Everything, Somewhere

by David Kummer

  Little puddles had collected in the seats of his car since he hadn’t put the top up still. I asked him to leave it down, just for a while, so I could feel the rain. He obliged and started the engine. I sighed, but even that hurt.

  “Hospital, right away,” Willow urged him from the back seat, her hand gently on my shoulder, grip soft and comforting.

  “For sure.” Mason pulled onto the road. “Right away.”

  “I love you both,” I said, raspy voice barely held together. Leaning my head back and closing my eyes, something like sleep washing over me. Rain touched my face, and I felt okay. I knew it wasn’t death, and I didn’t want it to be. I could get used to waking up.

  8

  Little Rush

  (The Reporter)

  Gina threw her clothes into a suitcase haphazardly, pausing only to glance out the window of her apartment. The lights were all off, and the sun had just risen outside. Light glinted off the Ohio River and illuminated the fog that swallowed downtown Little Rush. She heaved another pile of clothing into the suitcase and sat on the lid while she tried to zip it shut.

  This was always the worst part of an assignment. The moving back. The leaving everything behind. No matter where she went, leaving was never easy. Little Rush, though, might’ve been the hardest place yet to abandon. The brief stay in a place so quiet almost made her forget the big cities. But now it rejected her. She was too loud, and they were too sleepy.

  Just small things, but she noticed them. The hushed conversations in stores. The people with their backs to her on the sidewalk, chattering like chipmunks, words all a blur. The community caught off guard, like the rest of the country. Only these people had to deal with it firsthand. For people in Louisville, only an hour away, they could read the articles and chuckle quietly. Appalled, sure, but also intrigued. Here in Little Rush, they had to deal with Bruce Michaels personally. The buzz he’d brought to their city now turned into a dark cloud. The man who had used them as an escape became an exile.

  Gina glanced at the laptop sitting open on her bed. Her email pulled up, stagnant. It had been days since she’d received any updates. Just a week ago, her boss had called and told her to come back. “Time for the next assignment,” he said. And she agreed. But that week of packing, planning, plane tickets had taken a toll. She didn’t really want to go yet. She wasn’t ready.

  Madeline Suso had emailed her twice. Both angry. Furious that her name had been used. Outraged at the effects it had on her life. She couldn’t hide in anonymity any longer. She’d quit her job because of coworkers asking questions, some even teasing her. Crude remarks. Telling her she should’ve kept quiet. Consequences in a man’s world.

  Not only that, but she’d been harassed by other reporters ever since word got out. Ever since that TMZ article. Not that it mattered. Gina’s article, when finally released, didn’t at all resemble the piece she’d written. Fragments of it, sure, but the whole thing had been sensationalized and colored in black-and-white. Bruce Michaels, a Machiavellian villain. Another old, rich, white, perverted man.

  Madeline had suffered. She’d been thrown into a fire because of the story. The story that Gina had written. It was meant as a character study of Bruce, as a question. What makes a man do what he did? And what compels somebody to run away? But in the end, through a combination of editors, and maybe her own mistakes, the story turned out wildly differently than she’d imagined at the onset.

  And for Gina herself? No fame. No critical lauding. Nobody even knew her. All they cared about was the story, the salacious details, the gossip. Not the journalist integrity she’d been aiming for. Just the dirt.

  Gina grabbed her suitcase and threw it into the main room. She opened another one and started to pack the rest of her stuff. Everything but the laptop. She left it on the bed, email open, hoping for news. Of something better. Maybe something from Madeline. Offering forgiveness rather than furious, scrambled messages.

  You promised, Madeline had written. You promised not to use my name. You promised not to involve me. But I guess that’s all you fucking reporters do. You just fuck people over for clicks and stories. I didn’t take a settlement because of you! I could’ve had a million dollars! And now I’m jobless.

  It was true, no other women had come forward to stand with Madeline. Maybe that’s why she took the full brunt of the public interest. And also true, it had cost her a million dollar settlement. But could they really blame Gina now? The whole thing was out of her control. Out of everyone’s control. And nobody knew where it would end.

  Gina closed the laptop and collapsed on the bed next to it. Staring at the ceiling, wondering if anybody would remember here. If Little Rush had a place for her in its memory, or if she would simply be forgotten. There were worse things than being forgotten, she supposed. Just a few.

  9

  Willow

  The cicadas were obnoxious as we pulled into the driveway. I’d never driven Mason’s convertible before, but he’d insisted. Once he knew what Hudson and I had planned, he’d practically begged me to take it. I guess it was another one of his peace offerings. I’m pretty sure Hudson understood.

  I parked beside the quaint house and stared for the first time. It stood next to the cemetery like a rock in the middle of a great, stormy ocean. A country road on one side, the same one we’d driven up. On the other, a cornfield spreading out for miles and miles. Hudson had commented, as we approached the driveway, that he loved how you could see the water tower from here at daytime. It had gotten too dark to make out that distant horizon, but I took his word for it.

  With the car parked and the headlights bathing Bruce’s house in a dead light, I turned to Hudson. “Are you ready?” I asked, reaching for his hand.

  He nodded, biting his lip. He looked like hell still, even after a few days in the hospital. It had been two weeks since the crash, since the huge storm blew through. Little Rush had no rain since. An endless, thirsty drought. The start of our senior year was coming, a matter of days now. But it still felt like a long way off, mainly because of this. Because we had to do this.

  Hudson had told me so, laying on his hospital bed, hooked up to a few machines. The kind of hospital wing where you don’t want to be there, of course, but you’re not super scared. There aren’t people crying around every corner. The nurses can smile sometimes. And Hudson, he drank in everything. He seemed to thrive in the hospital. I couldn’t explain it. But he looked at home.

  We had one really tough conversation there on the first day. He divulged a lot of the regret and pent-up hatred stuck inside of him. Like spoiled milk, it oozed out in nasty chunks. He told me the realization he’d had a few weeks earlier.

  “I’m a self-centered, entitled piece of shit,” he said, eyes downcast. There were no tears, just a desolate acceptance. “I’ve been just as awful as Mason.”

  “That’s the past,” I told him, reaching out to run my fingers through his hair. “This is a chance for all of us to start over. That’s what matters now.”

  That conversation lasted for about an hour, but afterwards he found new life. His grin lit up the room, though it was a rarity some days. I spent more time by his hospital bed than I ever expected. Sitting in an uncomfortable chair, I became a piece of the furniture, a constant presence. But we talked for a long time. A few conversations were rehashed over and over, but for the most part, it was fresh and interesting. I couldn’t help but stay. I couldn’t leave him there. And in the meantime, I’d learned more about him than ever.

  Mason stopped by often, but not every day. Him and Hudson were still working things out, and I appreciated this. Their relationship had been so deep and had fallen apart so quickly that a simple confession in a rain-soaked, lightning-bolt field couldn’t fix everything. They were working through stuff that I couldn’t understand. But most importantly, they were working. Piece by piece, restoring what had broken.

  Henry and Laurie showed up pretty much every day, but they didn’t always stay long. Henry could
n’t get off work as much as he liked, and Laurie had her own stuff going on. (I tried not to pry.) I’d say they were around for maybe five of the six days. The first four and then one absence. Once he’d really stabilized, dried out. Once we could be sure that nothing else dramatic would happen.

  There were other guests, of course. People from the high school. Teachers, the principal, all that. Hudson’s elementary teacher who doted over him so much it made me hate her a little bit. She just didn’t have a great bedside manner. Also Jed and Lucy, who came in twice and were on the verge of tears each time. After every guest’s visit, Hudson and I would rate them on a scale of five stars. He seemed to really enjoy this game, not in a cruel way. Just the way you need distractions when you’ve almost died.

  I couldn’t tell for sure, but I don’t think those people knew what really happened. I got the impression, from the conversations they brought and the looks on their faces, that they didn’t understand. In their mind, it was just a scary car accident. They didn’t know about the underlying mental health problems or the work still to be done. Just like the whole deal with Mason, things weren’t perfect yet. And in Hudson’s case, only he knew what came next.

  “I brought you this,” I said one day, entering the room around lunchtime. It was the second day, I think, because Hudson looked better, and he was more talkative than at first. “Here you go.” I handed him the iPod his dad had sent with me and headphones.

  He raised an eyebrow at me. “Why?”

  “Your dad said you might want music. And your phone… didn’t exactly make it in one piece.” I cringed and took a seat beside the bed. “Anyways, he said it’s all on there. All your songs. I already got the Wi-Fi connected.”

  Hudson thanked me and stuffed one earbud in. He started scrolling through the songs on the iPod, absent of expression.

  “I think I know why I like music,” he said, clicking on a song. He powered down the screen and let the iPod drop to his lap. Hudson turned, clearly expecting me to ask.

  “Why’s that?”

  “Because they can kinda yell and all that.” He grinned sheepishly, as if this was something he didn’t quite feel comfortable admitting. His neck scrunched down the way he always did when embarrassed, like he was trying to be a turtle. “They can… have emotion. Let their voice break. The way you can’t if you’re just talking.”

  “I suppose that’s true.” I leaned my head back against the wall and closed my eyes. “What’re you listening to? Anything I’d like?”

  “Bon Iver?”

  I shrugged and moved from my chair to the bed with an exaggerated groan. Sitting next to his legs, I leaned closer and he put the free headphone into my ear. A falsetto, soothing voice greeted me and almost-wild guitars.

  “I’ve already heard this song,” I teased him. “You always listen to it. Play something new.”

  Our days in the hospital passed like that. Hudson introducing me to music, and I would often return the favor. Our preferences overlapped enough that it really was an enjoyable time. He didn’t have many female artists, so I showed him tons of alt rock with women leading the band or else being solo acts. Every day there passed in a blur. It felt like we were in a time capsule, just the two of us. The world outside spinning, but we were stationery. And of course, we’d have to break out at some point. For now, though, I would introduce him to Phoebe Bridgers, and we would judge his hospital guests too harshly.

  It was the day before last. That night would be his final one in the hospital. I would leave for dinner around six-thirty and come back at eight-thirty for the last time. Just like every other day, only this time it felt a bit more serious. Like the end of our time bubble. Like stepping back into the real world.

  When I left a little before seven, I was surprised to find a new visitor coming to take my place. I recognized the girl barely, one of those faces I’d seen at school and everything, but Hudson grinned wide as soon as she entered. I left the room with an eyebrow raised. When I returned a few hours later, she’d already gone.

  “Who was that?” I asked, entering with a fast-food bag to gift him.

  “Layla,” he said, blushing.

  I chuckled and sat down beside him, handing over the bag. There were moments I wished we could stay like this forever. Or at least stretch out for an extra few days. But everything had to pass, especially the good stuff.

  Hudson and I were chatting around ten later that night. I had thirty minutes or so until the nurse started badgering me to leave, and I’d been talking with him about the next steps. What life would be like outside the hospital. He told me his plans for therapy, for dealing with school, for talking to his parents. Stuff that he’d been dwelling on since arriving in the hospital. Maybe even longer.

  I stared into his eyes, barely visible in the dark room. Only the flickering television offered any light. “We gotta leave here pretty soon, Hudson. Now that this is all over,” I said, resting a hand on his leg, “I just want you to know I’ll still do anything for you. Once we’re out there, in the real world... If you need to talk…”

  “I do need something.” He cleared his throat and stared at the television. He often did this to avoid meeting my eyes. “I need to see Bruce.”

  “Hudson…”

  “No, don’t. Don’t try to stop me.” He faced me now, and his expression couldn’t have been more serious. “It’s not over yet… I have to see him one more time. And then I’ll be done with it.”

  “Closure?” I frowned and shook my head a little. “Are you sure that’s…”

  “I’ve gotta try.”

  And so, in that way, we found ourselves standing on the porch at nine o’clock at night. We hadn’t set a date, hadn’t decided anything, except that Hudson wanted to go and I would go with him. I didn’t know why he wanted support, but I didn’t question. It made sense, in a way. And I knew he would choose me, not Mason, to go with him. Our bond had become something unexplainable, something meaningful. Him and Mason were still building. It just made sense.

  A few days after he left the hospital, Hudson texted me at dinnertime asking to go that very night. I obliged and told him I’d be around to pick him up in a few hours. Since I’d been with Mason at the time, he’d asked me to take the convertible. Mason didn’t give an explanation, but I knew he wanted Hudson to realize he was still trying. I told Mason, every day, that things were going to work out. He just had to give it time. Let Hudson get used to therapy, to this sober life. Once school started, things would seem different anyway. New beginnings. For all of us.

  “I guess… knock?” I suggested.

  Hudson tapped his knuckles three times against the door. I noticed the window to our left, curtains drawn. They fluttered just a little, like somebody had been peering out moments earlier. I faced the door again and heard the deadbolt grating as it slid open. Then the knob turned, and it swung inward, revealing a haggard, wild, rough man.

  Bruce Michaels had dark bags under his eyes. His skin was drawn tight against his bones, and his shoulders looked incredibly rigid and uncomfortable. He hunched over like a beggar and leaned against the doorway, staring at us.

  “I thought you’d come,” he said, voice gravelly and slurred.

  Hudson shook his head and stared straight into those dull eyes. I was impressed with the way he maintained that gaze, crossed his arms, stood straight. The two of them watching each other for a moment, taking deep breaths.

  “I couldn’t believe it.” Hudson bit his lip and sighed. “I guess I should’ve known. I can see it now.”

  “There are no good people, Hudson.” Bruce shrugged, still resting against the doorway. “I hope you get that now.”

  “I don’t care about your excu—”

  “They aren’t excuses,” Bruce snapped. It felt like he was only moments away from lashing out. He frowned. Those eyes flicked to me for a moment, and I recoiled. Just the way his head moved. His lips quivered, like a man on the edge. “I came here to chase my grandpa.” He looked at
Hudson now, narrowing his eyes. “I came here to be better.”

  “I don’t care.”

  Bruce straightened up and backed away into the house, gesturing. “If you’ll just sit down and give me a—”

  “No,” Hudson snarled, his words cutting through any doubt. “I came here to say… I’m not coming back.” Then, without warning, he started moving back from the house, dragging me by the hand. I went without hesitation, watching Bruce from the corner of my eye.

  Bruce nodded and placed a hand on the door. “I hope, one day, you’ll forgive me. Hudson.” He started to push it closed but paused with just an inch of space remaining.

  We were a few feet away from the porch at that point, but I glanced back over my shoulder to see his eyes peering through the gap. Hudson reached for my hand and squeezed it as we approached the convertible. At last, I heard the door slam behind us.

  Hudson collapsed into the passenger’s seat, closing his eyes. I started the engine but didn’t back out right away. I just stared at him, his expression of pain. Hudson gripped the door handle so tight that his knuckles were turning pale, but a smile crept along his face.

  “It’s over,” he said, now looking at me. “It really is. The first time I heard him say my name… it got me. But now I didn’t even flinch. I don’t need him. Not anymore.”

  The engine purred as I pulled onto the country road and started away from the cemetery. Hudson turned to look back one final time, and a content wave washed over his face. He settled back into the seat, his vision flicking in the direction of the water tower. I still couldn’t see it, but maybe that didn’t matter.

  “What do you think’ll happen to him?” I asked as we zipped past trees and farmhouses.

  “No idea. Whatever he does, it’s not part of my story anymore.” He threw his arms into the air and yelled, hair flying all over the place. A resounding shout that didn’t hold any anger or pent-up aggression. Just the sound of being alive.