by Shana Norris
“Hannah,” Jude said again. “Please.”
I couldn’t look at him. I didn’t trust myself to do the right thing, the smart thing. I couldn’t start something with him just to hurt him in the end. Talking to him would make things even more complicated.
“Just go,” I said in a hoarse voice.
“Just talk to me for two minutes!” Jude exclaimed.
“She said go away.” Carter stood and stepped between Jude and me.
Jude looked him up and down, sneering. “This isn’t your business, Hannigan. Get out of my face.”
“I will, when you leave,” Carter told him through clenched teeth. “We’re trying to have a good time here. We don’t want any problems.”
“Maybe I do.” Jude shoved Carter’s chest, making him stumble backward a step.
“Don’t start this, Jude,” Carter said.
Jude held his arms out to his sides. “You know you’ve been waiting for the chance to get even with me for your uncle. You think I stole the money, just like they all do. Come on, Hannigan. Now’s your chance.”
Carter shook his head, turning his back to Jude. “You’re full of—”
Before any of us could react, Jude lunged at Carter, wrapping his arms around Carter’s neck. The two tumbled to the ground, knocking over my drink.
“Oh my god!” Ashton shrieked, staring wide-eyed at the two guys. “Jude, stop!”
But neither one seemed to hear her. Arms swung and the smack of fists meeting flesh sounded loud in my ears, despite the music that still pumped through the park. The people nearest us had stopped their conversations and watched, their mouths hanging open.
Kate’s nails dug into my arm. “Make him stop!”
I didn’t know what she expected me to do. Jump in the middle of them? Somehow keep Jude from pummeling the hell out of Carter’s face?
A man in a police uniform pushed through the crowd. He reached down, grabbing Jude around the waist and snatching him off the ground like he was nothing more than a rag doll. Jude twisted, but the police officer held his arms pinned to his sides.
“Break it up!” the man roared, spittle flying from his mouth.
Jude panted, but he relaxed slightly and stopped fighting against the officer. His face was red and the collar of his T-shirt was torn. Carter got to his feet, wiping at the blood that trickled from his lip.
“What the hell is going on here?” the officer asked. He looked around at each of us, but no one answered. “Well?” he snapped.
I looked from Carter to Jude and then back again. “It’s nothing,” I said. “A misunderstanding.”
The officer sneered at me. “Yeah, sure, sweetheart. Whatever this is, I want it off the property. Or else someone’s taking a ride to the city jail. Understand?”
He released Jude and I held my breath, expecting him to fly at Carter again. But Jude just looked at me. I couldn’t tell what it was that flashed through his eyes. Hurt, anger, sadness. My heart clenched as his gaze locked with mine.
“Whatever,” Jude growled. “I’m going.” He turned and walked away, not looking back at me.
The police officer crossed his arms and glared at us. “All of you out,” he snapped. “Now.”
I watched Jude walk away, his T-shirt snapping in the wind as he moved across the grass. A touch on my shoulder made me jump. Ashton. She held our empty cups and napkins.
“Let’s go,” she said.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
“Hannah, please talk to me.”
I sat in one corner of the couch, my legs curled up under me and my hands squeezed tightly together in my lap. The light knocking on the door continued, but I didn’t move to answer it. I barely dared to breathe as I listened to his voice coming muffled through the door again.
“Hannah,” Jude said. “I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry.”
Aunt Lydia walked into the room, pulling her hair back into her messy bun. “I guess peace and quiet is impossible today,” she said.
“Sorry,” I told her.
Aunt Lydia raised her eyebrows and nodded toward the door. “I think he’s covered the apologies already.”
“Were you painting?” I asked.
She shook her head. “It’s my day off. Although how I can have a day off when I don’t paint any other day is kind of ridiculous, isn’t it? It was Ashton’s idea that I take one day a week to not paint and instead free my mind. Listen to the sounds of the neighborhood.”
Jude knocked again. “Hannah, are you in there?”
“Today, the neighborhood seems especially lovesick and whiny,” Aunt Lydia commented.
I rolled my eyes. “He’s not lovesick. We’re not in love. We’re not even dating or anything. We’re friends. Or were. Until he decided to beat the crap out of someone.”
“That does complicate things a bit.” Aunt Lydia sat down next to me and stared at the door. We both sat there for a moment, just listening to Jude’s continuous knocking.
“It doesn’t sound like he’s giving up any time soon,” Aunt Lydia said.
My phone began to chime from its place on the coffee table. I knew without looking who it would be.
“I hear your phone ringing, Hannah,” Jude called through the door. “I know you’re there. Just talk to me, please?”
I groaned and covered my face with a throw pillow.
“Maybe you should talk to him.”
I lifted the pillow from my face and stared at Aunt Lydia. “Are you serious? He beat up another guy for no reason. I thought your job was to protect me from psychos.”
Aunt Lydia patted my knee. “Like I said, it’s my day off. And Jude may be a little messed up and maybe not even the guy I’d pick for you, but I doubt he’s a psycho.”
“I thought you hated him.”
“I don’t even really know him, do I? Isn’t that what you tried to tell me before? We all have our bad moments, Hannah. What counts the most is how we make up for them.” She nodded toward the door. “You need to give people the chance to make up for it instead of cutting them off. Hear him out. I’ll be right in the next room if you need me.”
She left me alone with the knocking on the door and the ringing of my phone. I knew she wasn’t really talking about Jude. I still hadn’t returned my dad’s calls. I wasn’t ready to deal with that mess yet, so I stood and crossed the room. One problem at a time. I took a deep breath and let my face relax into a neutral expression. I could maintain the image of perfection, no matter how bad things got.
Jude’s eyes widened when I opened the door. “I didn’t think you’d ever answer,” he said.
I leaned against the doorframe. “I didn’t think I would either.”
We stood there, facing each other in silence as a car passed outside. Somewhere in the distance, a dog barked and kids laughed. Everything seemed so normal out there, so much easier than what was going on here.
Jude rubbed his hand over his head. “I’m a mess, Hannah. I tried to hide it, I tried to get back into some normalcy, and then I go and screw everything up. Like I always do. Liam was the one who knew the rights things to say and do. He was the one who kept me sane. Without him, I…I don’t know what the hell I’m doing.”
I crossed my arms, trying not to let myself give in to the look on his face. He looked broken, like his world was falling apart around him. I wasn’t weak. I wasn’t in love. He couldn’t show up at my door, say a few words, and then I’d fall all over him. It didn’t work that way in the real world.
“Even if Liam was here, you couldn’t keep relying on him for the rest of your life,” I told him. “Sooner or later, you take control of your actions.”
He nodded. “I know. And I’m sorry for what I did last night. You weren’t answering my calls. I wanted to talk to you. I’m sorry that things went too far, I’m sorry if you feel like I pushed you or took advantage of you. I never meant…I just…I want my friend back.”
I heard Aunt Lydia moving around in the kitchen. I didn’t know if she was close e
nough to make out our conversation, but I didn’t want to talk about what had happened between Jude and me in front of anyone. I stepped onto the porch and pulled the door mostly shut behind me, then sat down on the steps.
Jude sat next to me, his arm brushing mine. Someone was cutting their lawn somewhere in the neighborhood, and the smell of fleshly cut grass hung heavy in the air.
“I needed time to myself,” I said. “I told you before, I’m not looking for a boyfriend. I just got out of a relationship and I did bad things with that at the end. There’s too much for me to think about right now, with my dad. It makes me do stupid things. The wrong things.”
I couldn’t tell him that meeting his mom and seeing the way she was, the way she reminded me of my own mother, terrified me all the way to my bones.
Jude picked at a long piece of grass that swayed over the side of the steps at his feet. “We can forget it happened. I never set out to try to make something happen between us. It just did. But it doesn’t have to continue. I want you as my friend, for as long as you’re here.”
I nodded. “Just friends. I can do that.”
He looked at me and smiled, the relief evident in his eyes. It hit me then just how lonely he must have been, spending all these months since his brother’s death cut off from the rest of the world. A hollowness ached inside me that I hadn’t felt since coming to Asheville. Back in Willowbrook, I was surrounded by friends and school clubs and awards. And yet it wasn’t until I came here that I stopped feeling so lonely and empty.
“Let’s just go back to where we were,” Jude said. “We follow the rules. Don’t make things complicated.”
I nodded. I would keep following the rules, but not the new ones that had gotten me into trouble. “Rules are good,” I said.
“Do what scares you.” Jude bumped my shoulder with his. His eyes crinkled at the corners when he smiled, sending my heart plummeting into my toes. “Up for climbing a rock today?”
I pressed my hands together between my knees, trying to keep them steady. Maintain the image of perfection. Unaffected, distanced, in control. “No promises,” I told him.
CHAPTER TWENTY
“Oh, I like this one.” Kate held up a magazine and pointed to a woman with a very short, spiky cut.
“That would look great on you,” Ashton said. She reached over and pulled up Kate’s hair to try to get an idea of how short hair would look on her. Kate had the cheekbones to pull it off. With her hair pulled away from her face, her features stood out even more.
“What do you think, Hannah?” Kate asked.
“You’d look great in it,” I said. “I’d look terrible in something like that, but I think it would work on you.”
The waiting area of Just Cuts smelled like hairspray and the rotten egg odor of hair dye and perm treatments. Nearby, stylists worked at the women sitting in the bright green chairs, snipping and blow drying and curling and painting on highlights. Music pumped through the room. Not the soft love songs that played at Francesca’s, the place where Mom and I always got our hair cut in Willowbrook, but loud, pumping alternative rock. Actually, Just Cuts wasn’t anything like Francesca’s. The girl with the blue hair who had checked Kate in alerted me to that fact right away.
“Short hair would look awesome on you.” Kate flipped through the pages of her magazine and then held it up in the air, squinting as she looked between me and the photo on the page. “Yeah, I could definitely see you with a super short cut.”
I cringed. I had never had my hair shorter than my shoulders and I wasn’t convinced that it would be a good look for me. I reached up and wrapped a thick lock of dark brown hair around my hand, tugging on it a little.
“I don’t think she’s ready to go that crazy,” Ashton said. She flipped through the magazine in her lap and then held it up to show me a chin-length bob. “What about this?”
“Cute,” I said. “But I’d feel weird with my hair that short.”
Ashton studied me with narrowed eyes. “What do you do with your hair?”
I shrugged. “Nothing much. I curl it a little.”
“Have you ever dyed it?”
“No,” I said. “This is my natural color.”
“Not even with Kool-Aid?” Kate asked.
I wrinkled my nose. “You can dye your hair with Kool-Aid?”
“Oh, yeah, it’s good for a color that’s not permanent,” Ashton said. “We used to do that all the time freshman year.”
I tried to imagine how that would work, but all I could picture was myself with a grape-flavored head. “Sorry, no, I never got the memo about Kool-Aid hair.”
“You should experiment a little,” Ashton said. “You never know what you might like.”
“Kate?” A stylist with bleached blonde hair walked over and smiled at us. “You ready?”
Kate jumped up, still holding the magazine. “I am!” She didn’t seem at all nervous about cutting off her waist-length hair. It must have taken forever to grow it that long. What made her so confident in cutting it off without a second thought?
The stylist led Kate away, leaving Ashton and me still sitting on the furry orange couch by the window. Ashton tossed the magazine aside and leaned back into the explosion of throw pillows behind her.
“So how are things with Jude?” she asked.
“Fine,” I said.
“Any new developments?” she asked.
I raised my eyebrows. “Such as?”
“Are you two dating or what?”
I sighed. “No. Like I said before, we’re just friends.” I hadn’t told her about making out with Jude. I knew she would jump to too many conclusions if she heard about that.
“You two spend a lot of time together for people who are just friends.”
“You and I spend a lot of time together,” I pointed out. “Are we dating?”
Ashton waved a hand. “You’re not exactly my type, babe.”
“I know. You like them broad shouldered and firm, but with a sweet smile.” I grinned at her over the magazine I flipped through.
“Ugh.” Ashton closed her eyes and groaned. “Why can’t I talk to Carter the way you talk to Jude?”
“That’s different,” I said. “I don’t have a massive crush on Jude.”
Ashton snorted.
“What?” I snapped.
“Nothing,” she said.
“What?” I asked again, glaring at her.
“I just think maybe you’re deceiving yourself,” Ashton said as she sat up. “I mean, you have this guy you like spending time with and who likes spending time with you. You’re friends, and trust me, Hannah, Jude doesn’t have very many friends anymore. It’s obvious that you like him with the way you talk about him, so why don’t you take the next step and see what happens?”
“I didn’t come here to find a boyfriend. I don’t need that kind of complication in my life right now.”
“Maybe it doesn’t have to be complicated,” Ashton said.
I snapped the page of my magazine, causing a little rip in the corner. “Relationships are always complicated. That’s why you’re too afraid to tell Carter how you feel, because you know it will complicate things.”
Ashton was quiet as she flipped through another magazine before tossing it aside. “That’s different.”
“How?” I challenged.
“Because you know Jude likes you.”
“It’s not like that!” I hissed, glancing around quickly to make sure no one was listening in on our conversation. The music over the sound system and the hair dryers humming hopefully drowned out our voices.
“Keep telling yourself that, Hannah.” Ashton smirked.
I clenched my teeth to keep from saying something back. It wasn’t worth it to argue. Everyone thought they knew everything, but Jude was right. It really didn’t matter what anyone else thought. We had something good going between us and trying to turn it into something else would only complicate it. No complications, that was the first rule we’d made.<
br />
Ashton looked at the cover of another magazine in the stand next to the couch. “You should try something different with your hair,” she said.
“I’m not cutting it,” I told her.
“What about a little color?” Ashton grabbed the magazine and pointed to the pink streaks in the woman’s hair. “Just a couple of streaks.”
I wrinkled my nose. “I don’t like pink.”
“It doesn’t have to be pink. You can pick any color you want.”
I opened my mouth to say my mom would kill me if I went back home with dyed hair, but then I stopped. Why did it matter what my mom thought? The Hannah she wanted me to be wouldn’t dye streaks in her hair, but maybe the real Hannah I was inside would. It didn’t sound so bad, and the color would eventually fade.
“It’s just hair,” Ashton told me. “That’s the good thing about it. It grows back if you cut it too short and turns back to its natural color after a while.”
I sucked in a deep breath. “Okay. Let’s do it.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
“So I have a favor to ask you.”
Jude looked up at me from under the hood of his truck. “Uh-huh,” he said. He held out his hand. “Wrench.”
I plunked the greasy tool into his palm and he went back to work. I wasn’t sure what he was doing, but I’d found him bent over his truck when I arrived at his house fifteen minutes before. I was starting to suspect that he really just liked to play around under the hood and wasn’t really doing anything in particular.
“You can say no,” I told him.
“I probably won’t,” he said. “What is it?”
I sighed. “My aunt wants you to come to dinner. At her house. Tomorrow night.”
Jude glanced up at me again, his forehead crinkling. “Why?”
“Because she doesn’t understand the meaning of ‘we’re just friends.’ I don’t know. She said since we’ve been spending so much time together, she thinks it’s her duty to get to know you too.” I leaned against the truck, propping my elbow on the frame and my chin in my hand. “All you have to do is show up and eat. Maybe an hour, tops. I promise it won’t be too bad.”