by Shana Norris
I gave her a look like she had lost her mind, which it seemed she had. “Why would I do that?”
“Because it’ll be fun,” Ashton said. “We can all go out to eat. We’ll even bring a few other people, so it’ll be like a group thing.”
“Yeah,” Kate agreed. “We can invite Syke and Trent and Nadia . . . and Carter.” Her eyes darted toward Ashton and she grinned wide.
Ashton’s cheeks reddened. “Fine. But only if Hannah invites Jude. Payback for making me walk past Carter’s workplace.” She dashed forward, calling out, “Hey, Jude!”
Jude’s head swiveled toward us, and he paused, watching as we approached. Ashton had her arm firmly locked through mine, pulling me forward. She almost pushed me into Jude once we had reached him.
“Hey,” Jude said, glancing at the other two girls before looking at me and smiling.
“Hannah has something she needs to ask you,” Ashton told him. She let go of me and started to walk backward, tugging at Kate’s shirt. “But Kate and I have to go. So you two have fun together, okay?”
She shot me a wide, wicked grin before she and Kate dashed off, leaving me standing on the sidewalk alone with Jude. Heat radiated up from the sidewalk, but it wasn’t anywhere near as hot as the heat flooding through me.
Jude raised his eyebrows. “You have something to ask me?”
I sputtered, “It’s nothing. Just Ashton being her annoying self. Forget it.”
“Okay.” Jude bounced his keys back and forth between his hands, giving me an amused smile. He didn’t say anything, and I looked away, shifting from one foot to the other and tucking my hair behind my ear.
“What?” I finally asked, when he still hadn’t said anything.
“Your cheeks turn red when you’re embarrassed,” he said. “It’s cute.”
I felt like I was about to combust from all the embarrassment surging through me. “I’ll see you later,” I muttered, starting to push past him to head home.
“Hey, I’m sorry,” Jude said, grabbing my arm. “I won’t tease you anymore, I promise. Want to hang out?”
I looked down at where Jude was touching my arm. It felt like electricity was buzzing from where our skin touched.
“Sure,” I managed to say. “Swimming again?”
Jude shook his head. “I was actually thinking about this outdoor movie that’s showing in a park nearby. We can sit in the back of my truck and eat ice cream.”
I wasn’t sure if I could handle ice cream after the Impossible Colossal, but the rest of the idea sounded nice. “Okay,” I agreed, before climbing into his truck.
When we got to the park, I saw people sprawled out on the grass, while others had the same idea as us and were sitting in the backs of their pickup trucks. Jude bought us small ice cream cones and drinks from the vendor, then we settled onto the tailgate of his truck as the opening credits started on the big screen.
I tried to focus on the black-and-white movie, but it was hard when was Jude sitting so close to me in the truck bed.
“Don’t you ever have to go to work like normal people?” I asked as I licked my ice cream.
“I used to,” Jude said. He finished off the rest of his cone and then lay back in the truck bed, his hands behind his head.
“Did you give up working for a living?” I asked.
Jude sighed. “I got fired. Haven’t found another job since then. This economy sucks, you know.”
I looked him over as I bit into my cone. “How old are you anyway?”
“How old are you?”
“Do you always answer questions with questions?”
Jude smiled. “I’m eighteen. I’ll be nineteen in October. You?”
“Seventeen in a week,” I said.
“An early July baby,” he said. “That makes you, what? A Cancer?”
I rolled my eyes. “Don’t tell me you believe in that stuff.”
“No,” he said. “My mom does.”
“Do you get along with your mom?” I asked.
Jude shrugged. “I used to. But now we just stay out of each other’s way. Sometimes I go days without seeing her.”
I sighed. “When I’m home, I wish I could go days without seeing my mom. She has this calendar where she keeps track of everything I’m supposed to be doing, planned out to the minute. If she schedules me to study between three and five, I’d better be in my room studying. At six I’m allowed out to eat. Then at seven, it might be dance class or piano lessons or maybe even a pre-approved party at one of her friends’ houses. At nine, it’s back to studying again for another hour before bed at promptly ten o’clock.”
Jude looked horrified. “You actually live like that?”
I shrugged. “I have to be the best. I have to be valedictorian and go off to some prestigious college and make a big name for myself.”
“What happens if you don’t do that? You’ll die?”
I stuck my tongue out at him before I popped the rest of my ice cream cone into my mouth. “No, it’s just part of the rules.”
“What exactly are these rules?” Jude asked.
I crossed my legs, pulling my ankles as close to my body as I could. “The rules are everything my parents have ever taught me,” I explained. “Little things they’ve drilled into my brain so many times that they’ve stuck. One day, I just put them all into a list in my head and started calling them ‘the rules.’ Because that’s basically what they are, rules on how I should behave, who I should be friends with, what I should do. How I should live my life.”
“Go on,” Jude said. “Let me hear them.”
I felt a bit silly, but I dove in. “Rule #1: Maintain the image of perfection.”
Jude wrinkled his nose. “That doesn’t sound like a good rule. Things aren’t always perfect.”
“You haven’t met my mom,” I said. I cleared my throat and went on. “Always have the upper hand. If reality isn’t the way you want it to be, create your own. Never ask for help. Even the score as soon as possible—”
“That’s why you wanted to pay me for fixing your tire,” Jude interrupted. “The rules say you have to even the score.”
“That was one of my dad’s rules. Everything is a negotiation.”
“You know,” Jude said, “sometimes people do things just to be nice. Sometimes they don’t want something in return.”
I shook my head. “That’s not what I’ve been brought up to believe.”
Jude rolled back over and looked up at the stars beginning to twinkle in the sky over us.
“Do you want to hear more?” I asked. “Or are you horrified enough?”
“I think that’s plenty,” he said. “I’m kind of sorry I asked. It doesn’t sound like a good way to live.”
“Don’t you have rules?” I asked.
“No,” Jude said. “I just do what I want. When Liam was here, he used to try to tell me what to do. And most of the time, I’d do it. Because he was my big brother, you know? He was looking after me when our dad checked out on us.”
I stretched out on the truck bed, our heads only inches apart. The metal ridges of the truck dug into my back, but I didn’t want to move. As the evening grew darker around us, crickets singing in the grass mingled with the sound of the movie playing on the big screen, lulling me to sleep. I closed my eyes, drifting in and out of sleep until the movie ended.
Jude didn’t say anything for a long time as he drove back toward our neighborhood. Finally, as we neared Aunt Lydia’s house, he spoke. “I thought you weren’t supposed to live by the rules this summer.”
“I’m not,” I told him. “My lif—Mark says I use them as a crutch to hold myself back from what I really want to do. So I’m supposed to break all of them and figure out what I really want. But it’s hard. I’m so used to living by the rules, it’s hard to not fall back on them.”
“Maybe what you need to do is replace the old rules with some new ones,” Jude suggested. “Make up your own rules to push you outside of your boundaries.”
“Like what?” I asked.
He held up a finger. “Rule #1: don’t complicate things. Simple, honest, and straightforward is the best way to go.” He held up another finger. “Rule #2: when something scares you the most, that’s when you know you should do it.”
“Within reason,” I added. “I’m not doing anything that will get me killed or arrested.”
“Rule #3: always do the things that could get you arrested. But try not to get caught.” He turned his head and shot me a crooked grin before turning back to face the road.
I laughed. “You’re insane.”
“But brilliant,” Jude said. “Come on, let’s figure out these new rules to live by.”
“If I have to live by them, so do you,” I said. “They’re your rules.”
He shrugged. “Fine. I don’t mind a challenge.”
“Rule #4,” I said as I adjusted my seat belt so I could turn more toward him. “Don’t be afraid to face reality.”
Jude’s smile faded a bit, but then he nodded. “That’s a good one.”
And it was, in fact, time for me to face reality. “Okay, so that thing Ashton wanted me to ask you . . . Do you want to hang out with Ashton and Kate and their friends?”
Jude was quiet for a long time, but then he said, “Hang out where?”
“They want to go to dinner somewhere,” I said. “We haven’t sorted out all the plans yet. It’s like a group thing.”
Jude scrunched up his nose. “Who will be there?”
“Ashton and Kate and Carter and Syke and Nadia and . . . um . . . Trevor?”
“Trent?” Jude corrected.
I nodded. “Yeah, him. I met them at the party, but it’s all a blur in my mind.”
Jude stayed silent as he turned a corner, taking us into the familiar neighborhood near Aunt Lydia’s house.
Finally, I said, “You don’t have to go. You can say no. It’s fine.”
“I can’t say no,” Jude said. “It’s against Rule #2.” He turned his head and winked at me.
“Ashton and Kate scare you?” I asked, laughing.
“Most people scare me.”
I raised my eyebrows “Even me?”
He bit his thumbnail, his forehead scrunched in thought.
“Maybe,” he said, at last. “I haven’t figured it out yet.”
We drove past Jude’s house and I caught sight of the shirt hanging in the big tree in the front yard. It was a pale blue polo this time, and it swayed back and forth on the tree limb, as if dancing to a song only it could hear.
“What’s with the shirt in the tree?” I asked.
Jude’s body tensed visibly, and I knew I had asked the wrong thing. His hands gripped the steering wheel, his knuckles white. It was like a frigid wind had blasted over us.
Jude didn’t answer, and for those last two minutes, we were silent aside from the sounds of the truck bouncing and groaning along the road until Jude stopped in front of Aunt Lydia’s.
He wouldn’t even look at me once he had parked. He just stared out the dirty windshield at the darkening road ahead of us.
“So, um,” I said, reaching for the door handle. “I’ll see you later.”
He nodded, but he didn’t say a word. I climbed out of the truck, biting my lip. The second the door closed behind me, Jude took off from the curb, the tires kicking up dust as the truck sped away.
Chapter Nine
Havig good tim in Paris!! City of lov and lits!!
I stared at my cell phone for a full minute, rereading the words. Each time, my gaze stuck on the misspellings.
What are you doing? I texted back.
Mom’s response came two minutes later. Havin diner with Tess. Mmm!
Are you drunk?
Of couse not. Ive had 2 coktalls.
Coktalls? Mom, you’re drunk. How much have you had this week?
Three minutes passed before Mom responded.
Hav you beeen talking to yor aunt? Lydiaa alwas insits I’m an alcoolic.
I was tired of trying to decipher Mom’s drunk texts. I pressed the call button on the screen under her number.
It rang five times before Mom finally answered. “Bonjour!” she crooned, giggling into the phone.
“Mom,” I whispered. I pushed the door shut so Aunt Lydia wouldn’t hear my side of the conversation. “Do you realize how drunk you are?”
“Two cocktails, Hannah!” Mom groaned. “You’re acting like Lydia. I knew it was a bad idea to let you spend the summer with her. She’s brainwashing you.”
“Aunt Lydia isn’t doing anything,” I said. “I can see and hear the evidence for myself.”
“Just a minute, Tess! Don’t have dessert without me.” I held the phone away from my ear while Mom shrieked with laughter on the other end. I caught sight of my reflection in the mirror across the room, noticing the annoyed scowl on my face.
“Mom,” I said through clenched teeth. “Where are you?”
“At the restaurant in our hotel,” Mom slurred.
“Good,” I said. “Go upstairs and go to bed.”
“The night is young and we’re in Paris!” Mom exclaimed. In my mind, I saw the looks of the other diners, the ones I had spent my life pretending I didn’t see whenever Mom had one too many drinks over dinner. She was rigid and controlled when sober, but all of her rules went out the window once she started on her cocktails.
Mom made such a big deal about being perfect, but we all knew her dirty secret. Whenever she could, she let the alcohol take over and break down that perfectly coiffed image.
“Fine,” I snapped. “Just don’t wake up in some alley in Paris.”
Mom’s laugh was the last thing I heard as I pressed the END button.
I pressed the heel of my palms against my eyes until I saw bursts of color behind my eyelids. I had a sudden urge for home—the home I used to have, back when I lived across the street from Avery and next door to Elliott. I wanted sleepovers in Avery’s room, giggling into our sleeping bags until her mom came in to tell us to go to sleep. I wanted dares from Elliott, the craziest things he could think of to get us to do. I wanted to go back to when I didn’t know about bad things.
I picked up my phone, my finger hovering over the screen. I knew the number. It hadn’t changed and it was still imprinted in my memory, even though it had been more than four years since I’d dialed it.
But I couldn’t get myself to make the call. What would I say to Avery? My ex-best friend was now dating my ex-boyfriend. I was supposed to hate them both. Anything I had left to say to Avery was better off unspoken, and I doubted she would understand the homesickness that had settled over me.
I turned the phone off completely. I didn’t want texts from my mom or anyone else. I was still frustrated about the way Jude had driven off the day before without a word when I asked about the shirt in the tree. We were supposed to go out with Ashton and Kate that night, but I had no idea if he was even still coming. I hated to admit it, but I was afraid to know the answer.
Trudging down the hall, I found Aunt Lydia watching TV in the living room.
“I thought you were supposed to be painting,” I said as I sat down next to her.
Aunt Lydia shrugged as she channel surfed, her thumb holding the button down on the remote so that the TV flicked continuously from one show to another. A cartoon about talking cats, a commercial for a fiber cereal with a couple that looked too happy for all that fiber they were eating, a rerun of a TV western, a reality show with people covered in mud.
“I couldn’t get anything out today,” she said.
“You just pick up a paintbrush and go,” I said. “How hard can it be?”
“Spoken like a non-artist,” Aunt Lydia said with a sigh. “You’ve always been too practical for the creative arts, haven’t you? You’re like your parents in that way.”
I stiffened at her words. “What do you mean?”
“Your mom never had time for art,” Aunt Lydia said. “She always thought it was a wa
ste of time. Most artists will never be rich or well known. Not until we’re dead, anyway. Marilyn thought it was better to focus on things that meant something in the present, to other people. She never had the patience for creative work.”
Aunt Lydia reached over and pushed a lock of my hair over my shoulder. “I see a lot of that in you. The way you always try to be the best at everything you do. The top grades in your class, the awards, the clubs. It’s all so concrete. Something you can look at and say you’ve succeeded because you earned a crown or a certificate. You’ve never spent much time on things that don’t get you accolades right away.”
I bit my lip as I absorbed Aunt Lydia’s words. She made it all sound pointless. Like all my schoolwork, all the clubs, and volunteer work were for nothing because I wasn’t being creative.
“I’ve worked really hard,” I said. “Maybe I’m not painting masterpieces or writing great literature, but I’ve done a lot for myself.”
Aunt Lydia’s forehead scrunched into a frown. “Oh, honey, I didn’t mean to make it sound like I was belittling your work. I know you’ve worked hard, and I’m proud of everything you’ve done. But maybe you work so hard at being this ideal student that you don’t let yourself have fun like you should.” She put the remote down and took my hands in hers. “I saw the way your mother was when we were growing up. And I saw how your dad threw himself into his work. A part of me is terrified you’ll end up the same way they are. That if you don’t give yourself time to be creative and draw outside the lines, you’ll deal with it the same way your parents do, through alcohol and prescription drugs.”
I opened my mouth to say that my mother wasn’t an alcoholic, but the words wouldn’t come.
“Be as successful as you want to be, Hannah,” Aunt Lydia went on. “Get all the awards. Be valedictorian of your class and go to Yale. But every now and then, take the time to let your guard down and be free.”
It was the same thing Mark had told me. Step outside my comfort zone and be someone else for a change. At home, my parents always told me I wasn’t perfect enough. I needed to be the best, to stomp the competition in everything I did. But the awards were never enough, there was always something else I needed to work for.