Chapter 14
As soon as I thought his name, he got to the open doors of the bus with a few other upperclassmen, chatting as they climbed aboard.
Through the dusty windows, I could see him make his way down the aisle, passing our seat up front.
Which was good—if he sat up front, there’d be no possibility of avoiding him.
He picked a seat three rows from the back, on the opposite side of the aisle that I couldn’t see.
I held the column tighter, nails scraping into the concrete. Could I do this?
I brought my braid around over my shoulder to remove the tie, shaking out my hair as quickly as possible. The locks had a soft wave to them, scalp sighing in relief at the loosened grip. I’d worry about tying it later—now, I needed it as my disguise.
Mrs. Savion reached across to buckle her seatbelt, and I could hear the other buses begin to pull out in succession. Last chance.
Grow a backbone, Sophomore.
A girl in my grade hurried up to bus 32, and without thinking, I ran up behind her, ducking my head.
I tried as best as I could to mirror her movements, to fully use her as a shield in case Jaden was watching us climb on.
She had to feel me breathing down her neck, but as soon as I got to my seat—which was empty, since everyone always wanted to sit in the back—I dropped into it.
I waited several seconds, prepared for his face to appear over the back of the seat, but Jaden never came. He didn’t see me.
And that wasn’t even the hard part.
“Gemma,” Mrs. Savion said with surprise, looking at me in the rearview mirror. “You’re riding today?”
“Going to a friend’s house,” I replied, leaning close so I could keep my voice down. “It’s a place you normally stop at, so you don’t have to add anything to your route.”
Mrs. Savion pursed her lips to the side. “I can’t let you get off early without parental consent.”
I presented a piece of notebook paper, and my heart leapt into my throat as she unfolded it. A necessary evil. A necessary lie. Because the signature at the bottom saying I was allowed to get off at a different stop wasn’t my mother’s. It was my forgery.
Mrs. Savion probably only looked at it for a few seconds, but it felt like forever before she handed the note back. “Okay, dear. You can hop off when we get there.”
Another step, checked. Again, not even the hard part.
I closed my eyes for the whole ride, my knees bumping with the rough road and with nerves. What I’d been thinking about all day was about to come to fruition, and my thoughts were in a civil war about what to do. One side begged to take the risk while the other demanded to play it safe.
But then again, being on the bus in the first place—wasn’t that a declaration in and of itself?
With my eyes still closed, I pictured Hudson with his glasses and his cotton candy-colored sweatshirt, blue eyes that seemed so much gentler than other times.
And like all of the other times I went down memory lane, I traced the thought back to when his arm snaked around my waist, holding me still in a moment of unsteadiness.
From that moment on, I felt tied to him, like there was no escaping the mystery that was Hudson Bishop.
I held my breath as Mrs. Savion turned onto Vista Villas’ road, squeezing my backpack strap so tightly in my hand that my fingers almost felt numb.
Mrs. Savion stopped the bus, flipping on the red flashing lights.
My breath came in rapid gasps. The sound of feet thudding in the bus startled me, and so did the kids that walked past. There were more students getting off in this neighborhood than those who rode in the morning—in the morning, it was only Hudson who climbed on, but now, four students were hopping off.
I got to my feet. Five.
I tried to blend in with the group getting off, hoping my loose, long hair took away any ease of identifying me.
Hoping in vain, apparently. I heard Jaden’s voice call from the back of the bus. “Gemma?”
Without reacting, I leapt off the platform, sneakers landing in the dusty roadway, heart racing.
With a parting smile, Mrs. Savion closed the doors behind me, sealing Jaden inside and me outside.
Even though the bus started rolling forward, I kept my back to it, my head ducked as if that would help me disappear.
Just when I let out a sigh of relief, Jaden’s voice came again.
“Gemma! Gemma, what are you doing?”
I slowly pivoted to find Jaden’s head hanging out an open window, the incredulity on his face crystal clear.
Scrunched eyebrows, dropped jaw, disbelief on every inch.
I didn’t have to answer, though. The bus rumbled away, and Jaden was yanked inside, leaving me staring at the dirt-covered back end as Mrs. Savion drove away.
My phone began buzzing in my backpack, but I already knew who it was. I couldn’t fully ignore it, though. I declined Jaden’s call and sent him a text instead.
Gemma
I’m going to a friend’s. Don’t worry. See u tomorrow.
And then I shoved my phone in my backpack pocket.
I turned toward the collection of narrow homes lining the road, letting out a little breath.
The sun was out and bright, but it wasn’t as hot today as it had been.
The breeze was cold enough that I tugged my sleeves down over my fingers, as if the wind itself was saying, you should’ve stayed on the bus.
Wait. This stop where Hudson climbed on the bus every morning—it wasn’t like it was in front of his house. It was the Vista Villas bus stop. It was at the corner of two of the dead-end streets, which meant his house could’ve been down any of them. Any one of these houses could’ve been his.
Which meant I had no idea where he lived.
I really should’ve stayed on the bus.
Out of everything I’d planned for, this hadn’t been one of them. I walked over to the cable box Hudson always leaned against, listening to the electrical hum trapped inside the metal container. I totally screwed up. Totally, totally screwed up, and now I was probably an hour’s walk away from home.
Right when I was ready to give up and start the long trek home, another bus rumbled down the sharp bend of the road, a plume of dust puffing behind it.
Probably going faster than it should’ve.
I edged away from the road, but it slowed as it approached, and that was when I could read the side. Brentwood Elementary.
A few little kids hopped off the bus, crossing the road to my side, and I recognized one of them. Her blonde hair was loose around her face, her rainbow backpack straps caught in the crooks of her elbows. She walked with her head down, and all of the other children hurried on ahead of her.
“Paisley?” I called, and her footsteps faltered. She whirled to look at me, and her zoned-out gaze became wickedly sharp for a seven-year-old. “Your name is Paisley, right?”
She moved with the grace of a third grader, jostling her backpack in front of her and reaching into the pocket. A second later, she had something pointed at me. Something that glinted in the sunlight. “Leave me alone.”
I stood there, gaping like a fish, for the longest second. The glinting object was a knife. An actual knife.
I lifted my hands like she pointed a gun at me. “I’m—I’m here to see your brother. You remember me, don’t you? I got off the bus last Monday? I’m Hudson’s…friend.”
Her blade was almost a copy of the one Hudson had given me last week, but a bit smaller.
She wielded the army knife’s handle tightly, but her hand was small enough that I could see the purple metal of the base.
I wasn’t sure why it made me smile, the fact that Hudson and his little sister had matching pocketknives, but it did.
“Hudson doesn’t have any girl friends,” she threw back.
I tossed my loose hair over my shoulder, the strands tickling my neck. “Is your brother home? He was home sick from school today, so I wanted to check on him.”
“He wasn’t sick.” Paisley lowered the knife, as if after a moment of giving me the stink-eye, she determined I wasn’t that big of a threat. “He didn’t get up this morning.”
“Why not?”
“He didn’t go to sleep until, like, super late. Daddy said he needed a rest day.”
I felt my forehead crease as I frowned. Why would he have been awake that late on a school night?
Paisley reached up and pushed her hair from her eyes, but still clutched the knife. “I’ll take you to him, if you want. But don’t try anything funny.”
The only funny thing here was how intimidated I was by a third grader. I followed along behind her shuffling steps, keeping my hands where she could see them. “I like your rainbow backpack.”
“I like your old lady skirt.”
I glanced down at the beige midi skirt I had on today, wondering if that was an intentional dig.
The gapped smirk she had when she looked over her shoulder told me it probably was.
“I need new clothes,” I told her with a small frown.
Even though I’d asked Mom for permission to wear what I chose, my options were still limited to a wardrobe she’d collected.
It was still limited to my long skirts. I hadn’t had a chance to get anything new yet.
“My mom buys all my clothes for me. Can you tell?”
“Yeah.” She gave my skirt a look of disgust that was kind of cute with her gapped teeth. “You should find someone to take you shopping. Someone who’s not your mom.”
“I agree.”
“You’re my brother’s mentor, right?” Paisley slowed up her pace to let me walk beside her, and she craned her neck. “I remember you said that word.”
“That’s me. Our principal has Hudson and me together for a few projects at school.”
She pursed her lips in a way that looked comical on her. “Is it because Hudson’s a bad kid?”
“He’s not a bad kid,” I said at once. “It’s just so we can be friends.”
She squinted up at me, and I was struck by how much she resembled her brother in that moment. They both had the same intensity about them, even down to the way their eyes glittered. “Do you like him?”