But it’s too late now. My decision has been made. I’m an outlaw, and I’ll just have to deal with that.
I put my hand up to my hair, pulling it tight into a ponytail with an elastic I keep around my wrist. Hale tells me I look better with it down, but that’s when he sees me primped and preened and making an effort. He’s never seen me just before bed, my long brown hair a flyaway mess that a couple of strokes with a brush did nothing to fix. Should have taken your time, I tell myself. Should have made yourself a little bit more presentable. I can hear Mom’s voice in my head, urging me to tidy myself up a bit – but then again, she always manages to look glamorous, even when she’s wearing an apron. I just look... well, let’s just say that glamour doesn’t come into it.
That’s a lie, of course. If I could hear Mom’s voice right now, it would be screaming at me to get my ass back inside and warning Hale not to come around after dark. I’m glad I can’t. The only thing I can hear is the skree-skree of a nearby cricket and the sound of my heartbeat pounding in my chest. How is it possible that he does this to me, without even seeing him? Just the anticipation makes me feel like I’m going to explode.
I can feel my pulse quickening as I sneak down the side path of the house, and my footsteps match. If the crunch of the gravel gives me away, so be it. I can’t wait any longer for him.
‘Hey there, gorgeous,’ he says when he sees me, reaching out a hand to take mine. That’s my Hale: always the charmer. At least, he is to me.
I wonder what it is that makes me special to him. I wonder if I really am special to him, or if I just want it to be that way so much that I’m willing myself into ignorance. Maybe the rumours I’ve heard about him are true. Maybe I’m not the only one he looks at that way.
Or maybe I’m just being crazy. When I’m with him, it’s almost impossible to doubt it. He’s all mine, and I’m all his.
He pulls me in for a kiss, but I put a finger on his lips to cut him off. He looks back at me like I’ve gone insane. ‘Not here,’ I whisper. ‘Come on. Hurry.’
I pull him along the street, desperate to get out of sight of my house as quickly as possible; the last thing I need is for my parents to open a window and see me making out with Hale right there on the street. That would take a lot of explaining, and I’m not sure I have it in me right now. It would be an unwelcome kick back to the real world, which at the moment is the furthest thing from my mind. Why would I ever want my mundane reality when I can walk on clouds with a boy like Hale?
There’s a stone bench at the intersection of Chambers Street and Penbrook, hidden behind an incline that would make it hard for anyone in the neighbouring houses to see us. I don’t expect anyone to be looking out of their windows at this hour, but if by chance someone does catch a glimpse of me out of doors I know for a fact my parents will be the first to hear about it. It’s a risk I’m not willing to take.
Well… for anyone other than Hale, at least.
I pull him along behind me like a child rushing towards an ice cream truck, his enormous paw pretty much enveloping my tiny hand, until at last we reach the bench.
Finally, we’re alone. Together.
I know what people say about teenage boys; I know what they’re about. By all accounts, Hale should immediately dive on me, attempting to stick his tongue down my throat and his hand up my shirt – not necessarily in that order – but he doesn’t. Instead he just looks at me, that same wry smile in his face. It makes me a little self-conscious to be watched like that, to be scrutinised with such intensity, but that intensity is part of the thing that drew me to Hale in the first place. On the one hand, so impulsive; on the other, so capable of restraint.
‘Damn, Carrie,’ he says at last, breathing out a long, slow sigh. ‘Aren’t you just a sight for sore eyes?’
I don’t know about that, but I’m glad he thinks so – and from the look on his face, I can believe him. He looks like a man who just got a long, cool drink of water after a week spent crawling through the desert.
I’ve never had anyone look at me like that. Before Hale, it never even occurred to me that anyone ever would. I can see how a girl could get used it.
‘How come you’re here?’ I ask.
He pauses. ‘No reason. Really.’
‘What’s wrong?’ I ask. ‘Did something happen?’
Hale shakes his head. He knows exactly what I’m worried about. ‘No, no… nothing like that. Nothing bad. I just wanted to see you is all.’
‘You came halfway across town at midnight just to see me?’
He shrugs. ‘You say it like it’s crazy.’
‘Isn’t it?’
‘Not to me.’
He stretches his arm out along the back of the bench, and I feel the leather of his jacket heavy across my shoulders, but he doesn’t make an effort to pull me closer even though he must know – my God, he must know! – how much I want him to. He’s always treated me like I was some sort of china doll, like the carefully-outfitted collectibles in the front window of the curio store in town: made to be looked at rather than touched, played with, loved. Perhaps he’s worried that some of his roughness will rub off on me, and leave me damaged in some way.
As if I care. If he had any idea of the dreams that come to me in the night after I’ve seen him, I figure he’d find it a lot harder to be quite such a gentleman.
I scootch closer, until my thigh is pressed up against his and my hand is resting between his knees and he seems to relax a little. I can feel his tension evaporate just from being near me, as though I’m the ointment on a wound. It’s a small gesture, barely anything at all, but it seems to help.
You could do it, you know.
The thought creeps up on me stealthily, a snake through the grass that catches me by surprise.
Why not? Just a little higher…
Why not indeed? Why not just move my hand up, higher than his knee, past his thigh?
What’s the harm?
What’s the big deal? Am I worried people won’t think I’m a ‘nice girl’? Well, screw that. It’s 2006, for God’s sake; all the old rules don’t apply anymore. I might be the last girl in my school not to have made it with a boy, for all I know, especially if you believe the rumours. Word on the street is that Janey Dupree did it with two different boys at the same party back in April, one after another, and it’s not like she got the whole Scarlet Letter treatment. Whether it’s true or not, she’s still just as popular as ever. Even more popular with half the school, you might say.
But I don’t need two different boys. Just Hale. Always Hale. Only Hale.
I wonder if he’s hard right now.
Go on, the voice on my shoulder says. Check. Then you’ll know what he really thinks of you.
That’s a point. For all his charm, for all of the way that his quiet intensity seems to crack when he’s around me, it could all be a front. How could I be sure? Maybe I really am just some minor entertainment for him. After all, he’s seventeen. Out of school. A working man. Why the hell would he be interested in some dopey little junior like me, when he could be out there in the world with a real woman – the kind of woman who wouldn’t think twice about giving him what I’m sure he needs. In my dreams, that’s just the kind of woman I am: confident, cool, eager. When the lights go out, I can play his body like a grand piano, sure that it’ll respond to my touch, to my kisses, to my breath against his ear.
Tease? Yes. But only until his resolve breaks and he stops treating me like his delicate flower and makes a real woman of me.
And yet here I am, nervous about the thought of reaching up, unfastening his zipper, and…
But no. I’m getting ahead of myself. It’s one thing to fantasise about it, but in real life… I’m not sure I’m ready. Then again, I’m not sure I’m not ready either.
‘How did you even get here, anyway?’ I ask, trying to distract myself.
‘I rode a bike.’
‘You got a bike?’
He shifts awkwardly on the stone next to me. ‘For a little while,’ he says. ‘It belongs to some kid in the trailer park. His daddy hasn’t managed to pawn it off yet.’
‘You stole it?’ I say, pulling away from him and punching him on the arm. My dainty little fist can’t have hurt, but he still looks wounded. ‘You stole a little kid’s bike?’
‘I borrowed it. Jesus, Carrie… what do you think of me?’ I’ll put it back. I promise. I just needed to see you, and I didn’t want to wait any longer than I had to. I didn’t figure on you giving me such a hard time about it.’
The brow has furrowed again; all the playfulness has evaporated away. He’s right, of course. I’ve lived in Eden all my life. I know the reputation the trailer park over at the Grove has. I can’t deny that I felt the bottom drop out of my stomach when he first told me that’s where he lived, that that’s where he grew up. I hate myself for that – for the fact that he felt he needed to hide it from me at the start, for two whole weeks – but I can’t deny my reaction. I probably wouldn’t have seen him again if I’d known.
And he deserves better than that. He deserves not to be seen as some low-level criminal, always looking for an opportunity to make a quick buck from someone else’s misery, even though he’d be the first to admit that it’s a rough place to have a childhood. He deserves a chance to make an honest impression, to have people see him as he really is. He might not get it from anyone else, but he should sure as hell get it from me.
‘Hey,’ I say. I put my hand on his, gently interlacing our fingers. ‘I didn’t mean it like that.’ He doesn’t react, at least not until I bring our hands up to my mouth and gently kiss the back of his. They’re strong and wide, with long fingers that end in calloused tips from his guitar – but they’re always kept immaculate. I’ve seen Hale’s face caked in dust and sweat after a day’s hard work, and I’ve seen him so worn out that he could barely stand, but I’ve never seen his hands dirty, not once. They’re a source of pride for him. ‘One day, Carrie,’ he said to me, ‘one day I’m going to make my living with these hands. And I don’t mean shovelling rocks, neither.’
I’ve always loved his hands, right from the first moment I met him. They were the first thing I noticed: before the crystal blue of his eyes, before the sharp jawline, before the furrow of his brow – a constant intensity that slips away when it’s just the two of us.
Is ‘always’ the right word to use when you’ve only known someone for less than a month? Rationally, realistically, it feels a little cheap – the way people say everything is ‘awesome’ when really most things are OK at best. But how else can I put it? For me, the last month has felt like an always – a whole stack of alwayses, one piled on top of the other, squashing infinity down into a few brief weeks until a century is indistinguishable from a second and a moment can last for a millennium. I’ve always known Hale, somehow.
Always, always, always.
The word feels nice on my tongue.
Almost, I think as he leans in and gives me his forgiving kiss, almost as nice as he does.
Chapter Two
Neither one of us moves. We just stare at each other like reflections in a mirror, his unflinching expression focused on me – and only on me. The weight of it seems to hold me in place, trapped in front of him. There were days, way back in that fateful summer, when I could have spent hours gazing into those eyes, but back then those eyes never looked like this. They were the same icy blue, of course – impossibly bright, and made all the brighter by the fact that they were bordered by long, thick eyelashes that any right-thinking woman would have killed for – but there was none of the old warmth in them, none of that spark of life that had captured me all those years ago.
‘Hale,’ I say. His name is a bitter taste; I’ve thought it often, but I haven’t spoken it out loud in years. To my knowledge, no one in town has. When he left, it was as though he disappeared. There was speculation, of course, and assurances from certain people that – seeing as a boy like that could only ever come to a bad end – it was better that he did it out in the world rather than against the homely backdrop of Eden, but even that had died down within a week. As far as they were concerned, Hale Fischer had simply ceased to exist.
For everyone except me, of course. Some stains don’t wash off so easily.
‘What are you doing here?’ he asks.
What am I doing here? I think. That’s goddamn rich, coming from you.
‘What do you mean, what am I doing here? I work here.’ I pause. I worked here when I was fourteen, fifteen, sixteen. I can’t stand the idea of him thinking of me like that, just the same dumb kid I was back then. ‘I mean, I run the place. This is my diner.’ I plant my hands on the counter protectively, but if he’s impressed by my rise through the ranks, it doesn’t show on his face. His stare doesn’t soften. The corners of his mouth remain ever-so-slightly turned down.
Smile, I will him. Please. Just smile. Just once. Just give me that.
But he doesn’t. ‘You know what I…’ he starts, but his voice trails off. ‘Sorry. I shouldn’t have come here. I didn’t think.’
‘You didn’t think what?’
‘I don’t know. I didn’t think you’d be here, I guess.’
‘Well, where else would I be?’
The question is out of my lips before I can stop it. I’d give anything to be able to draw it back and stamp it out on the floor, but I can’t. It echoes in the quiet of the diner.
Anywhere, of course. That’s the answer – or at least, the answer I would have given the old Hale – and I hate that it’s not an answer I can give now.
I don’t want to do this. Not with him, not after so long. I don’t want this to be our first conversation in a decade. Perhaps, if I pinch myself hard enough, I’ll wake up in my bed, in my tiny apartment, ready to start yet another day of mindless monotony. A regular, happenstance sort of day. Not the kind of day where your almost-forgotten past turns up out of the blue and flips everything on its head.
He has the good grace not to answer me. ‘I’m sorry,’ he says again. ‘I’ll go.’
I knew Hale for three months, back in 2006, and as far as I remember I never heard him apologise once – and now here it is, twice in the space of two minutes. Seems like we’re going for a new world record. That’s so not like you, I think to myself. My Hale would have stood his ground, made a scene, kicked up a fuss. He never would have apologised for just showing up to a place.
But that’s the point, isn’t it? He’s not my Hale. If he ever was, he hasn’t been for ten years. And yes, even though there are parts of him that are unmistakably the boy I used to love, the man standing in front of me is a different beast entirely. It’s not even that he’s changed, exactly. It’s more that he’s been… updated, I guess? The old leather jacket, covered in patches and scrapes, has been replaced by a new one – well-worn enough to make it clear that it’s not just for show or an idle fashion statement, but still in good repair and with a look of quality about it. The red plaid shirt beneath it is sturdy, but a good fit; not the kind of thing you could pick up at any old place in town, that’s for sure. The jeans are clean, the denim a deep, rich blue; there are no rips at the knees, no pale patches where the sunlight has bleached them white. The weirdest part is, he looks comfortable in it. Hale, who to my knowledge never wore an item of clothing that wasn’t a hand-me-down or dug out from the bin at a thrift store, for whom even the idea of new clothes was a pipe dream, looks perfectly at home in these not-quite-designer threads. They suit the man he is now.
It’s not just the clothes, either. It’s in himself, too. The way he walks. The way he talks. His hair, always a little on the long side (and, as my parents loved to point out, in need of a good trim), reaches down almost to his shoulders, but it’s pushed back in an unselfconscious swoop behind his ears. His face has grown up too, hardened from the childish clay of his teenage years into granite. His cheekbones are firm, his jawline
straight and strong. It’s a little like looking in a funhouse mirror at the county fair: the basic parts are all present and correct, but they’re stretched and contorted in ways I didn’t really think were possible.
I can’t help but wonder if he’s thinking the same thing about me. I’m not sure I want the answer, but as he turns away and takes a step towards the door I’m extremely sure I don’t want him to leave.
‘Hale.’
‘Hmm?’
‘Why are you here?’
Here in Eden. Here in the Red Rose Diner. Here in front of me without any warning at all.
‘I just wanted some food, that’s all,’ he says. ‘I was driving through, and I thought… well, you know. Best burgers south of the panhandle, right?’ He points upwards to the sign on the roof, a loud proclamation of Dad’s cooking skills that we never got around to taking down. ‘But if you’re closed…’
‘Our cook’s gone for the next hour,’ I say, ‘but I was going to make myself something.’ It’s only half a lie. Yes, our closing time is usually when I take a moment to cook up something for lunch. What does it matter if today I wasn’t feeling particularly hungry even before he arrived? Or if my stomach started doing backflips the second Hale walked through the door? He doesn’t need to know that.
I gesture for him to take a seat, and for the first time since he came through the door I see the faintest glimpse of a smile cross his face. I wonder if he notices the blush that reddens my cheeks before I push through into the kitchen and get to work.
‘It won’t be much,’ I shout through to him. ‘I’m not much of a cook. Besides, Pete would kill me if I muscled in on his territory.’
I butter four slices of bread, both sides, and load them up with as much provolone and cheddar as they can realistically be expected to hold. Excess, I can almost hear my Dad say. That’s the key to a good grilled cheese. Excess, excess, and more excess. If you can look at it without feeling your arteries hardening, you might as well just go right ahead and eat a salad. For Dad, there was no greater insult.
Reckless: A Bad Boy Musicians Romance Page 2