A Dark Road (20 page)

Chapter 41

Hadley

He began to sleep in the basement on a semi-regular basis. Friday and Saturday nights were usually out because even Mom and Dad stayed up past 9:30 then, and there was always the slightly higher risk that Dad might get up the next day and decide to work on the house or something.

I felt a lot better about this arrangement, because though it was only the beginning of December, it snowed at least twice a week and I never trusted
that flimsy little tent. I’d wait until 10:30 or 11, when I was sure my parents were asleep, and sneak down to the basement. Sometimes I’d make a platter if there were a lot of leftovers and make James eat something. I also figured if anyone ever caught me, I could just say I was catching a midnight snack.

Most nights we’d go straight to sleep. Other nights I’d have my laptop down there earlier and we’d watch stupid movies. I continue
d to keep the basement as clean as possible, adding a garbage can, a stash of snacks, and as many spare pillows and blankets as I can muster. Once the tree is up and decorated I even string up some lights so we won’t have to always rely on flashlights.

It’s a Wednesday night when I catch him staring at me. We were working on college applications
, and as I combed through the thesaurus I could feel his eyes on me, a lot less bashful than before. I wasn’t sure why I liked it so much, but I did.

“What?” I asked finally.

“Nothing.”

“What? Do I have something on my face?” I rolled
on my stomach and made a weird sort of monster face hoping to make him smile, but he didn’t, he just kept staring.

“I-I was just admiring.”

I was a little thrown. “Oh.”

He blushe
d and tried to change the subject. “I-I, um—so, ah, how are your friends in C-Connecticut?” I watched him stumble to sit upright but when he turned so red he’s almost purple I realized he has a pretty good view down my pajama top. I’ve never been a tease or anything, but I liked this reaction. It wasn’t t that I wanted to make him uncomfortable; it’s that I hadn’t been able to think very concretely since that night he kissed me and called it a mistake.

“I honestly don’t know.” I was holding back my giggling, but just barely. “I haven’t called anyone since Th
anksgiving, and the e-mails have stopped since Aimee told me Jordan and Ian are dating.”

I felt him clench the blanket in
between us. The furnace kicked on and it’s the only sound other than Dog’s heavy breathing.

“Oh,” I heard him gulp
. “What do you think about that?”

“It’s good
,” I told him. “Ian wanted a lot more than I did.” He sighed and I threw a mini-candy cane at him. “What do
you
think about that?”

“I t-think you could do a lot better than a sheep.”

“Yeah,” I told him. “I think so, too.”

This time I kissed him, and by the time we were through, we were both red.

***

I
t didn’t take long for my absence at lunch to go noticed by our small clique and, most of all, my brother. Within the span of a few days, James and I created a new world for ourselves, away from the obligations of our families and the fears of our futures. If I wasn’t at school or the animal shelter, I was with James. And during those few but long hours that we were apart, I missed him terribly..

Most days we ate lunch in
Grander’s classroom. He didn’t seem to mind and so we happily took advantage.

Except I was the only one who ev
er seemed to eat anything. Before long it bothered me immensely.

I handed James my pretzels and when he refused
, I took his hand and put some in his palm. “All right, I’ll ask. What’s with the lack of eating lunch?”

“It isn’t safe to keep
exposed food in my house.”

“And we don’t buy lunch because…”

“It costs money and it’s gross looking.”

I shook my head and gave him a half of my sandwich.
“What am I going to do with you?”

“If you’re not going to steal my blanket then I’m not going to steal your sandwich.”

“Just eat.” I slid the half back over to him. “Tomorrow I’ll bring you one of your own.”

He smiled but looked away as he bit into the crust.

“Speaking of food,” I started, “what are you and Dog doing for Christmas?”

“I was just going to cook—
”

“When you say ‘cook’—”

“Not stuffing and yams.”

“Then you have to come over my house
.”

“R
eally?”

“Sure.
What with you being a growing boy and everything, I can’t have you starving on the streets.”

“What about Simon?”

“You let me deal with him,” I insisted. “You just bring your appetite.”

Chapter 42

James

This is infinitely bad.

If I thought I couldn’t concentrate in English before, I clearly had no idea what the hell I was talking about.

We can’t really hang out during school hours for both of our sakes. The Stooges already got the impression that I like Hadley, and I don’t want to encourage that idea any more than necessary. Hadley blames herself for asking so many people about me when she first got here. I tell her she’s nuts, she tells me I need to stop cooking and dealing.

Then there is King Asshat to worry about. I guess he’s gotten better since
Jenna got out of the hospital, but I don’t trust him. One word to her parents and I’m petrified I’ll never see her again. And I don’t think I can handle that.

In the
meantime, I constantly try to steal these little looks at her. It’s like everybody is always trying to get her attention, some of the girl sheep want to talk to her about things like prom, the animal shelter calls trying to get her to work extra days, her mom wants to review an essay one more time before she sends it in. It’s strange to watch her all day long and know that even while she makes nice with her brother’s friends and is polite to everyone, at night I get her all to myself. I have to pay extremely close attention, but every now and then I can see her looking up at the bleachers at me during gym, and I’m pretty sure she’s smiling.

It
’s occurred to me that maybe it’s all a big hoax, that Hadley drew the short end of the stick when the girl sheep were deciding who would be assigned to be the femme fatale on this huge prank everyone is pulling on McKay, but even if she is, I don’t care.

I don’t care, because at night she lets me hold her and kiss her and other stuff that I can’t think about without wanting to jerk-off. It
’s better to not think about the night and how badly I want her, so I let it sort of stew there in my mind instead. And when I get her all to myself again, I’ll be grateful just to see her smile, just to have her with me.

Even if it’s only for one more night.

Chapter 43

Hadley

It was the first time in a few years that I can honestly say I
was excited about the holidays. I usually associated them with the end of fencing season and become routinely obsessed with the end of the year torment. And since we didn’t have any immediate family nearby, Mom and Dad were always cool about it. This year, though, was drastically different. James still hadn’t given me a definitive answer about asking my parents if he could stay with us, but if nothing else I thought this would put more points in my favor. Or rather, in
our
favor.

“This is the friend from a couple of weeks ago?”

“Yep.”

“The one you’ve been studying with in the backyard?”

“Yep.”

“And his parents aren’t around?”

“Nope.”

“That’s a shame
.”

“Not really
, because now we get to hang out with him.”

“And this boy is just a friend?”

“Yes, Mom.”

She threw up her hands defensively
. “Okay, okay!”

Mom was clearly struggling to read the instructions in the cookbook so I went into her purse for her reading glasses. This was Mom’s
covert way of trying to get information out of us. She would pretend to be intensely interested in something else—a puzzle, going through
The Kelley Blue Book
, or in this case, cooking—but in reality she was trying to get information out of us without seeming desperate.

“I told you yesterday
, Mom…” I handed her the pumpkin spice and went back to peeling potatoes. “He lives down the street and we have English together. His dad is away…they have problems. I didn’t want him to be alone for the holiday.”

Mom pretended to cough
. “And is that all?”

“He’s a
friend,
Mom, okay?”

She shrugged
, though I could tell she wasn’t completely satisfied with the answer. “Okay.”

I wasn’t surprised that Simon was furious, but I was slightly surprised by the violence with which he greeted
James.

I had gotten him and Dad outsi
de to shovel snow and thought they would be out there for at least a good hour. This would provide ample time for James to come in and get settled. He was so easily spooked sometimes, I was afraid of overwhelming him. But then there was something about overtime with one of the football games. So Dad and Simon came in and quickly forgot their mission, putting them in a prime position for when James walked in the front door.

Chapter 44

James

I’ve never spent Christmas with anyone before. How do normals feel in this situation? At first I wasn’t going to go, but the idea of passing up time with Hadley depresses me beyond my usual level.

So I shower and shave (even though the hair on my face never really seems to grow) and I try to cut my hair
. This turns out pretty badly, so I give up. And for some reason that reminds me of Mom and of sitting in the kitchen with a towel around my shoulders and a bowl over my head. I hear her laugh and see her eyes and think she used to cut my hair all the time as a kid, but I lost that memory somewhere.

I have nothing but crappy sweatshirts and torn-up jeans
, so it seems pointless that I even try to look decent when the rest of me is shit. But I head over and try to make do with it. I think
Hadley, Hadley, Hadley
, and like magic, things could suddenly be so much more worse.

But then it couldn’t be.

I knock on the front door and her dad gestures for me to come inside. At first I don’t see King Asshat in the chair next to him and I think that Hadley managed to pull it off. My undying admiration for her has only grown, as if that were possible, but then he sees me and his face changes into all kinds of shades of red.

Crap.

“What in the hell are you doing here?”

“Hey
, Simon!” Clearly that wasn’t the response King Asshat’s dad was expecting.

I’m ready to run for the door, ready to bo
lt for it and never return, bury myself in the deepest hole I can find. “I, um—”

Then I am saved.

“Hi, everybody! How are we in here?” Hadley is wiping her hands on a towel. I can hear the nerves in her voice but it’s still music to me. I also know for a fact she can’t cook, but I’d eat anything she’d make.

King Asshat’s eyes dart
around to all of us and the realization dawns. “We’re just fine,” he says slowly. “Just screwing around.”

Her
dad doesn’t seem to get it but he goes back to watching football and I follow her into the kitchen like Dog follows me into the fields.

“Sorry
,” she mouths.

I manage a smile
.

When we walk into the kitchen, her
mom is humming Christmas carols and wearing a red apron with pearl earrings. Everything smells like cinnamon and roasting meats (my stomach is instantly excited). I wonder if Dog feels like this all of the time.

“Hello
, McKay. Merry Christmas.” When she sees me, Mrs. Grayson stops what she’s doing and hugs me. She kind of smells like vanilla, but I’m too uncomfortable to think about it. Luckily, it’s over quickly and she goes back to whatever she was doing. Hadley squeezes my hand in what I think is an apology. Their house looks different from the inside. It’s warm and low-lit; every table has those big, red winter flowers and glittery gold tablecloths. I don’t have to think about the fact that I like it.

Hadley takes me into the dining room and there are shelves lined with trophies that have little people sword fighting, music notes, or awkward pianos. Between them are family photos or candles or steampunk-looking
knick-knacks. Everything is clean. I’m trying to remember if my house ever looked this good, ever felt this good.

We go to work setting the table
, at which I am immensely inexperienced and unprepared for. My idea of gourmet dining is those thicker kind of paper plates that don’t cause spills. And here Hadley is handing me big plates, little plates, and a couple different kinds of forks. And why do we each need two glasses? And what order do the spoons go in? I can tell she’s color coordinating with the napkins. (Cloth napkins? Someone needs to explain that shit to me.) I know I’m screwing it up so I keep checking the doorway for eyes.

But no one is watching me, watching us.

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah
.” I sigh. The sound of her voice makes me feel better but I’m not sure how to get her to speak again.

“Come on
.” She’s bouncing on her heels. “I’ve got something that will cheer you up.”

She takes me into the
living room and I’m grateful that her dad and King Asshat have gone somewhere else. I see her sit next to the Christmas tree and her skirt rides up a little, making the blue lights on the tree glimmer just right on her skin.

“H
ere.” She hands me a big rectangular box with snowflake wrapping paper. “For you.” Doesn’t she know that just looking at her right now is all I could ever want? But I’m trying not to panic and feel my way through the bow and tape, wondering if she did it herself (I can’t imagine she didn’t).

The year before last
, Frank gave me lottery tickets for Christmas.

I remove every piece of paper gently. I kind of hated to tear the heads fr
om the smiling snowmen, but I’m reminded of that anticipation that kids have when receiving gifts and it occurs to me that Hadley’s friendship is the first one I’ve received in a long time.

“D-do you like it?”

It is a robot Techtronic kit. Not one of those cheap kind, either, but one of those expensive kits you buy at a marketing fair, the kind that executives pay their interns to set up and display in waiting rooms. I hold the box close.

“I
—thanks.”

Her face falls
a little bit because of my lack of excitement, but what she doesn’t understand, what she couldn’t possibly begin to believe is what that means to me.

“I got something for you
, too.”

I take
it out of my jacket pocket. I still haven’t taken it off, awkward and unsure if I should hang it up on the coat hanger or drape it across the staircase like everyone else’s, or put it on the end of a chair…if I’m wrong, I hate to think about the consequences.

Now I’m glad I haven’t because I can give it to her easier her now before anyone sees. I
wish I had wrapped it though, compared to her efforts mine feel nonexistent.

At first she almost seems confused, but then her eyes get a little bigger and she takes it out of the box. She feels the silver cord and twists the end until the light bulb turns on. Only then does she look up at me and smile.

“Now you won’t get lost.”

Hadley doesn’t hesitate to hook it around her neck. “
And this way I can always find you.”

***

I can’t believe that they have real chocolate covered fruit they eat around the TV and that they share it with me like I’m a normal person. And I never knew that there was such a thing as plates designed especially for cheese and crackers and Hadley’s pinky finger is just touching mine as we sit on the sofa and no one seems to mind. And when we sit down for dinner, I think I can’t wait to tell Hadley about how great this is but then I remember she’s right here with me. And when she tells me her mom makes mashed potatoes from
potatoes
and not from a box, everyone laughs at my expression. I think I’ve done something wrong but then Hadley’s dad pats me on the back and laughs. I think maybe his laugh sounds a little bit like Hadley’s.

“Don’t get too excited
, McKay,” Dad cautions. “They get lumpier all the time.”

Hadley’s
mom smacked his hand away from her backside and Hadley looks like any appetite she had has been filled with embarrassment. I try to hide behind my napkin and this time I squeeze
her
hand until she smiles. I’m still kind of fascinated, though. I thought only people over twenty expressed affection for each other on TV or for money. Being in love with wrinkles was a thing you needed blue pills for.

King Asshat
doesn’t see it that way, though. “You two make me want to vomit.”

I’ve been here for
awhile but KA is clearly still mad at me (and worse yet, Hadley). I can see he’s just itching to start trouble, so I’m reluctant to leave either of them alone with the other for any given amount of time. So far the day has been amazingly successful. I see her twirling the light bulb around under her fingers in between bites, and I swear to Christ if KA tries to ruin my good mood I’ll pop him one in the face right in front of his awesome parents.

I have to admit
it’s hard to stay mad when everything tastes so freaking good. There are apples and I think orange peels in the stuffing, but honestly I could just keep dipping theses rolls in the cranberry sauce, and then the turkey is actually edible and there’s fish that Hadley’s dad caught and everyone is teasing him about the bait being worth more than the fish…

“So McK
ay, did you get anything good for Christmas?”

I cram another bite of stuffing in my mouth
, Hadley nudges me but smiles.

“Christmas isn’t that big of a deal at McKay’s house.” She lies as effortlessly as if she were a Queenpin. Why is
that scary and a turn-on at the same time? “When his dad gets home, they do a more…traditional celebration.”

Hadley’s
mom puts down the fork and beams. “Oh see, I think that’s nice. Everything in the western world is too commercialized anymore.”

“Says the salesperson?” King Asshat
rolls his eyes but Hadley’s dad gives him
the look
and he stops mid-roll.

“We did way too many presents this year, didn’t we?” I want to laugh because she looks at her husband for conformation but
he’s already nodding without looking. I wonder if my robot will be so compliant.

“Simon
, what’s the name of that game you just had to have?”

“
Zombie Republic IV
.”

Finally something I know.
“Did you get to level three yet? The senate—well, I won’t ruin it for you…”

“You have it already? It just came out like
, a week ago.”

Now the eyes are on me
and I regret saying anything. “I, uh, got a copy a few weeks ago.”

“No way.”

“Yes, he did Simon. I was just playing it.”

“It was released in Japan in early November
, so I pirated a copy.”

Hadley looks smug like
she’s proud to know someone tech savvy enough to know how to do something like that. It’s pretty obvious her parents being in the forty-sector have no idea what any of us are talking about nor do they seem to care, but that’s okay, too. Hadley is happy and that makes me happy.

“I can’t get past the sub-level one.”
KA begins to pout over the gravy boat and for whatever reason, it bothers me.

“I-I could show you.”

Hadley’s mom nods to us over her wine glass. “You guys can go ahead if you want.”

I’ve never had to be excused from a table
before, either. but I almost like the permission. I also like how Hadley pushes past me to get upstairs, the feel of her soft sweater on my hands, the way her brother threatens to kick my undead ass and how
I know
I will take him down.

***

Later on, I’m thinking about demoting King Asshat to Duke Asshat, but decide I’ll leave the final decision to Hadley. If nothing else, the kid is a decent zombie killer. With a little mentoring…who knows? Hadley tells me she has to go shopping with her mom tomorrow because she’s been avoiding it for weeks. She tells me shopping is the only thing other than selling cars and drinking wine that her mom is really good at. I laugh at her and pull her tighter to me because I’m feeling brave. She kisses the side of my face and tells me she wishes she could hang out with me instead. I run my fingers up her part and remind her that she’s always with me, that thanks to her I know what a junkie feels like. She tells me the first step is admitting I have a problem and we laugh.

Right now, we
’re sitting on the porch, and I’m so stuffed and happy I think that maybe this is sort of a dream that I’ll wake up from only to smell Dog farts and phosphorous. I’m half afraid none of it is real.