Yes, Jolene did it. And yes, I let her. And I know Kris will never understand why—for the same reason she laughed when I said I wanted to be something new. Because Kris likes everything just fine the way it is. Including me. She won’t give me gills or gowns. She doesn’t think I can change. I told her . . . there were just some things you wouldn’t do.
But Jolene had listened. She’d taken me seriously.
I’m back in that room, wrists bound, mouth taped, pulse racing. I’m screaming. Bella’s laughing. I’m leaving, eyes wet and blurry. I won’t speak to Jolene. And nobody will speak to me, except for Kris. “You’d been my only friend after the ropes thing, so I went back for you. I found you in that shed. I thought I owed you. But you only kept talking to me then because you felt guilty.”
“No,” Kris says, eyes wide, cheeks red, curls loose.
I step toward her. “I gave up Hudson. I gave up everything for you. And you couldn’t even tell me the truth?”
At least Jolene had come clean. The night she’d called me to come over, she’d admitted that what she’d done was fucked up, even if she had done it for me. She also told me how easy it had been to turn my “friends” against me. But not Kris, I’d said to myself. Kris didn’t quit on me.
No. She didn’t quit on me. She lied to me.
“Why are you even here?” I ask Kris, scanning the pile of papers on the floor. “Shouldn’t you be delivering those?”
“You said you’d help me.” Kris’s cheeks have gone from red to pink to pale. “I was in the journalism room all morning stuffing the inserts,” she says. “I said I’d find you.”
This morning, in the car, as the snow fell. That’s right. She said she’d find me. Like the time I found her in the shed. And the time I didn’t, at Bella’s party.
“Well, I guess you did.”
“I guess so,” she says, squinting. I wonder if I look different to her, the way she looks different to me. Not because of the clothes, but because of what we now know.
Kris doesn’t pick up the papers when she goes. She leaves them strewn across the floor—headlines about the holidays, black-and-white photos, pixelated people. I think. It’s hard to tell from this distance. I bend down. Each senior in the picture smiles crisp and clear; the problem is, they do it twice.
Two mouths, two sets of eyes, two heads. One exposure dark, the other light, and a fraction of an inch to the right. It must be a printing glitch. Whatever it is, the effect is eerie: bright smiles broken, clear eyes clouded, perfect hair pulled.
Two people where one should be.
CHAPTER 28
I HAVEN’T WALKED anywhere in over a year. I used to walk home from school every day, starting in fifth grade. I complained about it to my mom, but the truth is, I liked walking the streets I’d seen on my map, and the ones that didn’t exist then. Even in the snow and cold. Especially then, actually. I liked the way the white flakes covered everything and made it even, like a fresh canvas I could paint with my own colors and shapes.
Today it just looks blank.
My feet crunch over salt in front of the school and sink into slush as I cross the street. An icy stream seeps through the tops of my sneakers and into my socks. Then it stops, and I fall into a rhythm. Me. My breath. My legs.
It’s not snowing anymore, but it’s cold. A clear crust covers the white lawns along Lenox, some still dressed for Thanksgiving with paper Pilgrims and plastic turkeys, others looking forward to Christmas with blinking bushes and ribboned wreaths. Ice covers each needle on the evergreens—the trees that refuse to give up their leaves, that can’t bear to let them turn beautiful because it also means losing them.
I walk faster. I can’t feel the tips of my fingers, though when I press them to my lips, they’re hot. Burning. I wipe my nose and sniff. Instead of charred winter air, I inhale something heavy and wet. Humidity. My shirt clings to my back inside my jacket. The snow sinking under my sneakers is fresh dirt. The trees have leaves, bright and green. I’m between buildings at Cal’s complex on the night of the manhunt game. But this time I don’t choose Kris. I’m hand in hand with Jolene, on my way to home base, where Hudson sits, waiting for me.
The game is over.
CHAPTER 29
HUDSON OPENS THE door in a plain white tee, worn and tight at the sleeves, and baggy jeans. The sconces in the foyer light him up from behind and throw a yellow glow through the doorway. The day went dark on my walk over.
“I’ve got something to show you.” He grabs my hand and pulls me in. I want to tell him about Kris, but that means telling him about Jolene, so instead I follow him up the stairs to his room without telling him anything. Though I can’t help noticing how his fingers, which have slipped between mine countless times, feel bigger this afternoon, his skin rougher than usual.
Hudson flicks open the door with his free hand. At first I think he’s taken one of my maps. But when I look closer, I see it’s not a single map but a book of them. And the pages aren’t ancient, just old. It’s an atlas. And it’s enormous. It covers the length of his desk—spine soft, covers flush against the wood, like it’s used to being open, handled, read. There are more on his bed.
“What is this?” I step first to the bed and then the desk to run my fingers over the pages, faded white with use, ripped and rescued with Scotch tape. It’s strange to see such oddly shaped borders, so many new routes. I’m used to looking at maps of Westfield.
“This is me not giving a shit,” he says. Hudson’s leaning against the doorframe, hands shoved into his jeans, smiling at the atlases like old friends. I know how he feels. Even though I haven’t taken out my Sanborns in weeks, I haven’t forgotten why I wanted them, why I wanted any of them: maps are so much easier to read than people. I just didn’t know anyone else felt the same way. For a second I see us from above: two dots in this room, in his house, on this street, in Westfield. Together. The same. Until I remember what he said.
“Not giving a shit about what?”
“College. Plans. What people expect.”
That’s when I notice the highlighted lines weaving their way across every open page. None of them stop. Each one falls right off the edge. They’re escape routes.
“You mean you’re actually going to these places? And your parents are cool with it?”
“Not even close,” he says. “My dad doesn’t know. I told my mom. She’s not thrilled, but she gets it. I mean, she left him. She’s split her time between here and the road ever since.” Hudson shrugs. “She’s half the reason I came up with it.” He motions toward the atlases.
“Half?”
“Well, yeah, I mean . . .” Hudson pushes off the wall and walks to the bed. His arm hangs next to mine. I can feel heat radiating from it and, on the other side of me, a chill from his always-open window. “You gave me the idea to begin with,” Hudson finishes.
“I did?” It doesn’t make sense. I’ve never told him about my maps. He’s never been to my room. And anyway, mine are nothing like his.
I follow a jagged red line across the page, imagine expansive skies and an open road. Then I drop my eyes to the yellow line in the middle of that made-up concrete. Because even in my imagination, looking into something infinite makes me dizzy. Disoriented.
My maps are familiar—places I’ve been, where I live.
Hudson’s maps are a way out. Mine are a way in.
“Yeah.” Hudson threads his fingers between mine. “You and Kris. If you two ditched everyone, I figure I can do it.”
But I guess no matter how many times you draw yourself out of a place, you’re still in it. It’s been a year, but we’re both back at the manhunt game.
And I came over here with words in my head, in my mouth. I came over here to tell him something.
“Kris isn’t what you think,” I say, shifting my hand in his. It feels too big.
“Good thing I’m not in love with her then.”
“No, I mean the night of the manhunt game. Me and Kris leaving—” Ask her. “Kris lied
to me. About the ropes. It was her idea. She said she was trying to protect me from Jolene—”
“Mattie.” Hudson grips my shoulders, forces me to face him. I had it all figured out on the way here—how to tell him—but then he showed me those atlases, and now something’s wrong. Hudson’s holding me too tight, he’s breathing too hard, he’s creasing that spot between his eyes so deep his freckles meet. “I just told you I love you, and you’re talking about Jolene? Still?”
“You’re the one who started talking about her in the first place!” I was fine. I was sealed.
“I talked about her. Fine. Then I stopped. When are you going to stop?”
“But this changes everything.”
He throws his hands out to his sides. “No, it doesn’t. Who gives a shit whose idea it was? Jolene still did it.”
An engine revs outside. It roars, then fades, and the room is quiet again.
“But Kris lied to me. She admitted it.”
“To protect you. You said so yourself.”
“Kris said that. Not me. And, really, what did she end up protecting me from anyway? The truth? If I’d known what she did, I wouldn’t have left—”
“And I never would have known you like this. Why do you think I’m showing you these?” He motions toward the atlases. “I never thought, when I left this place, I’d want anyone to come with me. But you . . . I’m telling you I love you. And you still haven’t said anything back.”
I used to imagine this: Hudson telling me he loves me. Sweet words hot in my ear as we lie between his sheets. One hand on the small of my back, the other on my cheek. How it would make everything perfect.
But it doesn’t. Because the girl Hudson is in love with is the one who leaves. It isn’t me. It’s who he wants me to be.
Something pounds inside me. It can’t be my heart, because it’s not just in my chest. It’s in my ankles, my thighs, my throat, my gut.
I step away from him. The backs of my knees hit his bed.
“You don’t love me.”
“I do.” Hudson tries for my hand, but I pull it away.
“You don’t know me.” I’ve pretended long enough. But he’s going to find out at some point. Just like Kris did. It may as well be now. It may as well be from me. “I took Jolene home from Bella’s party.”
“What?” Hudson stiffens. He narrows his eyes. And it’s a relief, the way he looks at me. Like I’m strange. Like he can finally see down to the darkest, dirtiest bottom of who I am.
“Jolene. I dragged her drunk from Bella’s party after you broke up with her.”
Hudson presses his lips into a line. “Listen, if you don’t feel the same way about me, fine. But don’t lie.”
“You don’t believe me?”
Hudson’s eyes go hard. His nostrils flare. He shakes his head once. No.
Figures. I’m finally telling the truth, and he accuses me of lying. But it doesn’t matter whether he wants to believe me or not. I have proof.
“Give me my phone.” I hold out my palm. I can feel my blood race through the blue tracks in my wrist, pulse in my fingertips. Not a pounding anymore, but an energy.
Hudson backs into his desk, forearms and fists tense. He’s not going to do it. He doesn’t want to know how wrong he was, how badly he misjudged me.
For a year and a half I’ve wanted him to love me.
But now I just want him to see me. The real me.
I push my upturned palm toward him.
Hudson jerks open the top drawer of his desk. The bronze handle claps when he slams it shut and slaps the phone on my palm. It covers my scar.
I turn it on. The battery’s low, since it’s been in his desk for a while, but I don’t need much. I pull up Jolene’s texts—the entire string, beginning last year—and hand it back to him.
Hudson’s eyes move side to side, up and down, but he doesn’t lift a finger to the screen. “There’s more. You can scroll,” I tell him.
He gives my cell back and shoves his hands in his pockets. “I don’t need to see anything else.”
“So you believe me?” I find his eyes. They’re dark and light at the same time, like the ocean: turquoise on the surface where it’s shallow, layers of navy underneath where the floor’s too deep to see. He doesn’t look away. And as I wait for him to answer, the pulsing that’s been pushing me forward stops. In its wake is silence, like my blood itself is holding its breath, wanting him to say yes, that he sees me for what I am—not strong and hard-core, but weak and soft—and also hoping he won’t.
Because I know after this he’ll never look at me the same way.
“I believe Jolene sent you those texts. And that you never wrote her back,” he says.
I nod. Swallow.
He sits on the edge of his desk and cups one of his hands over his mouth like he’s trying to figure something out.
He still wants to believe in some other version of me.
“I didn’t write back. But, like I said, I took her home from Bella’s party, and I’ve been talking to her in study hall.”
“So you did cut her off.” Hudson’s moving his fingers along his lips as he speaks, but behind them I can see a quick curve, the beginning of a smile. It sets off the heat in me again. The pulsing.
“But she kept sending texts. And I kept reading them. She never gave up.”
“Not one of her strong suits,” he adds with a smirk. Like it’s a cute trait on a dumb puppy. Something he can laugh at. But it’s not. Jolene never gave up on me.
“Right,” I say, angry now. “You’re the one who gives up. You stopped calling me when you were with Jolene. You acted like I didn’t exist. And then you made up some story about me, and you believed it. You got me to believe it, too. But I’m not brave or amazing. And I do give a shit.” My throat hurts when I’m finished. I must have been screaming. I swallow hard and feel something hot streak down the side of my nose. I pull my sleeve over my fist and get rid of the tear before it hits my lips.
“What if it’s not a story?” Hudson asks. He stands up, wipes his palms on the thighs of his jeans, and leans his whole body toward me. “What if everything I think about you is true?”
“It’s not. You don’t love me.” I take a step back.
See me. Please.
Hudson walks forward. I can’t get any farther back. He comes so close, I think I might fall onto his bed, or he might push me down if I don’t. When he stops, there’s half an inch between us, maybe. I can count the freckles on his nose and see the brown specks in his eyes. I can smell him—mint, winter—when he traces my jaw with his finger, tilts up my chin, and asks, “What if I did?”
I squeeze my eyes shut. Two more tears race down my cheek. I lick the salt from my lips.
Hudson drops his hand from my face. “It doesn’t matter, does it?” he asks. “Because you’re not in love with me.” Hudson clutches the back of my hand and turns it over so I can see my phone. Then he presses against my thumb and lights up the screen. Jolene’s face stares back at me. The thumbnail of her getting ready for the freshman dance. She’s looking at me over her shoulder, sleek brown hair with auburn streaks cascading across her cheek, wide lips spread in a suggestive smile. Hazel eyes rimmed in black, catlike.
But it’s not the picture I see. It’s every time she looked at me in the hall. It’s every text she sent and note she wrote. Every night in her bed. Every breath on my neck.
It’s why I couldn’t look away when she was kissing Hudson.
I feel like I’m picking at a scab. Lifting, tugging, pulling up the crusty parts that cling to my softer skin protectively. It hurts, but I keep picking, lifting, pulling through the pain. Even though I have to hold my breath. Even though my eyes sting. And when the last piece finally releases, when I rip the scab off completely—there she is, red and slick and streaming. Jolene. Underneath everything.
Inside me.
All that time I thought I was building a new skin—I wasn’t keeping her out; I was sealing her in.
“You two deserve each other,” he says, disgusted.
Hudson drops my hand, and as it falls to my leg, carried by the weight of my cell, everything seems to make sense. As if this is the way today was always going to happen. As if it’s happened before. As if it’s the only way it could ever be: Hudson dropping his gaze, clenching his fists, turning away. Leaving.
“Find your own way out,” he says.
I pick up my bag and coat with one hand—the other’s still clutching my phone—and do what he says. When I pull the door shut behind me, I take in the crisp night, the black sky, the spots of light; but as I walk home, I grow heavy with wet heat. Bushes and town houses surround me. It’s August. Kris has gone home. Hudson isn’t waiting. But I’m not alone.
Jolene’s got my hand, and she won’t let go.
CHAPTER 30
I WAKE UP in my underwear. I have a vague memory of coming home, stripping off my clothes, and curling up under the covers around some unseen center—pulling my knees tight to my chest until my body circled itself like a shrimp. I must have stayed that way all night. I’m sore and sweating.
I try to unfurl myself, but I slept on my arm and now it’s stuck, numb, a foreign limb in bed with me. I roll onto my back and wait for it to regain feeling. First the pins and needles, then the heat. And then it’s mine again. I open and close my fist. Something’s in it. My phone. With a text from Jolene.
Two little girls all alone.
At first I think she forgot to finish the line; but when I blink, I see the period. She meant what she wrote.
I didn’t call her last night to tell her what happened with Hudson, but she knows.
I hook my phone up to the charger, throw on one of Jake’s old sweatshirts, and head for the shower. The water burns my skin, but it doesn’t rinse away the dream-feeling. I get dressed, eat breakfast, turn on the ignition. But it’s like the cloud of steam from the bathroom—the cloak of sleep—follows me.
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