Chapter 7
Turned out, Jaden should’ve chosen a safer entrée last night. Mrs. Morris called our house early Tuesday morning, apologizing that Jaden wouldn’t be able to walk me to the bus this morning—he was “sicker than a dog.”
I would’ve preferred him walking me to the bus over my mom, though, who followed through on her threat and did exactly that.
Thankfully, she changed out of her house robe for the journey, and into a pair of linen PJ bottoms that almost could’ve passed as normal pants.
“Poor Jaden,” Mom murmured as we walked, wrapping her arms around herself.
“Be sure you text him later telling him to feel better, okay? I’m sure that’ll lift his spirits. ”
My phone suddenly felt so heavy in my backpack pocket. “Okay.”
“I’ve got a feeling he’s going to ask you to homecoming soon. We need to go get you a dress for the dance. Maybe this weekend, after my hair appointment, we can go.”
I knew how it would go. We would both browse dresses, but I’d never actually pull any off the rack—Mom would pick the ones for me to try on. “Okay.”
“Are you not feeling well either?” Mom paused to press her hand against my forehead in the middle of the sidewalk. “You don’t feel warm—”
I pulled my head back, glancing around in case anyone on the street was around to watch. “Just tired.”
I didn’t look at her to see whether or not she was suspicious, but instead walked all the way to the bus stop. Thankfully, Mrs. Savion pulled up within minutes. Mom waved at me as I climbed aboard, like I was a second grader rather than a sophomore.
The bus seemed livelier than normal, which meant Mrs. Savion was beginning to grow hoarse from calling out at those who refused to keep their butts in their seats.
She threatened them with making them late, and then with detention for not listening.
I plugged my headphones in and tried to ignore the sounds.
We turned into Vista Villas a little earlier than normal, and I braced myself on the seat as we bounced along. I tried to be nonchalant looking out the window, but I kept my eyes peeled, waiting for Hudson’s figure to come into view.
And then he did. Once again, he leaned against the cable box, head tipped down as if studying his shoes.
His blond hair was half obscured by the black hood he’d drawn over his head.
As the bus rumbled to a stop, I realized he wasn’t alone.
A little girl stood at his side with her blonde hair pulled up into two braided pigtails, a rainbow backpack strapped across her back.
Hudson didn’t straighten from the cable box, didn’t act as if he was going to get on the bus, so Mrs. Savion opened up her window. I yanked my earbud out in time to hear her ask, “Aren’t you getting on?”
His voice was faint over the voices of the students in the back and the roar of the bus’s engine, but I caught the reply. “Go ahead without me. Her bus is late today.”
I pressed my face closer to the glass, close enough to fog it up.
The girl looked no older than eight, so he couldn’t leave her alone to wait for her bus.
But he couldn’t miss his. If he didn’t get on the bus, how would he get to school on time?
It had to be at least a thirty-minute walk—he wouldn’t make it before the bell.
If he was tardy, would Principal Oliphant count that as breaking the “thin ice” he walked on?
Mrs. Savion shut her window and put the bus into gear, and through my window, Hudson looked up and met my gaze before the bus rolled past him. It wasn’t the glare of the Grim Reaper, though, but the open expression of the boy on the bridge. He hadn’t had time to pull the mask on.
“Wait!” I reached forward and touched Mrs. Savion’s shoulder, grasping the denim. “We can’t leave him.”
“I have a schedule to keep, Gemma,” she said in a voice that she’d never used with me before, but when she looked up in the rearview mirror, her expression softened a fraction. “I’ll tell Principal Oliphant about the late bus.”
I looked out the window, finding the little girl holding Hudson’s hand and swinging it back and forth. He looked down at her, and if I hadn’t known any better, giving her a reassuring smile. A smile.
I only had a split second to ask myself why I cared.
A split second to acknowledge that if Hudson lost his last chance, that meant I’d no longer have to meet with him after school.
He made it perfectly clear yesterday that that was what he wanted.
I would’ve been home free of the scary senior and could’ve laughed the whole situation off.
In that split second, I couldn’t turn away from how genuine Hudson’s smile looked.
Two thoughts warred in my mind. Don’t do anything to prove the list wrong.
And the second, the louder of the two: Live a little.
Without thinking twice, I snatched my backpack and stumbled into the aisleway. Mrs. Savion slammed on the brakes, rocking me forward. I would’ve faceplanted if I hadn’t caught the leather seat at the last second. “Gemma,” she said, eyes widening. “What are you doing?”
My heart pounded fiercely in my throat, making the air that I drew in taste thinner and thinner. “Open the door, please.”
“Gemma, I can’t let you—”
I didn’t wait for her to finish. Something foreign possessed me in that moment, reaching my arm out and wrapping my hand around her door handle, yanking it open. My legs shuffled down the steps until I hopped out onto the dirt road, free.
Mrs. Savion gave her head a little shake, muttered something under her breath, but ultimately pulled the doors shut.
It was probably the craziest decision I’d made to date, getting off the bus and joining the Grim Reaper, but there I was, standing in the plume of dust the bus kicked up while looking at the bad boy in question from across the road.
He hadn’t noticed I’d gotten off yet. Instead, he rubbed his fingers into his left eye, slumping against the phone box. “Are you going to get in trouble?” the little girl asked him, swinging her backpack to and fro.
“Of course not,” he replied easily, but didn’t open his eyes. Gosh, even his voice sounded different, lacking all the steel and edge. I could hear Bridge Boy. “Don’t worry about it, okay?”
The girl hummed a little under her breath and turned around, and that was when she spotted me. Her eyebrows slammed down in a frown, regarding me almost territorially. She tugged on Hudson’s arm, and he lowered his hand from his eyes to glance up.
It was a funny sort of thing, watching his expression go from troubled to exasperated in a nanosecond, all due to the sophomore in a long skirt and white sneakers standing on the side of the road.
Hudson grabbed the girl’s hand and hauled her across the street, stomping toward me with a ferocity that had me thinking about Landon’s broken face. Gone was the expression of Bridge Boy. His hood cast shadows across his face, but the anger was clear. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
Yeah, right then, I knew I made a huge mistake.
Despite the discomfort blooming in my stomach, I forced my posture straighter.
“I’m waiting for her bus with you.” The girl had to be none other than his sister, because even though she was little, they had nearly the same features.
Same small nose, same high cheekbones, and same wheat-colored hair.
Their eyes were also the same—not in color, but in fierceness, because she regarded me the way a wild animal might. “I’m Gemma,” I told her.
“No, you’re insane.” Hudson came closer, stopping a few feet from me. “Are you serious? You’re going to make this my problem now, too?”
I folded my arms across my chest, trying to stop myself from backing down under his stare. It was hard, though, because every inch of me demanded to chase the bus down with my arms flailing. “What kind of mentor would I be if I left you in this situation alone?”
“Mentor?” the little girl whispered to Hudson in confusion, but he ignored her.
“Did you not hear me yesterday?” he demanded.
“You’re not a mentor, and you’re not my buddy—you’re an unlucky underclassman forced to be my babysitter.
One Principal Oliphant knew she could get to do whatever she wanted.
You’re easily manipulated, you have no backbone, and, apparently, you make god-awful decisions. ”
Just words, I told myself, but dang, did he really know how to hurl insults where they hurt. Then again, me standing here was clear proof of my bad decision-making skills. “We’ll be late together. If we’re both late, maybe Principal Oliphant will let us off with a warning.”
“Oh, yeah? Where’s that logic coming from?”
I couldn’t, for the life of me, figure out why he was so angry.
I mean, sure, I hadn’t expected him to drop to his knees and thank me for being on his side, but I hadn’t expected so much hatred to exude from him.
Then again, this was the Grim Reaper. Angry.
Scary. Mean. If I’d thought that through, I probably wouldn’t have disembarked.
I would’ve listened to Mrs. Savion’s warning stare and sat down.
But the bus was gone, and the dust had just begun to settle, so I wasn’t going anywhere.
And really, what had I been thinking? Getting off the bus had been stupid. Because it wasn’t like there was anyone to call to come pick us up. We were stranded with a half-hour walk ahead of us.
A new fear entered my mind. Once his sister was picked up, I’d be alone with him. Outside of school grounds. Without a witness. I thought of the route to the school and all the places he could stash my body.
The Brentwood Elementary bus rolled up then, with Hudson glowering at me and my thoughts running rampant. The driver, a stout man with graying hair, opened the door for Hudson’s sister to climb on.
“Have a good day, Paisley,” Hudson called to her, and she looked back and waved at him. She didn’t look at me.
Hudson let out a harsh sigh as the bus door wheezed to a close, and I could hear the gravel crunch underneath his boots as he turned away. My heart thundered in my chest at the prospect of trailing after him, but at the last second, inspiration hit me like lightning.
The bus was already moving forward, but I hurried to catch up.
“Wait! Wait, sir!” I slapped my palm against the glass of the bus door.
The driver, thankfully, ground the bus to a halt, wasting no time in opening back up.
I gasped for a breath, tucking a piece of hair that had come loose from the braid behind my ear.
“We’re students at Brentwood High. Do you think you could drop us off at Walnut Street? ”
Walnut was a street the bus would have to pass to get to the elementary school, and from there, it’d be probably a five-minute walk to the high school.
A two-minute sprint, even. Depending on how much left he had of his route, we’d be cutting it close, but we’d never make it before the bell without him.
But the bus driver set his gaze straight ahead, gruff and unwavering. “I can’t pick up anyone who’s not on my route.”
I fished out my student I.D. from my backpack, breathing hard as I showed it to him.
It was last year’s, since this year’s hadn’t been issued yet, but I still looked relatively the same.
Same braid, same baby cheeks. “We’re students at Brentwood High, I swear.
We missed our bus because we were waiting with…
ah, Paisley. I’m a sophomore and he’s a senior.
If you call the school—call Principal Oliphant—they can confirm it.
Gemma Settler and Hudson Bishop.” Please, make an exception this once. Please, please, please.
The driver leaned around me to peer at Hudson, and I prayed that Hudson’s ripped clothes and dark expression wouldn’t make the driver’s decision for him.
On impulse, I blurted, “My mother’s the school board president. Naomi Settler?”
“Settler?” The driver scrunched his brow, like he was trying to remember the name from somewhere. Then something like a lightbulb went off behind his eyes. “Is your dad Clayton Settler?”
I nodded, hoping that was a good thing.
The bus driver smiled, and it transformed his face entirely.
“I went to school with Clayton Settler! Small world, small world. I knew he had a son, but didn’t realize he had a daughter, too.
My, you do look just like him, don’t you?
Wait—that’s probably not a good thing to say, is it? That a girl looks like her father?”
The relief that swept through me was so potent that I actually felt my knees shake. “Would you be able to drop us off at Walnut? Please? Would that be okay? We…we can’t be late.”
“Yeah, of course! Sit up in the front where I can see you, okay?”
I pivoted and walked the few steps to grab ahold of Hudson’s wrist, right underneath where his long sleeve ended. Even though I was mildly freaking out about touching him, I yanked him forward. “You’re seriously a lifesaver.”
“Glad I can help. You’ll have to tell your dad old Jimmy Heisner says hello.”
There was one fully empty seat in the front, and I fell into the worn-down leather, tugging Hudson down after me.
The seat was smaller than the one Jaden and I normally sat on, and Hudson’s arm jarred against my shoulder, his thigh pressing up against mine.
Both of us stiffened on contact, but there was no room to shy away.
“Now.” I breathed as the bus blessedly accelerated, turning to peer at Hudson. My pulse had yet to die down, the relief making me dizzy. “I’d say I fixed your problem, wouldn’t you?”
Hudson was reluctant to look over, but when he did, he simply blinked at me, those long lashes sweeping down and up slowly. The longer he stared, the higher my lips twitched into a smile, triumph surging at the sight of some of his prickly quills lowering. “Whatever…Gemma.”