face in my pillow. I blink into the black, breathe the cotton in and out until the exhales don’t ache and the inhales are smooth.

  If Hudson thinks I’ll take what I can get and disappear into the walls again, he’s wrong. It’s been almost a year and a half. I will not be that girl again.

  I am not that girl.

  When Hudson said good-bye to me at Bella’s, he said he’d find me. Instead I’ll find him. Tomorrow’s Saturday—the soccer game. Hudson’s on varsity. I told Jake I wasn’t going, but I will. And for once I won’t control myself. I won’t stand back and watch quietly while the words claw at my throat, fight my lips to get free. I’ll let them come ripping out. I’ll tell him he doesn’t mean a thing to me. That I don’t think about him. That I never did. That he can go back to her, because I’m done with him. It’s over. It never existed in the first place.

  And maybe, when the words are up and out of me, I’ll believe them.

  CHAPTER 9

  I HAVEN’T BEEN to Tamaques Park in years. I half expect to drive into a swath of egg-yolk-yellow paper labeled Division 41, Block 522—but as I turn the first curve, it’s obvious that everything’s exactly where I left it. The tennis courts and playgrounds on my left, the basketball courts on my right. The baseball diamond, paved walking paths, and patches of open grass inside the largest part of the loop. I lean forward in my seat and look out across the open field in front of me. I spot a couple of boys kicking a ball, setting up makeshift nets and flags on the flat grass in the outfield. But Hudson isn’t one of them. So I keep driving, up the tiny hill and into the small parking lot near the pond. I park my car—Jake’s old one, actually—and stare out at the field.

  I can almost see us—Cal, Hudson, Kris, and me (Jolene was away with her family)—that summer night after sophomore year when we walked to the park, lay down in that field, and made up our own constellations. At least Kris and Cal did. I was quiet, trying to find the real ones I knew from the poster in Jake’s room: Orion, the Hunter; Perseus, the Hero; Cassiopeia, the Queen.

  Hudson was quiet too. Then again, he didn’t really talk if he didn’t have to. But after a particularly disgusting creation from Cal involving a farm animal and the name of a sexual position, we all burst out laughing. Kris and I clutched our stomachs. When we finished giggling, I put my hand back on the ground. That’s when Hudson slid his fingers into mine and left them there, between blades of grass. It was the second time we’d held hands, and it was a step up. Last time in a dark room, this time under the night sky. I curled my fingers, closing the open spaces, until we were skin to skin, and even though his hands were hotter than the July air, I felt cool and clear. As I traced patterns in the stars, I imagined how he looked, lying next to me: face angled up at the sky, skin lit by the moon. And when I gave in and turned my head to see the real thing, I nearly jumped off the grass. He wasn’t staring at the stars. He was staring at me. I opened my mouth in surprise, and the long grass tickled my lips and stuck to my tongue. I spit it out, and he laughed at me while Kris and Cal fought over the best constellation name: Cal’s Starfreaker versus Kris’s Hard to Star. Later that night, when we walked up to the street corner to say our good-byes, Hudson picked a piece of grass out of my hair. Two months later, he threaded his fingers between Jolene’s, right where I could see him. He wasn’t mine anymore, if he ever had been.

  A whistle blows. A bunch of alumni walk onto the grass and start warming up next to the varsity players. The whole team is here now, Hudson included.

  I get out of my car and unzip my coat. The air is crisp, and the sun has hold of the whole sky. Red and yellow leaves rustle in the trees. When Jake still lived at home, and everything was loud and busy, I used to get on my bike and ride here when I needed to scream or daydream, when I wanted to be lost. Alone. But today the park is crowded.

  People stream down the cracked paved path—small clusters of scarved alumni, a massive pack from the senior class, scattered groups of juniors—talking and laughing on their way to the aluminum bleachers. I find a tree a few yards away and watch as they file in, squishing together and squinting into the winter sun.

  Then the extra balls are bagged, the players are in position, and a coin is flipping in the air. When it hits the grass, Cal leans over, calls, “Heads it is, chumps!” and every pair of feet on the field starts jumping and shuffling, waiting for that first pass. Hudson places his right cleat on top of the ball, looks downfield, then passes to Cal and sprints forward. His arms pump inside his long-sleeved shirt, which folds and flaps against the wind. His cleats dig down into the grass, kicking up dirt onto his bare calves.

  I end up shivering in the shade. So I step out onto the path and shield my eyes from the sun. I spot Jake and his crew at the top of the bleachers. They’re the loud ones. I take a quick look around for Jolene but don’t see her. This is her kind of thing. Normally she’d be in the first bleacher, collecting looks and catcalls, doling out lidded eyes and half smiles to select admirers. A couple of years ago we’d be with her. Jolene at the core, me, Bella, and Kris clustered around her—the original four.

  A whistle blows, bringing me back to the game. Cal’s carrying the ball over for a corner kick, trash-talking the whole way. He gets smiles, shouts, and cracks back from each guy on the field. Each guy except for Hudson, that is. He’s in position in front of the goal, running up and back, trying to lose his man. He keeps his eyes on the corner and his feet moving.

  I cross my arms against the cold and repeat the words I’m going to say over and over again.

  Cal finally takes the kick, sending the ball soaring in a perfect arc toward the far post. The goalie launches his body up in the air and spreads his fingers wide; but before he can get his gloved hands around the ball, Hudson heads it past him, into the upper right corner of the net, for the goal. The varsity team explodes in shouts and slaps. They rush the corner, form a tight circle, shout ou
t a chant, and do some sort of dance. But Hudson doesn’t join them. He just jogs slowly back to midfield, ready for the next play.

  Bella’s voice booms from the sideline. I don’t know how I missed her before. She’s doing her cheerleader thing: elbows bent and tight to her body, hands pausing between hard claps, legs kicking up above her waist as she spells Cal’s name. He turns toward her from midfield and bends his body forward in a deep bow. She replies with a few more claps and some wild “Wooo-hooos” before rubbing her lips together and smiling her self-proclaimed see-you-later-for-something-yummy smile. They must be hooking up again. They’ve had an on-and-off thing going for most of high school.

  I search the inside of my jacket pocket as Bella cheers, sifting through spare coins, slips of paper, a tube of ChapStick. Jolene’s lighter. I still haven’t seen Jolene. I look out over the stands again, but all I see are hoods and hats. Jolene never covers her hair.

  I stand on my tiptoes and search the short, brown grass surrounding the bleachers before shaking off the anxiety with a quick, cold breath. I did my part—I got her home. She’ll be fine. Always is.

  The whistle blows for another free kick. Hudson turns and runs toward the other goal, away from me.

  An hour later the boys are silent and sweaty. The score is 2 all. The game is in extra time. Next goal wins. The sun’s light is softer, and the wind is picking up. The crowd has thinned. Jake and all the guys he used to play with left ten minutes ago. My feet are near freezing, but I can’t leave. I can’t keep these words inside me. I have to tell him, to say it to his face. I watch Hudson’s chest heave in and out, and match my breath to his. Then I repeat the refrain in my head again and again, until the words are all I can hear and think.

  A few plays later Cal scores off a perfect cross, and the two tired teams line up to trade slaps and insults. When they’re done with that, they collect the flags, gather the balls, greet whoever’s left on the bleachers, and break up into car-sized groups before walking to the parking lot. The sky fights for some last bits of light, until the sun finally gives up and sinks behind the tall trees, leaving nothing but a gray sheen.

  Hudson’s the only guy left on the grass now, but it’s like he has no idea. Either that or he doesn’t care. He’s only paying attention to one thing: the ball he’s juggling. Right knee, left knee, right knee. Left foot, right knee, head. Even when Bella and Cal walk over to him, Hudson’s concentration doesn’t fade. He finishes a series on his right foot, boots the ball into his left hand, says something to them—only a few words—and walks away.

  He’s halfway across the big field when I start following him. My blood pumps, my muscles loosen up, the sound of my breath surrounds me. Soon I’m jogging after him, desperate he’ll blend into the charcoal night and disappear and I won’t get to say it.

  “Hudson!” I call out. “Wait!”

  He stops between two large rocks that mark the old park boundary, where the blocks once divided, and turns around. As I get closer, his features come into focus. Wavy brown hair, wet with sweat. Dark eyebrows, drawn together in question. The right corner of his lips turning up the tiniest bit. I slow to a walk, but I’m still panting when I reach him at the rocks.

  “You’re here.” Hudson pulls a hand through his hair, scratches his head.

  “Yeah.” I grit my teeth as the words rise in my throat, like bile. I swallow, catch my breath, steel myself. “Listen, I—”

  “That’s cool,” he says.

  What?

  He presses his lips together, hitches the ball up against his waist. “I wanted to see you.”

  I search his face in the low light, looking for the half smile, the mischievous squint of his eyes that’ll tell me this is a game to him, that I’m the sure thing in his back pocket, something to play with in between stints with Jolene. That I’m second place, always have been. But there’s no longer a smile on his face, no upturned lips. Not even a hint. Instead his look is searching, intense. It’s pulling me in. I look away, before I’m lost in him and I forget how to say all the things I need to, starting with:

  “You didn’t call.”

  “I know.” Hudson steps toward me.

  “You didn’t text.”

  “I know.” He comes closer. I can see beads of sweat running down his neck.

  “You said—”

  “I said I’d find you. But I guess you beat me to it.” He’s right in front of me now, so close I can smell him. Sweat and wood and pine. He smells more like winter than the trees on either side of us.

  I turn toward the tall spruces to give myself a minute. All those angry words are stuck in my throat, choking me. My chest, so tight with rage a second before, has changed its consistency. I look for the hard place inside me that hates him for what he did; but it’s soft now, as if being near him, sharing space with him, has melted it. I hate what he does to me. But I keep coming back. Because he keeps saying things like that. I stand there, staring. I don’t know what to do. But Hudson does.

  He takes my hand. I can feel the folds of skin between his fingers, the warmth of his palm. I fall into step next to him, and we follow the path around the pond, across the old dividing line, into Division 18. At first we walk in silence. This is how our conversations always start. But as the birds sing a series of staccato chirps above us, I start to wonder: if Hudson wanted to be with me, why didn’t he text? It’s not like I asked him to show up at my door on a white horse. And I know he never loved talking on the phone, but he could have gotten in touch. He could have said something.

  Why do I always wait for him to speak first?

  “So, tell me again why you didn’t text?” I try to keep my voice light, but it rises too quickly at the end. I lower my head, study the pavement.

  Hudson looks my way for a second, then squeezes my hand and keeps walking. “Couldn’t,” he says. “Don’t have a cell.”

  “What?”

  Hudson smiles wide. It’s so rare for him, I almost trip. His hand tightens around mine.

  “No email, either. Nothing digital,” he says, his smile easy and big now, like I’ve never seen it. He looks down, laughs, like he’s proud of himself.

  “So, you’re hiding from the FBI?” I ask.

  He shrugs, looks at me again—his lips a tight smile, like he’s trying to keep it from spreading, his blue eyes flashing recognition. “Sort of.”

  “Do tell.”

  “My dad works in government security,” he says. I remember his dad. Good-looking for an old guy. Scary. Always serious. Always in a suit. “He thinks he can track anyone. At first I quit the grid just to piss him off. Which totally worked.” Hudson lets out a soft laugh, shifts his grip on my hand. My whole body flushes hot. We’re halfway around the pond now. The sky has moved through gray to flat black.

  “At first?” I ask.

  “Yeah.” His steps slow down, his hand gets heavy. “I meant to go back on, but Jolene was so pissed.”

  Jolene. Just when I’d finally forgotten about her, here she is.

  “Not because she couldn’t talk to me,” he says, sneaking a glance in my direction, “but because she couldn’t talk to me online. She couldn’t tag me in a picture. She couldn’t update her status with a message to me if I wasn’t on there to write back, or like it, or whatever. I was sick of it.” He pauses. “What we did—what I do—it’s not for anybody else.”

  We stop in front of the rock that marks the farthest edge of the park. There’s nowhere left to go.

  “I get it,” I say, my eyes on the pond, the trees, the sky, anything that’ll get the picture of them together out of my head.

  “I knew you would. You always did. You’re not like that.”

  “Nope,” I say. No Instagram fan club here. My body tenses and shakes, an involuntary shiver.

  “You’re cold,” he says. “Come here.” Hudson unwinds his fingers from mine, puts the ball down at his feet, and pulls me to him. My cheek is near his neck; I can feel the heat rise off his skin, the movemen
t of his chest through his sweatshirt. I don’t want to move. But when he slides his arms down to my waist, instead of him I feel Jolene guiding my hand under her shirt, across her stomach, over her skirt. I see the lawn chair, her legs everywhere.

  Hudson said he broke up with her. But is it ever really over with Jolene?

  I pull away from him. He presses his lips into a line, sits down on the large rock, and steadies the ball with his cleat. I sit next to him on the hard, sloping surface, our thighs touching, our arms wedged together. Neither of us speaks. There’s only the wind, the stray scratch of a dry leaf blown across the cement, and the thing I haven’t told him: that I took Jolene home from Bella’s party.

  “Anyway,” Hudson says, rolling the ball back and forth with his foot, “after being off the grid for a while, I didn’t really want to go back. I liked the quiet.” Hudson shrugs. “I quit social stuff first, then email. I got rid of my cell last. That part was inspired by you.”

  “Me?”

  “The night you left your phone at the manhunt game,” he says.

  “Right.” I dropped it in the basket at the beginning of the game; we all did. And then later, Kris and I left. We didn’t go back—not for our phones, not for him. Not for anything. It’s like my life cracked that night, like it split. He went in one direction. I went in the other.

  “I kept it, you know,” he says.

  “Kept what?” I ask. I’ve gone back to that night so many times, wondering if I could have done something different; but each time I make the same choice. I walk away from Jolene. She ends up with him.

  “Your phone,” Hudson says. He stops the ball with his foot, looks at me.

  “Really?” It’s the one thing I didn’t mind losing that night: the screen was shattered, and my parents had refused to replace it. They left me phoneless for a week before they caved and gave me a new one, along with a speech about responsibility and consequences.

 

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