Underneath Everything (13 page)

“She must have been,” I say, sorting through my fries for the crispy ones.

“Meaning?”

“Nothing,” I mumble. But Kris has her green eyes on me. I meet her gaze, picture the cafeteria spinning behind her, around us. Then I finish chewing, swallow my food, and say, “It’s just that, you know, there was a time you wouldn’t be seen talking to her.”

“True.” She taps her nails on top of her Coke, lifts the tab, cracks it open. “But there was also a time I wouldn’t be caught dead at one of her parties.”

“Noted.”

Kris looks over the tray of food in front of her before shoving it aside in disgust. She wraps her hands around the cold soda. Frost forms on the can in the outline of her fingers.

“So, you two just hung out in her room?” I ask.

“Pretty much.”

“Romantic,” I say. My eyes drift toward the clock. There’s only ten minutes left in the period. “Then what?”

Kris takes a sip of soda, bends the tab on her can up and down, up and down, until it breaks off in her fingers, then she drops it into her palm and closes her hand around it. “She started talking,” Kris says.

“Now that sounds like Bella.” I sneak a look at my watch. I’ve got to go. “Did she ever stop?”

“Not for a while. At first it was hard to hear her. You know, because of the keening. But once I got her in her room, she calmed down.” I nod. I’m trying to listen, but my mind drifts to Hudson. The headphones nestled around his neck, covering the curve of skin I almost-kissed. “Anyway, when she finally stopped to take a breath, she told me some extremely choice things about our all-time favorite, and your very own number one.” Kris is grinning now, her voice getting louder. “That’s right, ladies and gentlemen; I’m talking about Jolene.”

Jolene.

Of course.

The same day I watched Hudson and Jolene kiss for the first time, I watched Jolene and Bella, too.

From across the cafeteria, where I sat with Kris (legs crossed, trays balanced on our knees, backs cold against the windows, butts hot from the heater), I saw Jolene turn the full shine of her eyes toward Bella after she spoke, like they had a private joke. I recognized that look. I remembered how it felt: the swell in my chest, the glow of being chosen. Of belonging. I still felt knit to them, and to the table where we’d staked our claim. But after that day half the seats stayed empty. Phantom limbs. Every once in a while someone joined them—Bella’s cheer friends, Jolene’s groupies, boys, athletes, even the most ambitious underclassmen—but no one’s ever been granted a permanent seat. Most days it’s just the two of them.

Eating. Preening. Leaning. Whispering.

What does Bella know? What has Jolene told her?

I want to hear about it, but Hudson is waiting. And I’m not going to let Jolene keep me from seeing him, even in gossip form.

“What did she say?” I’m cleaning up my tray as I ask, putting my napkins on top of my plate, gathering my books and my bag.

“Plenty,” Kris says, dropping her elbows on the table between us. “But it doesn’t look like you care.”

She tips her head toward my tray, like it’s evidence.

“I want to know,” I say, “but I forgot to switch my books before lunch, and you know Riles will flip if I show up to calc without my text.”

“Mmmhhhmmm.” Kris doesn’t move; she doesn’t start to clean up. She just watches me stand and balance my tray in one hand. “Well, don’t hurt yourself or anything. It’s only calc.”

“I’ll try my best.” I turn around with my tray. “See you at the car.”

“Until then.” Kris raises her can to me, then chugs her Coke.

I drop my tray in the bin, push through the cafeteria doors, and when I’m sure no one can see me, I break into a light run down the empty hall.

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

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CHAPTER 13

I SLOW DOWN when I get to the south end of the building. I can’t catch my breath, and I’ve started to sweat.

Perfect. I swipe my fingers across my forehead, wave the bottom of my shirt a few times, and keep walking. My breath evens out as I turn the last corner, into the stairwell that leads to the north exit and the bike racks. I check my phone one more time (nothing from Jolene), then flatten my palm against the cool metal, push open the door, and blink into the bright, white sky.

The clouds are thick. Wind whips loose leaves around the parking lot and sways the trees in the field.

A group of senior boys push past me, unlit cigarettes pinched between their lips. They flip their lighters in their fingers as they head across the street to the armory, where they can smoke in peace.

I wrap my arms tight across my chest, tuck my chin, and start walking in the opposite direction. My hair, free from its usual ponytail, flicks across my face, sticks to my lips. I pull it back quickly with my finger, but a new gust slaps it across my mouth again, so I decide to leave it.

By the time I get to the bike racks, where Hudson’s sitting—headphones up, eyes down—my cheeks feel flushed and my eyes are tearing.

I stand in front of him, my face turned into the wind. He’s not wearing a jacket, but he doesn’t look cold.

“You came,” he says, looking up at me. He brings a thumb to my cheek and wipes away a tear. His touch feels strange on my face. Not because he hasn’t touched me in softer places, but because we’re outside, in the light, in front of all the filthy classroom windows, where anyone can see.

I slide his headphones down to his neck. “I said I would.”

He runs his hands through his hair. His eyes are dark blue today, deep as night.

“Saying it doesn’t make it true,” he says.

Hudson may think I’m hard-core, but he still doesn’t trust me. Not completely. And even though his doubt sears a hot streak behind my ribs, I don’t flinch.

“Good point,” I tell him, eyes steady, voice clear, so he can see: this time is different. I’m different.

“But I’m here, right?”

“You are indeed.”

He slips his middle fingers through my belt loops and pulls me to him. I close my eyes when we kiss.

His lips are soft and warm. He moves his mouth along mine, leaving parts of my skin wet with him. When the wind picks up again, the wet parts go cold.

I shiver. Then I hear something snap in the distance. A twig. Or was it a squeak? The sound of a window opening?

Windows rattled in their frames.

My eyes fly open.

“Want to play a game?”

Jolene?

But no one’s there.

I squeeze my eyes shut and kiss Hudson. I press my mouth so hard against his lips I can almost feel his teeth. He yanks my belt loops so fast I swear they’ll rip. There’s no space between us anymore. No room for the wind to get in. When the next gust comes—lifting strips of my hair, lashing them against my cheeks and his—I hear the rattling sound again. But I don’t open my eyes.

Jolene isn’t here.

She hasn’t sent me a single text since I laid her in her bed.

I run my hand from Hudson’s neck, down his arm, to where his fingers grip my hips. When he feels my hand on top of his, he grabs it. I sigh. He swallows the sound and my breath, holds my hand so tight my fingers must be white.

I press my palm into his—the place where she cut me, where she got in.

This is just for us,
Hudson said.

Maybe he’s right.

Maybe it’s over.

The first time I walked away from Jolene, it was raining. Gusts of wind smacked her bedroom windows,
rattling them in their frames. I jumped at every splash and slap. Jolene looked up from the floor where
we sat and narrowed her eyes at the wet, blurry world outside, like she was challenging it to crash
straight through the glass and smash us.

Nothing had broken us yet.

It was September, sophomore year. The four of us had survived being freshmen. While other girls
had turned rabid, ripping each other to shreds, we held sleepovers and séances, swore confidences,
snagged a corner table in the cafeteria, and got invited to senior parties. We were becoming captains
and chiefs and queens. Kris had journalism. Bella had a set of blue-and-white pom-poms.

I had Jolene, and she had me.

The window trembled again, glass clattering against wood. Jolene threw her Vogue on the floor
between us. It landed with a thwack.

“Want to play a game?” She scooted closer to me, pulled her knees to her chest, wrapped her arms
tight around them, and wound her lips into a wicked grin.

The last game we’d played, I nearly suffocated.

“What kind of game?” I asked, flipping the page of my Cosmo too fast—“Ten of Our Favorite
Questions”—and tearing the thin print halfway off in my hand. I lined up the ripped pieces and
pretended to keep reading. Unfortunately, my cheeks gave me away. I felt them flush. And even though I
hung my hair over my face, it wasn’t thick and dark like Jolene’s. It didn’t cover anything.

“Why?” Jolene asked, smirking. “You scared?”

“No,” I lied.

“Good.” A smile spread across her face. “Because I can’t do it without you.” Jolene grabbed my
hand and hauled me off the floor, and I didn’t fight her. Not when she led me to her parents’ bedroom
(they were at work—they were always at work), or dragged her dad’s nylon climbing bag from the
closet. Not when she coaxed a thick coil of rope from the bag and placed it in my hand, or when she
tugged me back to her room and set the ropes out on the floor, doubled them, and formed them into
figure eights. I didn’t resist because she couldn’t do it without me. We were the two little girls.

Jolene’s fingers moved quickly, threading the rope through, pulling it taut, testing the complex
knots. Her dad had given her a lesson one weekend before he went climbing. The last time she’d shown
me she’d been clumsy.

When the ropes were four small circles, Jolene smiled, impressed with herself.

“What are we playing?” I asked.

Jolene looked at her watch. Her eyes walked over the ropes, across my hands and feet, toward the
duct tape (had it been there before?), then off into the distance.

She didn’t answer me.

“Time to get ready.” I’d barely registered her hand in the air before I felt the slap and saw black. I
brought my hand to my cheek, felt for blood, but there was none. It just stung. I blinked back tears. It
felt like her hand was still on my cheek. Like it always would be.

“Your turn,” she said. “Hit me.”

I stared at her. I didn’t feel like me. It was like my center got knocked to the side with my cheek,
and the rain on the windows had washed out the street, the sky, everything. Like we were off the map
and inside one of Jolene’s stories.

“Come on.” Jolene stepped closer, her eyes locked on mine. “Do it.”

So I did. Because she told me to. My hand flew through the air and hit her skin with a crack. Her
head swung to the side. A spot of blood beaded on her bottom lip. She licked it and smiled.

“I knew you could do it,” she said, then left the room, her long ponytail swinging behind her.

I was still staring at my hand when I heard the loud scratch from downstairs. The grunt of
something heavy being forced out of position. A series of pops and clicks. The squeal of metal on
metal. A loud whoosh of wind and the quick pelt of water against wood. The clear clap of a door
knocker. Jolene’s feet up the stairs.

When Jolene appeared again, her hair and hands were wet. The rain had come for us after all. No
smashed glass required.

With dripping fingers she slid the ropes over my ankles and wrists, then cinched them. And still I
didn’t resist. Since that night with the gills I’d pressed my own palm over my mouth, trying to get back
to that hazy place without oxygen where I could sink and spin and grow gills, where anything was
possible. But it hadn’t worked.

Jolene grabbed the duct tape off her desk and unrolled a section. The sticky strip snapped when
she tore it apart with her teeth. She pressed it onto my mouth and smoothed the edges over my cheeks.

Sweat burst from every inch of my skin. My pulse pounded in my temples. I sucked deep breaths
through my nose, trying to make up for the air my mouth couldn’t reach, which didn’t do anything
except make me dizzy. I shut my eyes and tried to center myself. When I opened them again, Jolene was
slipping the other set of ropes over her own wrists and ankles. She sat down behind me and went silent.

The rain still hadn’t let up. It kept throwing itself against the bedroom windows.

Were we just going to sit here like this? I tested my wrists. Twisting them burned. Struggling was
worse. I quit moving my arms and pressed back against Jolene in question.

What are we playing?

I heard the distinctive tooth rip of tape and then an engine’s roar over the downpour. My stomach
pitched.

“Oh,” she said, “by the way. We’re expecting someone.”

The slow fade of roar into rain. The click of boot heels on wood. The suck of the shut door.

“Mattie? Jolene? Are you guys here?” Bella called. A question. Then, after she had time to take in
the scene, fear. “Mattie?!” Panic. “Jolene!”

Jolene and I sat, bound, back to back, in the bedroom. Bella called our names again and again as
she searched the first floor.