Life on the Level (26 page)

I do have one choice, though. Maddie.

My favorite part of Maddie is that she’s predictable. She always takes the same path to the barn. I wait for her to walk past the media room and toward the cafeteria. She has a stack of books in her arms. She doesn’t even look over her shoulder. I wait ten minutes before I follow her. My heart is a knot in my throat as I stand outside the barn. What if Taylor is so pissed to see me there that he has someone hurt me? No, he’ll be surprised. I bet he’ll be too busy trying to figure out who tipped me off or invited me without his permission. I’m playing a dangerous game, I know. But I think this is the only option I have where Hutch and I win. Bringing Taylor down is our only shot. I need something to hold over Taylor’s head. I need proof. Concrete, undeniable proof that Taylor is crooked. Hutch can’t get that proof, but I can.

I duck through the door and someone gasps.

I smirk and walk the length of the barn. It’s cold as hell, but there’s enough drugs and booze that no one seems to mind. The table of poker players gets distracted. I feel a little tug in my chest as I walk past them. They have chips piled high—there’s even a gold watch and a wallet in there. The old me would have salivated at this and taken a seat between Hairy Guy #1 and Hairy Guy #2. One of them makes my heart stop. In the dim light, his blue eyes shine. His mustache is salt and pepper, and his thick white hair is combed back. There’s a cigar at the corner of his mouth. In the dim light, he looks like my daddy before the chemo, before the sickness, before the worst year of our lives. In the dim light, I feel like I’ve been shaken and stirred and spilled out on the ground.

Then I hear my name barked. Taylor waltzes over and slings an arm around my shoulder.

“What are you doing here, girly?” He squeezes too hard, seconds away from putting me in a headlock.

“What do you think?” I look up at him and then let my eyes linger on the poker table and the keg.

Maddie’s seen me, too. In a room this intimate, I’m sort of hard to miss. My heart breaks a little when I see some familiar faces. There’s Fran, passed out on the ground with another girl. Nick, oh Nick. He’s doing a line off a girl who isn’t from HCRC. His lips pull back over his teeth when he laughs. Then he sees me and jumps. He wipes his nose with the back of his hand.

I am not one to judge them. I am not one to be feeling like I’ve been let down. But I am. I’m even more disappointed because this was me a couple of months ago. Is this what Sky and Leti felt when they saw me come out of that bar? When they had to get help because I made myself sick? I apologized, but I didn’t exactly feel sorry. I was too numb to feel sorry. Now I wish I could hug my friends. I want to take back all the stupid things I’ve ever done. But I’m here for a reason, and I have to play the part of a girl falling off the wagon. I glance at the poker table. There’s an open spot with my name on it. I take a deep breath and shake that feeling. I wave a little at Nick, and he bends his head down to do another line.

Maddie’s big eyes look frightened as Taylor and I reach her. “River… How?”

“‘How’ is right,” Taylor says, finally letting me go. He takes out his pack of cigarettes and taps them against his hand. He takes one out with just his lips and tongue. His lighter is blue, with a pinup girl painted on the side. He takes a long drag, then offers me one.

I take it. He lights it. It’s been so long since I’ve smoked that it burns going down. “Fuck, I forgot how good this feels.”

“You’re allowed to smoke,” Maddie says.

“I know. I was just trying the whole
super clean
thing.” That’s a lie. I stopped smoking because I didn’t want Hutch to think of cigarettes when he remembered our kisses. The tobacco goes right to my head. A pleasant buzz passes across my skin.

Maddie nods. Taylor’s got his arm around her waist now, squeezing hard.

“I saw you on my run,” I tell him.

He makes a face, like he’s resigned to me being here. Then his face changes, turning his frown into a smile. He softens his grip around Maddie. “What’s your poison, Thomas? First one’s on the house.”

“Yeah?” I smile. It’s hard to smile when I feel like running out of the barn and hiding under my covers. “I’m still pissed they took my percs. Do you know how painful it is to have a neck injury without super-strength drugs? Just shoot me.”

We sit on top of prickly bales of hay. A girl tries to get Taylor’s attention. He shoves a little plastic bag of pills into her hand and tells her to leave him alone. Either she’s too high to feel insulted, or she really doesn’t care.

“River, River, River,” Taylor says my name. I can tell he doesn’t know what to do about me being here. “Why the change of heart?”

I shrug, and try my best to look disinterested. I tilt my head and let my face relax. This is more for Hutch than me, so I smile and come up with a lie that straddles the truth. “Helen threatened me with psych again. She’s worried I tried to drown myself. I’m so over her motherly shit.”

“I can’t stand that bitch.” He laughs and slaps me on the back. “We cool?”

“If you hook me up we will be.”

I guess I am better at being fake than I thought. It concerns me. But I tell myself this is for Hutch. It seems impossible now, but maybe one day, when we’re past this, we can have a future together.

He seems to like that response, because he goes off into a corner, takes out a key, and opens a metal box. Maddie jumps on me and whispers. “I don’t think you should be here. You don’t know him.”

I’m grinning so much it hurts. I hate the panic in her voice.

“Why are
you
here?” I ask her through a cheesy smile.

“I can’t help it. You can. You have friends that love you.”

“What about your boyfriends?” I try to give her a friendly nudge.

She shakes her head. “There’s no one. I lied. Taylor makes me feel… good.”

If I hated Taylor before, I loathe him now. I want to tell her that it isn’t real affection, but when I was like her, I wouldn’t have listened to reason either. What did it take for me to realize? The scar on my thigh? Nearly burning down a family wedding? Owing the wrong people money? These dark thoughts flood my mind as Taylor comes back. He whispers something in Maddie’s ear, and she leaves. She pumps the keg and refills the empty beer pitchers around the poker table. If anything, Taylor is a really good host.

He sits beside me, much like he did in the library a few days ago. This time his arm is over my head, and all his attention is on me. He’s wearing cologne better suited for a seventeen-year-old boy who wears polo shirts. He takes a drag from his cigarette and blows the smoke away from me.

“You know,” he says, “for such an icy bitch, you’re really hot.”

I fake-giggle, and busy myself with my cigarette. I look him dead in the eyes. Most people don’t like steady eye contact because it makes them uncomfortable. Not Taylor, though. He stares at me right back, and I see the challenge there… and the lust.

“Here.” He holds out a little blue pill for me to take.

I smile, and pocket it. “You’re not so bad after all.”

“No, no, no. Nothing leaves this barn.”

Shit. My insides are on fire. This wasn’t part of my plan. I can’t
eat
the evidence. Will Hutch forgive me if I do this to get on Taylor’s good side? Can I forgive myself after working this hard? My mouth feels dry. I fish the pill back out and hold it in the center of my palm. If I look at it long enough, it looks like the eye at the center of a Hamsa.

“Water,” I tell him.

He doesn’t take his eyes off me as he gets up and gets me a water bottle. His phone rings and he digs it out of his pocket as he walks back to me. In that moment, I throw my head back and clap my hand over my mouth. He looks away, and I tuck the pill into my pocket. I twist open the water bottle and drink. He turns away so no one can watch his mouth as he speaks. All I hear is, “I can’t talk right now. Hang on.”

He points a finger in my direction, smiles, and mimes firing a gun. When Taylor’s gone, I tell Maddie I feel drowsy and that I’m going to bed. She won’t look at me, but she nods.

“You can talk to me,” I tell her.

She shakes her head.

I leave her.

• • •

When I get back to my room, I feel like the pill will burn a hole through my hand. I drop it in a sock with stars on it, and leave that sock in my drawer. I start to get into bed and freeze. There’s a note beneath my covers. My heart seizes, and I run through the possibilities. It’s a short list. Kiernan or Taylor; Kiernan or Taylor. I grab the note by one folded corner and hold it at arm’s length. I sigh in relief when I recognize the handwriting. I unfold it eagerly, my eyes scanning the words faster than my mind can register them.

“Going up to Missoula for the day. Go to the far woods before dinner. Love.”

Love.
Is he calling me love, or himself? Does it even matter? It doesn’t. I feel even worse for keeping this from him. I reread the note a hundred times, and my mind creates lots of different scenarios. The last time we were in the middle of the woods, it ended abruptly. If two people have sex in the woods and no one’s around to see them, do they make a sound?

This time, we will.

I go through the motions of the day and turn in early with the pretext of having menstrual cramps.

But instead of going to my room, I make a loop around the entire facility and end up at the woods. I feel more nervous than I ever have going to meet a guy. The downside to living here for so long is that I can’t shave. So far, Hutch hasn’t seemed to mind, which just goes to show he’s more mature than anyone I’ve ever been with before. I scrubbed myself down until my skin was red afterwards. I smell like soap and my hair dried in long curly waves that make me look deceptively sweet.

I pull up my hoodie, covering my hair. I nicked a flashlight from the front desk while Greta wasn’t looking, and shine it ahead of me. Every step I take makes me forget my worries about Taylor, and Maddie, and my past. Despite being drug free, I feel kind of high and drunk on the possibilities of Chris Hutcherson. God, I want to eat that boy alive. In a non-cannibalistic way.

When there’s no sign of him, my excited nerves become ill nerves. Maybe he got held up in Missoula. Maybe he got a flat tire. Ugh, stop making excuses for him.

“Psst,” it comes, making me jump out of my skin.

“Psst yourself,” I say in a hushed voice.

Not seeing him for a whole day was painful. I twist and turn as he pulls me into his embrace. He pulls my hoodie back. I dive for his lips, but he kisses my forehead, buries his nose in my hair.

“You smell good.”

“Sometimes I shower.”

“I like you a little dirty.”

“You have no idea how dirty I can be.”

He picks me up and I squeal. Then I cover my mouth.

“It’s okay,” he says. “No one but the bears can hear us.”

“Stop with the bears!”

He picks me up, and I wrap my legs around his waist. He starts walking me deeper into the woods. The sun has just set, and the sky is still backlit with sunlight.

“Where are we going?” I ask. “What was in Missoula?”

“It’s a secret. And I was in Missoula picking up some things for the Halloween party.”

We approach a campground, where a small fire crackles. There’s a plaid blanket, a lantern, and a pizza box. He sets me down and I just stand there, unable to take a step forward or backward. He watches me, resting his fists on his hips.

“Welcome to our first date,” he tells me.

“Is that champagne?” I ask.

He rolls his eyes. “It’s non-alcoholic sparkling apple cider.”

I walk around the picnic the way someone walks around a museum piece. I admire it from all angles. I admire
him
from all angles. He starts to laugh.

“You should see your face,” he tells me. “You look so freaked out.”

I hold my arms above my head. “Well! This is… It’s amazing. Hutch…”

I go to him. I wrap my arms around him and tilt my head back so he can kiss me. But he doesn’t.

“Look, River. I want you. I need you to know that I don’t want anyone else. Whatever comes next, after you finish your program, I’ll be there for you. Whatever you need.”

“I know that.”

“I wish I could do more. Take you to a nice restaurant, the movies. I want to give you everything you deserve.”

I don’t deserve this. I really don’t. But I want it. I’ve always been a little selfish.

“I don’t need all that stuff. This is perfect.” I take his hand and we sit across from each other.

“When you pointed out that we don’t go on dates, I felt like such a jackass.”

“That wasn’t my intention. You know me. I just say stuff, and half the time it’s pretty offensive.”

“Well, baby. Enjoy your pizza feast. It’s cold by now, but you told me you like your pizza cold and your coffee black.”

I stare at him. “I told you that when we were drunk.”

He breaks off a slice and folds it in half. “I have a really good memory when it comes to River-related things.”

“Good.”

We eat the pizza. I have the brilliant idea to hold it over the fire to let the cheese melt a little bit. To his surprise—or dismay?—I eat four whole slices. We drink the apple cider and then we lie on the blanket. He’s so beautiful it hurts to look at him. I lie back and stretch under the night sky. I feel full and happy. So much so that it should be illegal to be this happy with someone.

I wonder: is this how my dad and mom felt before everything fell apart? When does love, inevitably, fall apart?

He doesn’t give me a chance to think about it more because he upzips his jacket, folds it, and gives it to me as a pillow. He climbs on top of me, kissing me in a way that tells me he’s missed me just as much as I missed him. If it’s possible, maybe even more.

“Thank you for this,” I tell him.

“You don’t have to thank me. I want to give you everything I can.”

“That’s a lot of stuff, Mr. Hutcherson.”

He kisses the chill from my lips. “Everything.”

Our teeth click because we kiss while smiling. I wrap my hands around his neck and draw him closer. How can we be touching and still not have it be enough?