Underneath Everything (2 page)

We watch her tall boots and teased curls disappear into the crowd.

“Did that just happen?” Kris asks.

“It’s all happening.” I put my hands up in front of her eyes and fan them out around her face. It’s a line from our favorite movie,
Almost Famous
, and it gets her to smile.

“You cannot make friends with the rock stars,” Kris quotes back—her favorite Lester Bangs line.

“These people are not your friends.” Then she leans her shoulder into mine. Not too hard, just enough to let me know she’s pissed.

“That wasn’t cool, though,” Kris says in her own voice again. “To make Bella think we’re coming.

Now she’s all excited.” Kris digs around in her pocket for the half-empty pack of Camels.

“Bella is pretty much always excited,” I point out.

“True.” Kris slams the pack hard against the heel of her hand, then tips out a cigarette and nips it between her lips. “Some things never change, huh?”

I light her up.

“Guess not,” I say as the end of her Camel sparks red. I snap the Zippo shut with a flick of my wrist, tuck it back into my pocket, and slide my thumb over the smooth metal. “But I wasn’t kidding. I think we should go.”

The smoke catches in Kris’s throat. She’s coughing and shaking her head. It takes her a minute to finish hacking, and when she finally catches her breath, I can tell she’s going to launch into the Are You Forgetting When speech; but she barely has time to open her mouth before Jim Maronack sneaks up behind her and wraps his arms around her waist.

“To what do I owe this pleasure?” he says, swaying her back and forth. “The elusive Kris McKittrick, showing up at Thanksgiving bonfire? I must be on stronger drugs than I thought.”

Kris rolls her eyes, wraps her shiny lips around her cig, and uses both hands to squirm out of his grip.

Jim and Kris have been fooling around since fall of freshman year. He’s totally in love with her and she tolerates him. He’s not a bad guy, which makes it even worse. I mean, it’s not his fault Kris swore off serious relationships. She has one goal, and one goal only: to get the hell out of this town, no strings attached.

“Blame Mattie,” she says, tossing her head in my direction. “Totally her idea.”

“Well then, thanks, Mattie, for releasing the princess from the tower,” he says, holding his long arm out to me.

“My pleasure,” I say, shaking his hand and raising my eyebrows at Kris. She shrugs her shoulders at me, then leans back into Jim and pretends not to notice that his arms wrap back around her waist. As if she doesn’t love it. Anyway, that’s my cue, so I check my phone: it’s 9:05 p.m. and I need to be home by midnight, 12:30 a.m. latest, so we’re good.

“Meet you back here at nine thirty?” I ask Kris. Jim kisses her neck.

“Half hour?” Kris tips her head sideways to give him more skin. I nod. “Okay, don’t be late,” she warns. Not only because we haven’t finished talking about Bella’s, but because even though Kris likes Jim, she doesn’t like to be stuck with him. My job is to rescue her—eventually—but for now I leave Kris and Jim to their thing and make my way to the outer edge of the circle where it’s not as crowded.

I flip my Zippo inside my pocket and run my thumb over it in small strokes. Jolene gave it to me in eighth grade. She had a habit of hoarding strange things: a blank check, a lighter, a bullet. She’d pluck something from her small, jeweled box and carry it in cupped hands across her room to me, where she’d pry her thumbs apart like she was holding a live butterfly. But I’d barely get a chance to peer in before she’d snap her hands shut again, telling me the same thing she always did: it wasn’t about the thing but what that thing wanted to be: A cashed check. A raging fire. A shot bullet.

What do you want to be, Mattie?

I pass the soccer team, zipping their Windbreakers up to the collars; student council members stretching their necks and swiveling their heads, pretending to be responsible; gamers and vloggers texting and taping the entire event; the drama crew—they’re singing, as usual—and, eventually, the staff of the school paper. We’re not really friends, but they know me. I spent a lot of time in journalism at the beginning of last year. Even took it as an elective once upon a time. Plus, Kris is the editor-in-chief of the paper this year, and I’ve been known to hang around and help out, especially before big deadlines.

They nod in my direction. I nod back.

I’m on the other side now, opposite Kris. From here I can see the bonfire unobstructed. It looks so big.

So out of control. Like any minute the breeze could blow my way and I’d be part of the flame.

I step toward it.

And there she is.

Jolene stands a few feet in front of me, tossing her long, dark hair. I can’t see the streak of auburn underneath, but I know it’s there.

I haven’t been this close to her in over a year.

I turn my cheek. Feel the heat. Her warm breath against my ear as she whispers:

What do you want to be?

But Jolene and I didn’t
become
anything. We were born one night.

There was blood: Jolene’s boot heel cracking glass; her fingers pressing the jagged halves of her mother’s necklace between our hot palms until our skin split; her hand squeezing tight—tighter when I gasped—so the blood wouldn’t spill.

There was a story: she said the first line, I said the next. The ending changed, but the beginning was always the same. It was our lullabye.

It was us: two little girls all alone in the world.

I make a sharp right and veer away from her, into another shade of darkness, and walk back and back and back until I can’t feel the heat anymore.

Then I stop and listen. Crickets chirp in the trees behind me. Fire crackles in front. Silhouettes swarm.

The white noise of distant voices runs beneath everything. But there’s no trace of her words, not even a whisper.

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

..................................................................

CHAPTER 2

“DO YOU MIND?”

I whip my head around to see who’s talking, but after staring at the fire, I’m night-blind for a few seconds. So I follow my ears. The voice came from below and behind me.

“Do you?” I ask it. My eyes begin to adjust. I see a pair of unlaced sneakers emerging. Loose jeans. A flannel—cuffs unbuttoned at the wrists—and a thick silver ring gleaming in the darkness.

Hudson.

I should have known. He’s never that far from her.

“Yeah, actually. You’re blocking the view, not to mention blowing my cover.” His voice is low and raspy. It reminds me of an old recording. The hum it gives off. How he used to say my name.

I step to the side. He hasn’t said it that way since summer after sophomore year.

“Sorry,” I say. I stare up at the branches intersecting the night sky, because it’s easier than looking at him.

Hudson rests his elbows on his knees and hangs his hands together loosely in front of him, admiring the scene. “Sit down if you’re going to stay.” He nods his head toward the spot next to him on the ground.

“I don’t want to interrupt—”

“All this?” he asks, spreading his arms out around him, then draping them back over his knees. “I mean, yeah, I didn’t come back here to chat, but you’re cool.”

I feel a shiver that has nothing to do with the weather, and a weakness I want more of. Then I hate him for making me feel this way. And I hate myself more for letting him.

“Cool,” I say, because it’s simple and meaningless—the opposite of how this feels. I sit down next to him in the frozen grass like this is normal, something we do every day. Like this isn’t the first time we’ve found each other on the fringe of a crowd since he stopped speaking to me. My skin prickles. I can feel every inch of it. I need to move, to do something. So I stretch my legs out in front of me, position my arms behind me, and sink my palms into the ground.

The wind picks up, blowing my hair into my face. A few strands stick to my lips, caught in the lip gloss or ChapStick or whatever Kris gave me. I reach up, carefully pull the pieces away, and scoop them behind my ear.

I look at Hudson. He looks straight ahead. I follow his gaze, until I see Jolene’s hair flip, a swish of black shadow. Of course he wasn’t looking at me. Not with her standing so close.

Jolene’s the kind of girl people stare at: Hazel eyes. Honey-colored skin. Wide lips. Dark-brown hair so thick you can barely run your fingers through it.

She’s the kind of girl people listen to.

She could have been completely self-centered and gotten away with it. But she wasn’t like that. Not with me. She never talked about herself. Instead she asked me question after question. And when I spoke, she leaned in to listen, devouring every detail like she would never tire of mining me. Like I was fascinating.

My palms hurt. They’re pressed flat against the frozen grass and solid dirt. But I don’t move. We both watch her.

A few minutes go by, and I’m starting to wonder what time it is, how long it will take me to get back around the fire and find Kris, when I turn to speak and realize Hudson is looking at me. Not Jolene. Not the fire.

Me.

So I stare back. Really, I don’t have a choice. It’s his eyes. They pin me in my place. I see something move across them—the faintest reflection of the silver-streaked sky. And something else, too. A promise.

A private joke. A recognition. But of what, I don’t know. I can’t feel anything except his gaze moving through me, haunting me, hollowing me out.

“Thought you didn’t show up at these things.” His voice is deep, easy.

“Oh, I’m not really here,” I say.

Hudson laughs, but he doesn’t smile. Instead he picks at the grass by his sneakers, rolls it between his fingers, throws it out into the field. “No, of course not. Not really one for showing up, are you?”

I stare at the spot where he tossed the tangled grass, because, really, what can I say? I said I’d meet him. I promised. I didn’t show up.

Jolene did.

Hudson wipes his hands on his jeans. The silver ring glints in the moonlight.

We both face forward. The crowd is splitting up now. The bonfire is more smoke than fire.

“You got the time?” he asks. “Cal probably thinks I took off.”

Cal plays soccer with Hudson. They’ve been on the same team since town leagues and traveling teams. Now they’re cocaptains of varsity. Hudson may have a real-life older brother, but he and Cal are closer than blood.

“Sure.” I slide my phone out of my pocket and turn it on, the white glow of the screen lighting us from below. “Nine twenty-five.”

He nods. And just when I think he’s going to get up and leave, he glances over my shoulder. “Wait. Is that you and Kris? From, what, fifth grade?” He’s pointing to the picture on my main screen, leaning over me to get a better look.

He smells like winter. Always has.

“Yeah,” I say, fumbling to shut it off. But Hudson wraps his hand around mine and holds the lit screen between us.

I’m supposed to rescue Kris now, but I don’t move.

“You look the same,” he says, his breath white against the night.

“Hope not. That was, like, forever ago. Things have changed,” I say, with quick eyes toward the fire.

Where is Jolene? Is she waiting for him?

“But not everything.” He lowers his chin to the picture of me and Kris.

“Not everything,” I admit.

Kris has had my back since the day we traded shoelaces in first grade. She’s my oldest friend. For almost a year and a half, she’s been my only friend. And right now I’m late to meet her. “I should go,” I say, tugging my phone toward my pocket. Hudson’s hand hardens around mine, gripping it tight. I look up, and our eyes meet for a second before a lock of his brown hair swings between us. He’s let it grow long, almost down to his shoulders, and even though it’s pulled back, this piece has escaped. As he reaches up to push it behind his ear, my phone blinks off, and the night falls new around us.

Hudson drops my hand, gets to his feet, and turns his back to me. But he doesn’t leave. I shove my hand—suddenly cold, still gripping my phone—into my pocket and stand up beside him. We walk in silence toward what’s left of the bonfire: blackened wood, a dense cone of smoke, small clusters of seniors, and a mass of underclassmen trying to figure out where to go, what to do. I keep waiting for Jolene to materialize out of the night, as if the gray swirls of smoke and ash will suddenly turn solid and she’ll be standing right in front of me.

“Cal wants to meet the team at Bella’s after this. He’s my ride home, so I guess that means I’m going.

But you won’t be there, right? You don’t do parties.” Hudson stops just short of the sidewalk.

I spot Kris up ahead, at the edge of the parking lot. Jim is behind her, rubbing her shoulders; she’s shaking him off, scrolling through her phone, probably looking for a text from me, which she’s not going to find.

“Right.” I turn to Hudson and search his face. If only the smattering of freckles on his nose formed a compass rose, or the flat line of his mouth pointed true north. Maybe then I’d understand what direction he’s going: Does he want me to come? Does he want me to stay away? But his expression doesn’t change.

He’s no map. I can’t read him. “No parties.”

Hudson nods in response. The slightest dip of his chin, the faintest flash of lowered lashes.

It’s a minuscule movement.

It’s not enough.

“No bonfires, either,” I tell him.

Hudson’s eyes tick to mine. Blue. Inscrutable. Then he steps into the splash of yellow light spreading from the single bulb behind the school, and for a second I see something ease in the crease of his brow and the set of his lips; but I can’t quite figure out what it is before he starts up with those long, easy strides of his, down the sidewalk, out of the light, into the parking lot.