HIDDEN CREEK AGAIN: a hidden creek high novel

by Kidman, Jaxson

  Cherry grabbed Mom’s face, stroked her cheeks, and shook her head. She then pulled Mom down to her chest and hugged her.

  “No more,” Cherry said.

  And those two words allowed Mom to open the floodgates.

  Years of holding that kind of shit in.

  I saw movement from the corner of my eye and saw someone else on the porch.

  My throat clenched for a second.

  It was Wes’s mother.

  “Carolyn, let’s get everyone inside,” Cherry said.

  “Of course,” Carolyn said. “Come on. Everyone. I’ll make coffee. Or tea.”

  “Get the goddamn whiskey for this,” Cherry said.

  They got to the porch and Carolyn took Mom’s hand.

  I looked up at Elijah. “I’m so sorry…”

  “It’s okay,” Elijah said. He touched my chin. “Babe, you did it. You’re the strongest fucking person I’ve ever met. You just saved your mother’s life.”

  I shook my head. “No. I gave her a chance. It’s up to her to decide. Because he’s not going to go away. He didn’t chase us down tonight but he’s not going to just slip away. And all my stuff…” I cleared my throat. “That doesn’t matter. It’s just clothes. But my…”

  “Nova,” Elijah said in a stern voice to snap me out of my rambling.

  I blinked fast and looked at him.

  “You’re not going to lose anything,” he said. “We’ll get your hippie car. And your surfboard. Everything, babe. I swear on my life.”

  “Okay.” My lips fluttered. “You… you kind of beat him up…”

  “I wanted to kill him,” Elijah whispered.

  “I know,” I said.

  Tears fell from my eyes and Elijah hugged me.

  The progression was going to get wild. I would have to tell everyone everything. No. I wanted to tell everyone everything. This was going to get out and spread like wildfire because that’s how HCH worked. And if my father had a say in things, he was already on the phone with Dr. Harold. I could picture them conjuring up a story about my mother being crazy. Making things up. Hurting herself. Needing meds.

  But for the moment, it felt good to be with Elijah.

  “Let’s go check on your mother,” he whispered. “Then maybe we can get the hell out of here.”

  “What?” I asked.

  “I want you to myself, babe,” he said. “You really want to stay here with this?”

  I didn’t answer him right away.

  Or at all.

  We walked into the house and it was… Cherry.

  I hadn’t been to the house too many times. Usually just for Halloween and Christmas. Just casual visits. But there was something about Cherry’s house. It was so full and so cluttered yet it seemed like it had enough room for the world to live in it. It was cozy, inviting, and smelled like dinner.

  Which made sense because Cherry had food cooking on the stove.

  At the kitchen table, Mom and Carolyn sat together.

  Carolyn held Mom’s hand.

  Mom had a glass in front of her.

  I broke away from Elijah to talk to Mom.

  “You can help me stir the sauce,” Cherry said to Elijah.

  “That’ll piss off your golden boy,” Elijah said.

  “Excuse me?” Cherry asked.

  Elijah smirked. “You know Wes and I aren’t on the same page, right?”

  “I don’t give a damn,” Cherry said. “You two hate each other? Figure it out. Unless you’re hurting someone.”

  “Never,” Elijah said. “I love Nova in a way I don’t think anyone could understand.”

  Mom looked at me and my cheeks burned red.

  I shrugged my shoulders.

  She knew about Elijah. About my Summer Boy. But it was obviously more than that.

  Cherry slapped Elijah with a wooden spoon and then told him to stir the sauce but not too damn much or else you’ll mess it up and if you waste my goddamn sauce, I’ll waste you…

  I put my hand to Mom’s shoulder. She grabbed my hand.

  “Novalee…”

  “No,” I said. “Nothing to say right now. You need to take care of yourself now.”

  “You saved me. You and Elijah… and I let you down…”

  “Leslie,” Carolyn said. “Right now it’s about being safe. One step at a time.”

  I nodded and looked at Carolyn. “Is Wes coming here tonight?”

  “Don’t know,” she said. She leaned to look around me at Elijah. “Is that really a bad thing?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Elijah is trying to figure out who killed his brother.”

  “Christ,” Carolyn said. “I almost forgot about that. It was so quiet and so quick the way it all seemed to just go away.”

  “Well it’s no longer quiet,” I said with a weak smile.

  “That guy loves you, Novalee,” Mom said.

  “I know he does.”

  “It’s going to be okay,” Carolyn said. “You can stay here. You can stay at my place. And we’ll do whatever is necessary.”

  “He’s not going to accept this,” Mom said.

  “If he can get up off the floor yet,” I said.

  They both looked at me.

  “What happened?” Mom asked.

  “He’s going to need your makeup now,” I said as my heart filled with sadness over what I just said and what it meant.

  Mom lowered her head and cried.

  Carolyn slid her hand to Mom’s back.

  She looked up at me and nodded.

  She mouthed it’s okay. You go. I’ve got this.

  I turned and saw Elijah and Cherry talking in the kitchen.

  Cherry caught me and smiled big. “Go for a walk and freshen up. Find the bathroom. Wash your face. Take a second to yourself. You’re here. You’re okay.”

  I walked through the house, taking in the smell of it. It was amazing to me. My house smelled open, big, and clean. Always that way. Even when people cooked there was no smell. So damn fake all the time.

  I walked through the house taking deep breaths, calming down. Not able to forget about everything but for the moment at least I could accept it for what it was.

  Right up until I reached for the bathroom door and a door behind me opened.

  I spun around and saw Noelle standing there.

  She quickly ripped the earbuds out of her ears.

  She swallowed hard.

  I curled my lip.

  My hand shot out and I grabbed her hair.

  She froze in place, her eyes wide.

  My hand and arm started to shake.

  And my eyes filled with tears.

  Slowly, Noelle reached with one of her earbuds and placed it into my left ear.

  And I just stood there, stuck between crying and slamming her face off the door.

  * * *

  “I heard them talking,” Noelle said. “I’m really sorry about everything. I know we don’t really know each other. And that’s okay. And everything we do know is known through rumors. Some stuff is probably true and some of it is definitely false. That’s just how HCH is. But you know that already.”

  I pulled the earbud out of my ear and handed it back to Noelle.

  I sat on the corner of her bed while she had her knees to her chest.

  She wasn’t defensive. She wasn’t defiant either.

  She was just herself.

  Something about her just screamed bitch yet in a way she owned it. She showed it without trying to show it.

  “I don’t want to talk about my life,” I said to her. “I’m waiting to leave. My mother is staying here. With Wes’s mother.”

  “Trust me, Cherry will do everything to protect her,” Noelle said. “I wouldn’t be alive today if it wasn’t for her.”

  “So can I ask you something?” I asked.

  “Sure.”

  “You were in love with Wes,” I said. “Basically your entire life, right? And even when he told you there was nothing there, you didn’t believe him. You c
ouldn’t stop. You refused to stop. Maybe that’s somehow romantic. But then Aira came back. And you still…”

  “What’s the question?” Noelle asked.

  “You went from Wes to Elijah. Are you really just that big of a bitch? Or do you enjoy being a whore too?”

  Noelle’s eyes went wide. “I’m sorry, but weren’t you the one with Conor? And you know you did that to make Elijah jealous. If you want to sit here on my bed in my room and tell lies about it, that’s up to you. Whatever. But I know the truth there. That was a way to get Elijah’s attention. To drive him crazy. You didn’t want him to leave.”

  “What the fuck does it matter to you, Noelle?”

  “It doesn’t. Other than Elijah and I hanging out. And that’s all we ever did. We just hung out. We listened to music together. He read some of the stuff I wrote. He told me stories. I watched him smoke cigarettes.”

  “And that’s it?” I asked.

  Noelle moved from the bed and stood up. She looked at me with a bitch face and asked, “What the fuck does it matter to you?”

  I stood up too. “Yeah, right. I guess it doesn’t matter. He can fuck anyone he wants. Even if it is you.”

  “Nothing like that happened,” she said. “Not even close. He was jealous and hurt. I knew what it was, Nova. But something about him seemed cool. And that he was Ryland’s brother… I was looking for my own closure on things. Because of who Ryland was and what he did. I realized in two seconds that Elijah and Ryland were different. At least in some ways. I liked hanging out with him. I could tell he was fighting some stuff in his head and his heart. I never pushed at him though.”

  “Why not? What was the point?”

  Noelle shrugged her shoulders. “Maybe this right here. The way you feel right now. Makes it all worth it.”

  I laughed. “So you are just a bitch.”

  “Say what you want,” Noelle said. “I never did anything to hurt anyone. Wes was my best friend for forever. It doesn’t matter how I feel about him. He made it clear he didn’t feel that way about me. Then everyone was so quick to paint me as some kind of whore. Just like you, Nova. Painting me as a whore. Yet I’m pretty sure between Kailey and Emma, they’ve slept with half of HCH.”

  Noelle reached for her phone and earbuds.

  She stuck them into her ears and started to listen to music again.

  She walked to her window and stood there.

  I sucked in a shaky breath.

  The line was blurred on who was a friend of mine or not anymore. And once this news broke everyone would be up my ass as to why I didn’t say something sooner. The tension with Aira and Wes… the tension that bled into everyone else…

  I stepped forward and touched Noelle’s left hand.

  She looked at me and I reached for her earbuds. I plucked them out of her ears.

  “I wanted him jealous,” I said. “I wanted him to realize what he lost when he left last summer. And the way he left. I didn’t expect him to come back. Not just because it’s not summer yet. He wasn’t supposed to come back ever again. I was hoping he’d do something stupid or crazy… or just leave.”

  “And stupid and crazy is kind of my thing,” Noelle said. “I guess somewhere inside my heart I’m waiting for someone to come save me. But I don’t sleep around, Nova. The second I realized he was still in love with you I knew nothing was going to happen between us. But it was nice to hang out. As a friend. Someone to talk to who didn’t judge me. Someone who would read stuff I wrote and not think I was some hippie freak or whatever. He was kind. Sweet. Gentle. And when you texted him that you needed him, he was gone. He looked at me and made it known whatever I thought it was with him it was done.”

  “Did it hurt?”

  “Not him,” she said. “But that feeling of being left alone brought back some memories. That hurt.”

  I nodded. “I’m sorry, Noelle. I’m sorry for everything. I honestly don’t understand everything with you and Wes. And with Aira. Or why you live with Cherry. I’m sure it’s not easy.”

  Noelle reached for my hand and took the earbuds back. “I’m really sorry for what’s happening to you, Nova. And just so you know, for however long it’s been happening, I hope you never feel guilt over not telling anyone about it. And if anyone makes you feel guilty for not saying something, they’re fucking assholes.”

  Noelle put the earbuds back into her ears and I backed away.

  I was even more confused.

  All I heard about Noelle was bad stuff. And it didn’t help when she and Elijah started hanging out. Dating. Fucking but not actually fucking.

  She was brokenhearted and empty and wasn’t sure how to trust anyone without bringing up all the memories of her life. It was actually really sad. To have nobody else. To just wait and see what would happen.

  I left Noelle’s room and found Elijah walking the hallway.

  His eyes did a double take from me to the bedroom and back to me.

  “Nova…”

  “Why her?” I asked him.

  “What?”

  “Why did you fool around with her?”

  Elijah shook his head. “You’ve been through a lot tonight, babe. Do you really want to keep going?”

  “Why not?” I asked. “Why wait around? What else do I have to lose, Elijah? Last time I checked I lost you last summer. For good. Remember? Do you remember what you wrote to me?”

  Elijah’s lip curled and he raced toward me. “I remember everything, Nova. And I didn’t do anything with Noelle. I didn’t lead her on. I didn’t leave her standing on a beach with her friends all around looking stupid. Like what you did to Conor. And you did that to get me jealous.”

  “And it fucking worked.”

  “Of course it fucking worked, babe. What did you think would happen?”

  I made fists and punched Elijah’s chest. “I thought you would leave. For good.”

  “And that’s what you wanted, huh? You wanted me gone for good.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Look at my life. Look at your life. That’s why it only worked for the summer, Elijah. It was only supposed to be for the summer and nothing else. But the more truth…”

  My voice trailed off.

  It was like I was out of breath.

  Losing all steam to fight back. For anything in life.

  “What?’ Elijah asked. “Tell me. What?”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  “Good,” he said. “Because I’m here. For you, Nova. I’m not going anywhere. Not with this shit happening. And you know what? Even if it wasn’t happening, I wouldn’t go anywhere. The second I saw you on the beach when I came back… I’ve spent every single day since last summer regretting everything. But I’m here now.”

  “So what does that mean?” I asked.

  “What it’s always meant. That I love you, babe.”

  I let out a sighing laugh sound. I touched my forehead. “Just like that? You love me?”

  Elijah cupped my face. “Not just like that, Novalee. I’ve always loved you. And I always will. That’s not going to change.”

  I blinked fast. “It can’t work, Elijah. Everyone hates everyone because of you. Because of you and me. It’s just…”

  Elijah brought his lips down to mine.

  My hands grabbed for his shirt.

  The first kiss turned into a second kiss.

  I tried to turn us a little so I could lean against the wall.

  Elijah broke the kiss. “No, babe.”

  “No, what?” I asked, almost growling.

  Elijah grinned. “Bedroom… now…”

  * * *

  He found a spare bedroom as my heart beat so fast I thought it was going to explode. The way he moved with speed, it made me really believe everything he had spoken in the hallway. It wasn’t just words to get me out of my panties. It was the truth. The real truth. The kind that made life feel like it was never supposed to make sense ever.

  Elijah had the door shut, locked, and had us at the bed without mis
sing a second to kiss me.

  Then it became a fury of our hands tearing at each other. My mind tried to remind myself for a second where I was and why I was there. That Noelle was right down the hallway in her room. That downstairs it was Cherry, Carolyn, and my mother. And they weren’t sitting there in a good mood either. It was a dark and scary night. It was a tragic night.

  But yet I was in the arms of the only person who could take dark, scary, and tragic and make them go away.

  I put my head back and felt Elijah’s lips kissing down my chest. His fingers worked fast to unclasp my bra. His mouth moved over my chest and his hands raced down to my jean shorts. I turned my head and saw my shirt tossed to the edge of the bed. My hands came forward and I felt the hard skin of his body. Muscle that felt so good to climb up and then climb right back down, my right hand easing over the front of his jeans where there was no longer any room at all. He was bulging to my touch and I bit my lip when I felt his fingers graze between my legs.

  Making me shiver, reminding me of what had happened at his house the other night.

  Fuck… yes…

  I managed to catch my breath long enough to look at him. His eyes met mine and I was in nothing but my panties. He wore nothing but jeans.

  There were a few seconds of complete stoppage and silence between us.

  And without saying a word, we went at each other again.

  I jumped into his arms and he took me down to the bed.

  Before I could mention the word protection, Elijah already had that part taken care of. I wasn’t sure how to take that. Did he always have protection with him? Or did he start carrying it because he knew a moment like this would happen between us? My body was so wild right then, even if he didn’t have anything with him, I still would have let him…

  I kissed him harder to chase away the thoughts.

  I lifted my hips off the bed as his fingers aggressively pulled the last piece of clothing from my body.

  As I franticly fought with his jeans, I groaned, and Elijah put his hand over both of my hands and slowed everything down again. Long enough to kiss me so slow and so deep that a rushing tingling feeling went through me. So fast and wild that my toes curled and I groaned into his mouth, feeling something happening… I was… oh god… I was… finishing…