“Look . . .” I know I should apologize. The words are right there, waiting to come out of my mouth, but I stuff them back in. “I need to get the bread in the oven for dinner. Livy’ll be home soon.”
I walk into the kitchen, leaving my mother alone. As I adjust the temperature on the oven and listen to Mom as she finally trudges up the stairs, I think about what Hadley said about wanting something you don’t even believe is possible. I wonder now whether she was really talking about a happy ending or whether she was just talking about the kind of life where you don’t have to fight so hard to feel at home with your own family.
Chapter Nine
Hadley
“I’m telling you, it was just weird,” I tell Kat after we slide into a booth at Wasabi’s and order Diet Cokes.
“Weird how? Creepy weird? Uncomfortable weird?”
“I don’t know. Just weird. Like she was scared of me or something. And Sam . . . God. He’s . . . I don’t know.” I huff in frustration, tapping the floppy plastic menu on my forehead. I haven’t really talked to Sam since leaving his house two days ago. During English, we’ve locked eyes about a jillion times, tossed each other little smiles that held the promise of a future conversation, but when the bell rang at the end of class, he bolted out of the classroom.
Kat grins a little. “I’ve never heard you call an encounter with a guy weird before. And you didn’t even kiss this one.”
I roll my eyes at her. I told her about what happened at Sam’s—the intense looks and the cooking and his mom—and all Kat can focus on is that I didn’t make out with him. I can’t decide if I’m insulted or amused.
“I don’t think he even wanted to hook up. I was pretty much sitting in his lap and he barely blinked.” I can feel my face turn crimson just thinking about it.
“Well, only the truly brave can resist the charms of Hadley St. Clair.”
“Then he’s William Wallace.”
Kat’s eyes widen. “Did you actually climb into his lap?”
“No! God, Kat. Seriously?”
“Well, I don’t know. Seems like something you might do.”
My mouth drops open and she has the decency to look at least moderately embarrassed. I sip on my soda, chewing on the straw until it’s nearly shredded.
“So, when is your dad getting here?” Kat asks.
I sigh, relieved to move on from talking about boys. “With any luck, late enough that the kitchen says, ‘Oops. Sorry. We’re closed.’”
She throws me a weak smile. Dad and I go out for sushi together on Thursday nights. Alone. Kat knows how much I dread it every week. This little tradition was not my idea. It’s yet another part of his therapy homework that’s infringing on my life. Tonight he called from work to tell me he’d be a few minutes late and would meet me at the restaurant. I immediately finagled Kat into coming with me. She loves my dad and was nearly as heartbroken as I was when she found out about his affair, but since she breaks out in hives at the thought of even frowning at an adult, she can chat him up over miso soup a whole lot easier than I can.
“Hadley, be nice. The last time I came here with you two, it was so awkward, I hid in the bathroom for half the meal.”
“It’s not my fault the man can’t stop talking about how amazing it will be if I go to Vanderbilt and become a renowned woman of words.”
Before Kat can say anything else, the man himself shows up. I get out and let him into the booth so I can sit on the outside. I can’t stand to be wedged between him and a soy sauce–stained wall.
“How fare my two favorite girls?” Dad asks as he sits down. His aftershave and that warm car smell waft up my nose. “I’m glad you’re joining us, Katherine.”
“Thanks for letting me come, Mr. St. Clair,” Kat says, and I stick out my tongue. She kicks me under the table.
“You’re always welcome.” Dad turns to me and smiles. “Hi, sweetheart.”
“Hi.”
After a few minutes of silent menu perusing, the server—a guy named Niko with indecipherable tattoos running laps up his arms—comes over to take our order. I list the maki rolls I want while Dad orders nigiri, the kind of sushi that’s just a big blob of raw fish over rice. Ugh. I prefer my barely dead seafood hidden in avocado and cream cheese. Kat, true to her two-year-old commitment to fleshless eating, orders vegetable rolls and a salad with that yummy ginger dressing.
Kat and Dad chat about school while I grunt acknowledgments and add “Uh-huh” and “It’s a hard class” every now and then.
When our food comes, Dad launches into a new topic. “So, Kat, how would you like to help us with a kite for the festival this coming spring?”
My stomach balls up like a piece of discarded paper. “Dad. Let’s not do this here. Please?”
“Do what?”
“I already told you I don’t want to do the festival. Kat doesn’t want to either.”
“Sure I do,” Kat the Betrayer says. “I loved it when you guys used to make those things.” She pops a huge piece of rice and avocado into her mouth. “You’d really let me help?”
“Of course,” Dad says. I know he’s only offering because he thinks if he can rope Kat into it, I’ll follow suit.
“Kat, you don’t have to,” I say, desperately trying to communicate with my eyebrows.
“I know that. I want to. I’ve always wanted to make a kite and learn how to fly it. It sounds fun.”
“It is.” Dad’s eyes are alight. “It’s beautiful. When she was little, Hadley didn’t even care about trying to fly our kite. She’d just lie in the grass, watching all those colors dancing in the sky.” He nudges me with an elbow. “It’ll be fun, Had.”
“No, it won’t. It’ll be pointless and depressing and I don’t want to do it.”
Dad leans away from me and sighs. He sets his chopsticks on his plate and wipes his mouth with his napkin. “If you ladies will excuse me for a moment.”
I get up and let him out, careful not meet his eyes. I sit back down and start lining up my remaining rolls by size.
Once Dad disappears into the bathroom, Kat leans forward, whisper-yelling. “God, Hadley. Will you ease up?”
“What?”
“You’re doing it again. I’d rather be getting a cavity filled right now.”
“What am I doing?”
“You seriously don’t realize how bitchy you’re being? It’s just a stupid kite festival.”
“I’m not trying to be a bitch,” I say, and it’s the truth. When it comes to my dad trying to bond with me, there’s a lot I can put up with. It’s not hard to fake my way through a meal or a movie or a poetry reading. But the Kite Festival is different. It’s my childhood. It’s his strong hand over mine on the tail of a kite. It’s Dad and me hunkered over a kite in the making, night after night, agonizing over every little detail. I can’t just go back to that place. Once something breaks, you can never put it back together like it was. There will always be cracks and glue stains and uneven surfaces.
“Could’ve fooled me,” Kat says, pulling soda through her straw.
“I’m not. I just don’t like pretending to feel something I don’t.”
She nods, but her expression remains hard. “I get it. Just don’t invite me to dinner next time, all right?”
I rub my eyes, confused about how this whole meal suddenly turned into an issue between me and Kat. She’s supposed to be here supporting me, making it easier, not ganging up on me and pointing out everything I’m doing wrong.
“Hadley,” Kat whispers. Her eyes are wide on something over my shoulder as the door’s bell dings, signaling a new patron. “Isn’t that Sam Bennett?”
I turn and see him. He’s wearing a worn black sweater, jeans, and flip-flops, even though it’s cool out. A girl is with him. She has his same wavy blond hair, but is sporting a streak of purple in the front. She’s pretty, her delicate features contrasting sharply with her tight black jeans and gauzy black shirt and black boots. They lean on the front counter and l
ook over a menu while the redheaded, lip-glossed hostess looks over Sam.
“Yeah, it is. I think that’s his sister.”
Dad comes back and slides in next to Kat. “You girls about ready?”
“Sure,” Kat says, but I can’t get my eyes off Sam. He turns around and our gazes touch. Sam starts to smile, but looks around our table and stops himself. His eyes darken and narrow on Kat or my dad or maybe me. I can’t tell. Then he barely nods his chin at me and turns back around.
Dad gets the check and slaps his credit card down while Kat tries to give him money. They argue back and forth while Sam props his arm on the girl’s shoulder and says something to her. She eyes our table and nods. Then they leave the restaurant without another glance in our direction.
“I’ll be right back.” Before I know what I’m doing, I’m following them out the door, my heart knocking against my ribs. “Sam!” I call when I see them next to a navy Honda Civic. He turns and holds a hand to his forehead, blocking a sliver of the setting sun breaking through the thick gray clouds.
I cross the lot and meet him at his car. “Hey,” he says, stuffing his hand in his pockets.
“Hey.” I fold my hands and run my thumb along my palm. “Why did you leave? It’s a really great sushi place.”
“Um. Yeah, we just decided we wanted something else.” He looks to his sister for confirmation and she nods. “Sorry I didn’t say hey. You were with your family.”
I wave a hand. “It’s fine. It’s just my dad and my friend Kat.”
He nods and scratches his forehead. “Oh. This is my sister, Livy.” He puts a hand on her back. “Livy, this is Hadley, the girl I was telling you about.”
He told her about me? He seems to realize how this sounds, because he quickly amends his statement. “The girl I have that project with.”
Livy nods and smiles, but it’s all wrong on her face.
“Hi,” I say. “Nice to meet you.”
“You too.” She looks down at the pavement, scuffing her boots over the concrete.
Sam squeezes her shoulder. The movement is light and easy, like it’s a reflex. “Well, we need to get dinner. My mom’s waiting.”
“Oh. Yeah, I need to get back. I just wanted to say hi, I guess.”
“I’ll see you tomorrow.”
I nod and head back to the restaurant before he can see how red my face is.
“Hadley,” he calls, and I turn around. He looks at me for a minute, the fading sun spilling gold into his hair. “Thanks for saying hey.”
“Sure.” The clouds glaze over the sky again as he gets into his car and drives away.
I’m still watching his car, wondering why I felt so compelled to chase him into the parking lot just to say hello, when I feel my dad next to me.
“Who was that?” he asks. He stares after Sam’s car, his brows cinched in the middle.
I blow out a breath. “You know, I’m not really sure.”
“Huh.” He digs his car keys out of his pocket, still watching Sam’s car stopped at a red light. “Well, I’ll see you at home, sweetheart.”
“Okay. Thanks for dinner,” I say without looking at him, relieved he didn’t ask for more details. I head toward Kat’s car.
“Did you talk to him?” she asks as we climb in.
“If you’d even call it that.”
“What does that mean?”
“I don’t know. He acted weird. And his sister acted weird.”
“There’s that word again.” She starts the car and adjusts her rearview mirror. I slide her huge CD case out of her glove box.
“Would you prefer strange? How about odd? Abnormal? Eldritch?”
“Eldritch? That can’t be a real word.”
“It means weird. Actually it means an eerie kind of weird, but it could still work.”
“When is the SAT again?”
“December seventeenth.”
“Not soon enough.” She slides her hand down through the air in front of me. “I’m ready to trade in this dictionary for a real best friend.”
I laugh and she slaps my hand away from the CDs. “Would you stop?” she says.
“What? I’m looking for that new Florence and the Machine.”
“And alphabetizing.”
“If you’d get an iPod or put music on your phone, we wouldn’t have this issue.”
“I like the liner notes.”
“You know you can download most of those, right?”
She rolls her eyes as she stops at a red light. “So if Sam’s weird and keeps acting weird and his mom’s weird and his sister’s weird, why did you run after him?”
Rain starts to plink onto the windshield. I slide the CD in the player and watch the stoplight turn green, a drippy neon glow through the shower. I don’t really have an answer to Kat’s question. Because no matter how weird Sam Bennett might seem, there’s something about him that I don’t want to stay away from. I don’t even know what that something is. And that scares me more than any kite festival.
Chapter Ten
Sam
I slide into the car with a bag full of tacos from a place called Cactus Caliente. Livy stares out the window as the greasy, cheesy smell stinks up the space between us. She’s pale and slack-jawed, just like she was when I told her about Hadley two days ago. She had sat on her bed and blinked at me so many times, I thought her eyelashes were going to fall off. Then she pulled her chemistry book into her lap and started balancing equations, her knuckles white on her pencil, and that’s the last time we talked about it. If you’d even call that talking.
My own hands are still shaking a little from seeing the back of Jason St. Clair’s dark head, just sitting there in a restaurant. Like the man actually breathes and eats and shits like a normal human. And Hadley across from him, her eyes on me, waiting for me to do something, anything but leave like I did. Before that moment, a little part of me still hoped I was wrong. Hadley St. Clair wasn’t his daughter. But seeing them both together like that, sucking up the same air, felt like a punch in the gut from my best friend or something.
Livy wipes her cheek. Black smears over her face. “She’s pretty.”
I laugh through my nose. Hadley would be the one Livy’s worried about. “Yeah. I guess she is.”
“She seems nice.”
I put my hand on top of Livy’s head. “She is nice. It’s not her fault, you know.”
She pushes my hand away. “I know. That just makes the whole thing that much more horrible.”
“Livy—”
“I don’t ever want her to know, Sam.” She angles toward me, her blue eyes huge and shiny. “Ever. Please . . . not . . .”
I feel a jolt as her words fall away and her breath stutters and wheezes. Her face drains to white and she clutches at her chest.
“Shit. Livy. Where’s your inhaler?”
She points to her huge black canvas bag on the floorboard at her feet. I dig through a sea of crap, heart in my fingertips, and finally get a lock on the inhaler. She grips my wrist while I hold it up to her lips and she gulps the medicine. After three more draws and a few minutes that feel like hours, the wheezing fades into empty-space breathing—clear air.
“Jesus,” I mutter, sliding a hand down my face.
“Please, Sam.”
“She won’t know, I promise. All right? Just breathe.”
“I’m sorry,” she says, still raspy.
“Hey, don’t do that, come on. We promised each other we wouldn’t do that anymore, remember?”
She nods, and swipes at her eyes again.
“Good. Now buckle up and tell me about this photography project you have to do.”
She heaves some air and gives me a small smile. My chest loosens a little. “Well,” she says slowly, still getting her breath back as I start the car. “Mr. Grayson says we can choose any subject we want, but the theme has to be about hope.”
“So you have to take pictures of candles burning in chapels or something cheesy like that?”
She laughs weakly. “Not necessarily. It might be a series of shots of a Coke can. I just have to be able to capture how my subject might communicate hope. To me. You know, like, interpretation.”
“Sounds cool.”
“Yeah. Except I have no idea what to choose . . .” She turns toward the window again. In her reflection, I see her eyes are vacant again, staring. “What gives me hope? I mean, real hope, not just some bubbly, temporary fix?”
It starts raining as I turn onto our street. I think of Mom and Livy. I think of that rainy afternoon and the notes and Dad’s face the morning he left for Boston. I think of Hadley and the way she looked sitting in my kitchen, wearing my apron, talking about being lonely.
“I wish I knew, Livy.”
The next morning, Ajay’s voice clips in my ear like gunshots. “Wow. That’s. Sam. Just. Wow.”
“Thanks for that analysis,” I say into my phone as I wave goodbye to Livy at her locker. I hurry down the main hallway, which is clearing rapidly. Before we left for school, Mom freaked out about the length of Livy’s skirt and told her that her eye makeup made her look like a raccoon with a hangover. Unsurprisingly, this led to a volcanic argument. Then Ajay called while we were driving. By the time we fought through the morning traffic and I’d filled Ajay in on the soap opera that is my life, I’m almost late.
The final bell rings as Ajay fires off another stuttering round, and I slow my walk. I’m already late, might as well enjoy Ajay’s rare inability to form coherent sentences.
“And she has no idea who you are?” Ajay asks. I hear the buzz of an electric saw in the background. I’m not even going to ask.
“Nope.”
“Is she beautiful?” I laugh as I round the corner toward my locker. Ajay’s always saying stuff like this. He sees a girl he likes and it’s never “Damn!” or “She’s hot.” It’s “She’s beautiful.” But I can’t really give him shit about it. I’m the guy who thought a glowing halo surrounded Hadley’s head the first time I saw her.
“Yeah, Age. She is.”
Suffer Love Page 7
