by Shana Norris
I laughed and picked at a few blades of grass near my feet. “I never did make it into the tree house. Avery and Elliott gave it up because of me, and we slept on the ground instead.”
“Everyone is afraid of something,” Jude said. “Yours just happens to be heights.”
“What are you afraid of?” I challenged him.
Jude scratched at the dark stubble on his chin. “Commitment,” he said.
I rolled my eyes. “That’s such a guy response.”
“I don’t just mean relationships,” he said. “I mean all kinds of commitments. The kind that make you change your life, that make you take a step you don’t know if you’re brave enough to take.”
“I think everyone’s afraid of that,” I said.
He shook his head. “My brother wasn’t. He dove into everything headfirst. He never doubted any step he took. He was always one hundred percent sure that whatever move he made, it was the right one.” He pulled at a piece of grass and twirled it between his fingers. “I’d love to have just a tiny bit of his confidence.”
“Seems to me you have a lot of it,” I told him. “You didn’t hesitate to help me with my tire. You gave me a ride home. You managed to weasel your way into my tourist day and got me halfway up to this rock. That takes a lot of confidence, you know.”
Jude looked at me and smiled. His smile sent a warm tingle through me. No guy had smiled at me like that since the early days of my relationship with Zac.
Don’t get any ideas, I reminded myself. I was not in the market for a boyfriend. The last thing I needed was to let anyone get close.
“I’m starving,” I said, jumping up from the rock. “You hungry?”
Jude stood, brushing his jeans off. “Yeah, I could eat. I know this great little place in town. And I promise, it’s on the ground.”
#
“I was starting to think I’d have to send out an APB to find you.” Aunt Lydia sat on the couch in her little living room, with a magazine spread open on her lap. The TV was on, but the volume was muted. Had she kept the volume down to listen for me when I came home? Even my own parents didn’t keep tabs on me like that.
“I went out to see Asheville,” I said.
“You could have called to let me know where you were,” Aunt Lydia said. It was early evening. Jude and I had gotten lunch and then talked for hours about Asheville, and I told him about Willowbrook. Time flew by and the thought of calling to check in had never crossed my mind.
“Sorry. I’ll try to remember that next time.”
Aunt Lydia narrowed her eyes as she looked me up and down. “Who were you with anyway? Ashton was here with me, and she didn’t know anything about your plans for the day.”
“I was with Jude Westmore.” I didn’t see any reason to keep it a secret from Aunt Lydia.
Her blonde eyebrows shot up her forehead, almost to her hairline. If she had been any more surprised, her eyes would have popped out of her head. “Jude Westmore? How on earth did you meet Jude?”
“You know my first day here, when I got that flat tire a couple blocks over? It turns out that Jude was the guy who helped me. And then I ran into him at the party last night, and he gave me a ride home. I happened to see him outside his house today and we got to talking. He ended up going with me to Biltmore Estate and Chimney Rock.”
Aunt Lydia sat frozen in place like one of the statues at Biltmore. Her mouth hung open slightly, her forehead creased into a look of confusion.
“Jude Westmore went to Biltmore Estate with you,” Aunt Lydia said slowly, as if she was having trouble with the words.
“And Chimney Rock,” I reminded her. “Though I didn’t climb to the top. Then we got lunch.”
Aunt Lydia closed her magazine and set it aside, unfolding her legs. “Hannah, maybe we should talk for a moment.” She patted the couch next to her.
I sat down, smoothing out a wrinkle in the front of my skirt.
Aunt Lydia took a deep breath. “Hannah,” she said, “I would never try to tell you whom you should or shouldn’t be friends with. And I’m not your mother—”
“Thank goodness for that,” I muttered.
“But,” Aunt Lydia went on, “Jude Westmore is a little . . . troubled. I don’t know if he’s told you this, but his father walked out on his family years ago and then his brother passed away while deployed in Afghanistan last year.”
I nodded. “I know all of that. I mean, I’ve heard bits of it.”
“His mother has a lot of . . . problems,” Aunt Lydia said. “Jude hasn’t exactly dealt with everything in his life in the best manner. He barely graduated high school. He gets into a lot of fights. There was an incident a couple months ago at the auto shop where he used to work. Some money went missing from the office and everyone thought Jude took it.”
I looked at Aunt Lydia. “What exactly are you trying to say? That I shouldn’t go to any more tourist destinations with him?”
Aunt Lydia bit her lip. “I’m saying you should be careful. Jude is certainly not the kind of boy your parents would approve of, and believe me, Hannah, I remember what it’s like to be almost seventeen. The idea of the bad boy is sometimes better than the reality of him.”
“I’m not dating him, Aunt Lydia. He just showed me around town. That’s it.”
“Just be careful,” she said again, reaching over to pat my hand. “Sometimes people get hurt when Jude is around. I don’t want you to be one of them.”
“I’m not some stupid girl who throws herself at the bad boy in town,” I said.
Aunt Lydia smiled. “That’s right, you’re not. You have everything going for you, Hannah. Next year you’ll be going off to Yale. I don’t want you to mess any of that up for some boy you don’t know.”
My head hurt at the thought of Yale and the applications I still hadn’t even looked at. Every time I thought about heading off to one of the Ivy League schools, my stomach churned and I felt like I might throw up. I had barely made it through my junior year with my sanity intact. I didn’t want to spend senior year striving to be the best, and then four more years doing the same at a high-pressure college.
“I won’t mess anything up,” I promised Aunt Lydia. “My mother would never let me live it down.”
Aunt Lydia gave me a sympathetic smile. “She just wants what’s best for you. We all do.” She looked at the clock, then back at me. “Your dad called about an hour ago. He really wants you to call him.”
I faked a yawn and stretched. “Maybe tomorrow. I’m tired from all that walking around today.”
Aunt Lydia frowned, but she said, “Okay. Good night.”
I stopped at the door and looked back at her. “How do you know so much about Jude anyway?”
Aunt Lydia laughed. “I get all my gossip from Ashton. During my breaks that girl talks my ears off about everyone in town. There’s nothing that goes on around here that she doesn’t know about.”
I said good night to Aunt Lydia and walked down the hall to my room. I wondered just how much Ashton knew about Jude.
Chapter Seven
“You’re going to love this place,” Ashton promised as she pulled open the door to Mountain Dairy Ice Cream Shop and motioned for me to go in.
Ashton had come down from Aunt Lydia’s studio half an hour earlier, saying that she needed to get out of the house so Aunt Lydia could work. She claimed it was one of Aunt Lydia’s “no contact days,” which apparently meant that the house had to be absolutely silent in order for her to focus. Ashton seemed confident that if we just got out of the house for an hour or two, Lydia would actually paint something.
Kate stood behind the counter, scooping out big mounds of chocolate ice cream for a little boy with his mom. “Hey, guys,” she called.
The ice cream shop was a welcome relief from the hot and muggy air outside. My shirt stuck to my back and sweat beaded along my neck. I fanned myself, enjoying the cool air conditioning as we waited to place our order.
Once Kate had taken car
e of the boy and his mom, we stepped up to the counter. Before I could order my usual vanilla or chocolate, Ashton grabbed my arm.
“Let’s get the Impossible Colossal!” she exclaimed.
I raised my eyebrows. “What’s the Impossible Colossal?” I asked.
Kate rolled her eyes as she leaned against the counter. “She’s been trying to get someone to order that with her for months.”
“It’s this huge sundae,” Ashton explained, waving her arms wildly to indicate how big it was. “If you can eat it within thirty minutes, it’s free. It has everything on it and it’s so good, but I’ve never been able to finish it on my own.”
I wrinkled my nose. I could already hear my mom’s voice in my head. Never make a pig of yourself in public, Hannah. It’s disgusting.
But Ashton wouldn’t let me speak. “If you finish it, you get your picture on the Wall of Fame.” She pointed at a wall of pictures over a table in the corner. In big letters were the words, IMPOSSIBLE COLOSSAL VICTORS!
“You know you want your picture on the wall, Hannah,” Kate said, laughing as she waited with the ice cream scoop in one hand. “Imagine how jealous all your friends back home will be when they find out you ate a five-pound sundae.”
Ashton clasped her hands together and looked at me with wide eyes. “Please? If we don’t win, I’ll pay for it, I promise.”
I couldn’t say no, not when she was looking at me like her whole life depended on my saying yes. “Okay,” I said.
Kate straightened her purple Mountain Dairy hat and called out to the other customers in the store, “Impossible Colossal countdown coming up!”
The other customers let out cheers. Ashton raised her arms as they applauded, while I kept wishing for the floor to open up and swallow me whole. It was bad enough trying to eat that huge sundae, but I didn’t realize it would come with an audience.
After assembling the giant sundae, Kate and another worker carried it over to the table in the corner, right in front of the Wall of Fame. We sat down and Kate handed us both spoons.
“Time starts now!” she announced, pressing the button on a timer clock attached to the wall next to the photos. She grinned at us. “Good luck. You got thirty minutes.”
Ashton’s face shone as she dug her spoon into her side of the sundae, picking up a huge glob of ice cream dripping with chocolate sauce and gummy bears. “Mmm,” she moaned as she tasted the first bite. She gestured at me. “Go on. Start eating!”
I could feel everyone’s eyes on us as I stared at the giant sundae.
“How much does it cost if you don’t finish it?” I asked.
“Fifty dollars,” Ashton said, licking a drop of cherry sauce off her hand.
There was no way I could let Ashton pay fifty dollars for this thing. I had to at least try.
I pushed my mom’s disapproving voice out of my head and dug in, swallowing a mouthful of soft, delicious ice cream with crushed M&Ms on it.
“So what happened to you at the party the other night?” Ashton asked. “One minute you were there and the next you had disappeared.”
I shrugged as I licked my spoon. “I wasn’t feeling very well, so I left early.”
“Did you walk all the way home?” Ashton asked, her eyes wide.
“No,” I said. “I got a ride from someone.”
“Who?” Ashton asked.
I was hoping she wouldn’t ask, but I knew she would. “Um.” I scooped up a bit of ice cream with my finger. “Jude Westmore.”
Ashton’s mouth hung open. “Jude Westmore gave you a ride home?”
I nodded. “Yeah. He lives near Aunt Lydia anyway. It wasn’t a big deal.”
“Jude doesn’t give people rides home,” Ashton said. “Not anymore, anyway. What did he say to you?”
“Nothing. He saw me leaving and asked if I needed a ride. Then he took me home. That’s pretty much it.”
Ashton sat back in her seat, staring at me silently. Kate called out to her manager that she was taking a break and sat down across from me. She reached over and pushed Ashton’s mouth closed.
“You’re attracting flies with that big hole in your head,” Kate told her. She glanced up at the timer. “You guys have twenty-four minutes left, by the way.”
Ashton pointed at me, but looked at Kate. “Do you know what the new girl just told me?”
“No, what did the new girl say?” Kate looked at me, intrigued.
“Tell her,” Ashton said. “Tell her what you just said.”
I sighed. “Jude Westmore gave me a ride home from the party the other night. That’s it. What’s the big deal?”
“Really?” Kate’s eyebrows shot halfway up her forehead. “Now that is an interesting development.”
“It’s not a big deal,” I said.
“Jude doesn’t do things like that for people anymore,” Kate told me. “He used to, back before Liam was killed. They were two of the nicest guys around and would do anything for you without asking a thing in return. But then Liam died and Jude became a completely different person.”
“He won the Impossible Colossal Challenge,” Ashton told me. She pointed up at the wall. “There. See him with his brother?”
I looked to where she was pointing and spotted it, a photo of a slightly younger Jude. His brown hair was cut short, and he looked happier and more outgoing than the guy I knew. He sat next to a guy who had his arm around Jude’s shoulders and they were both pointing toward the empty Impossible Colossal sundae dish on the table in front of them.
I studied the picture of Liam for a moment. He looked a lot like Jude, with the same dark hair and the same smile. They had to be really close in age, so they almost seemed like they could be twins. I tried to imagine what Jude had been through, losing his brother and trying to move on with life without him.
“Maybe none of you knows who Jude really is,” I said. “Maybe he needed some time to not be the person everyone expected him to be.”
They exchanged looks, but they didn’t seem convinced. I hated when people thought they knew everything there was to know about a person. There was no room to be anything different in their minds. Once someone else decided who you were, you had to be that person forever, even if it wasn’t really who you wanted to be. How could anyone know who they really were with all of this outside pressure to be what others expected?
“Can we talk about something other than Jude?” I asked.
Ashton’s eyes lit up. “Okay. So Lydia told me a little secret.”
I shot her a confused look over my ice cream. “About what?”
“That your birthday is coming up very soon,” Ashton said.
Kate gasped and clapped her hands. “Birthday party!”
I shook my head. “No, no birthday parties.”
Both Kate and Ashton pouted, poking out their lower lips. “We love birthday parties,” Kate said. “Just so you know.”
“We had planned to start up a birthday party company once,” Ashton said. “Like we’d come in and do all the decorating and the cake and everything. The only thing that stopped us was deciding on a name.”
“And the fact that we were ten years old,” Kate added.
“Seriously, you can’t have a birthday without a party,” Ashton told me. “It’s like a law.”
I tapped my chin. “Funny, I don’t remember learning about that law in school.”
“Ha ha,” Ashton said, sticking her tongue out at me. “But what else are you going to do on your birthday?”
I shrugged as I ate another mouthful of ice cream. I really didn’t have any plans for my birthday. I had kind of hoped I could forget it for one year. My mother always hired someone to plan my birthday parties, which were over the top and full of people I barely knew and didn’t care to know. People from school who came just to eat and swim in our pool. People I passed every day in the hall and barely said two words to the rest of the year. Yet on my birthday, they all acted like they were my best friends just because my mom decided I should be f
riends with them. For four hours, I’d paste on a fake smile until my cheeks ached and my head hurt, and I’d have to pretend not to notice my mom guzzling cocktails or my dad’s glassy-eyed look.
“I’ll probably hang out at Aunt Lydia’s all day,” I said. “Maybe I’ll go crazy and order a pizza.”
Kate shook her head. “Not acceptable. You’re having a birthday party.”
I tried to protest, but they didn’t hear me. I couldn’t have a birthday party, it would be too weird. Who would they invite? The only people I knew in Asheville were the two of them and Aunt Lydia. And Jude.
But I couldn’t imagine Jude coming to my birthday party, unless he could hide out in the shadows all night. Maybe I could hide with him and avoid the whole thing. Kate grabbed a napkin and a pen from the counter and started writing down a shopping list. She and Ashton yelled out ideas while we worked away at the giant sundae.
“Is your mom coming home from Paris for your birthday?” Ashton asked, looking up at me. “Should we invite her? If you give me the number, I’ll call and tell her about it.”
Yes, that would be a great idea. Call my mother in Paris and invite her to a birthday party for me, thrown by two girls who she didn’t know and definitely wouldn’t approve of. Why don’t we just call my dad up at rehab and invite him, too?
“No, she won’t be coming,” I said. “She won’t get home until later this summer.”
Kate gave me a sad smile. “That’s too bad. What about any friends from back home? They’re welcome to come, too.”
I could just imagine Natalie roaming around the mountains, making fun of everyone she saw. She’d certainly say something about the color of Ashton’s hair and the ratty sandals Kate wore. Natalie wasn’t exactly known for her tact.