Chapter 15
Isat on Hudson’s porch while he gathered the first aid supplies, turning my sneaker over to see the array of scuffs and stains on the white canvas.
What would my parents say when they saw it?
Better question: how would I explain the cut on my hand?
Or my grass-stained skirt? I didn’t even know what time it was—would I even make it home before they did?
The screen door opened with a vicious creak, and Hudson edged past me on the narrow steps and crouched on the bottom one, looking up. His blond hair had fallen a bit into his eyes, but he didn’t push it back. “How’s the pain?”
I stared down at my stinging skin. “A three.”
“Trooper,” he said appreciatively, and set down a My Little Pony metal lunchbox on the stair. He caught my amused look. “Don’t ask me why the supplies are in this.”
I didn’t ask. I watched as Hudson navigated through the collection of household medical supplies, peering at the little bottles of antiseptic. He reached up and nudged his glasses higher up his nose with his knuckle, reading. “You’re wearing your glasses,” I said.
“Uh, yeah, I’ve been wearing them this whole time. You didn’t notice?”
“How do you see at school if you don’t wear them?”
Deciding that the bottle was what he needed, he uncapped it. “I wear contacts.”
I lowered my head to look at him straight on, noting the dullness in his eyes, finally knowing why they looked less blue. “No way,” I murmured. “Do you wear colored contacts?”
Hudson gave a full-body cringe, physically recoiling away from my words. He started spreading the antiseptic wipe on my hand, worsening the sting. “It was an accident.”
“How does one accidentally get colored contacts?”
“My cousin went with me to the eye appointment. I gave her the clipboard while I tried on glasses, and she checked a box on the paperwork for blue contacts.” Hudson used the tip of his finger to knock away some of the dirt on my palm, and then continued his gentle ministrations.
“I guess she thought it would be funny.”
I reached out and laid my hand on his arm, and it was shockingly warm to the touch. “Look at me.”
Hudson didn’t hesitate in lifting his gaze.
I wasn’t sure what was more startling—not seeing him with the blue eyes I’d grown so accustomed to, or finding the gray-blue ones peering back at me.
They were the color of the sky when dawn broke, with only the slightest shade of blue starbursting through them.
These eyes fit him in a way I didn’t think mattered until it did.
“My life is a lie,” I told him in a deadpan voice.
“Don’t tell Babble. The Grim Reaper could never have such boring eyes.”
“They’re not boring.” Without thinking about it, I reached out and pushed his wheat-colored hair back off his forehead, giving me a clear, unobstructed view. “They’re pretty.”
I should’ve pulled back, but I hesitated.
I’d never touched a boy like this before, in such a tender way, and I found myself wanting to linger in the moment.
He was holding perfectly still, like he patiently waited for me to stop invading his personal space.
His expression was empty, and ultimately that had me dropping my hand.
I couldn’t tell if he liked it or if it thoroughly freaked him out.
Even after I dropped my hand into my lap, Hudson didn’t move. “Did you hit your head too?”
I touched my temple, but there wasn’t an ache there. It was him who hit his head, not me. “I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable. Coming here, I mean.”
Hudson pulled a sticky bandage from the metal lunchbox, peering at it to judge the size.
“I’m…I’m just not used to having someone care.
” He unpacked the large bandage that would fit over the plane of the cut, and with careful precision, he smoothed it over my skin.
After that, he set my hand into my lap. “Not like you do.”
“I shouldn’t have pretended not to know you in the gas station.” I tried to put myself into Hudson’s shoes, wondering how I’d feel if he pretended not to know me. “I should’ve thought about how it’d feel to you.”
He let out a soft breath, resting his forearms on his thighs. “It’s funny.” He didn’t look at me as he spoke, but at my bandaged hand. “I wouldn’t have thought it’d bother me, either.”
“But it did.”
“I’m used to people turning away from me, ignoring me when I walk past. I’m used to all that now, but I…” Hudson met my stare. “I didn’t realize it would hurt if you turned away, too.”
A physical ache clenched my chest, stealing the air from my lungs.
I thought about what Paisley said. Her words rang differently in my ear now that there was distance between the broody boy and me.
He doesn’t like it when people get too close.
Was that why there was a Grim Reaper mask to begin with? So people wouldn’t get too close?
Hudson moved to stand up, but I caught his arm. “Do you really like the dirt?”
He stilled, no doubt recalling what he’d said word for word, much like I was.
You’re trying to take a rock and wash all the dirt off?
Guess what, Gemma—I like the dirt. He looked uncomfortable with the question, like he wished he could rewind time and take the words back.
“I don’t know.” He pressed his palm against the step I sat on, using it as leverage to push himself up.
He stopped halfway, hovering in front of me, and his eyes on me were like a physical touch.
It nearly made me shiver again. “Your hair.”
“What about it?” I sucked in a breath. “Is there blood?” Had I really hit my head and not noticed?
Hudson’s lips twitched into a bare smile. “It’s undone. I’ve never seen it loose before.”
I reached around to thread my fingers through it, plucking out bits of grass and debris in the process.
“My parents don’t like it when it’s loose.
” The words came out before I could think about them, and something about it made me feel guilty.
Like I was talking about them behind their backs.
“I’ll have to braid it again before I get home. ”
“I can do it.”
I was sure I heard him wrong. “You know how to braid hair?”
“You saw Paisley’s hair the other day, right?”
I thought of the dual braided pigtails I saw her in the first time, fighting a smile at the thought of Hudson navigating his way through it.
Hudson came around to sit on the step behind me, and after an awkward pause, his feet came down on a step on either side of me.
I could see his knees from the corners of my eyes, but I refused to look over.
He didn’t touch me, but I knew that if I leaned back, I’d be leaning into the pocket of space his legs created. My skin grew hot.
“I was ten when Paisley was born,” he explained as he picked up my hair and swept it behind me.
The action nearly caused me to shiver. “My mom was so excited to be having a girl that she actually bought one of those cheap wigs off the internet to practice braiding hair. She taught me, too. I’m not sure why—it was like she knew I’d need to know how to braid hair one day. ”
I pinched the fabric of my dress, trying to diffuse the rigidness of my spine. “What happened to her?”
“She was in a car accident, about three years after Paisley was born. A guy blew a red light at an intersection.” Despite the heavy topic, his fingers were infinitely gentle in my hair, comforting. “She hung on for a little while—only a few days—but eventually passed.”
“So, you were thirteen?”
“I just turned fourteen. I finished the last two months of my eighth-grade year at home, and then started at Brentwood High freshman year.”
Freshman year. The year he got into his fight with Landon. My heartbeat stirred in my chest, creating an uncomfortable buzz behind my ribcage. Was it a coincidence? Or did the two things correlate?
“You have a lot of hair,” Hudson mused. He combed his fingers down the strands, careful around the back of my head, but just the touch was enough to feel heavenly. Ten times more heavenly than when Mom did it.
“Too much,” I replied, trying to breathe normally when his fingers touched the base of my neck. For a flash of a second, it was cold skin on hot. “That’s on my list, you know. Cut my hair.”
He didn’t answer, continuing his weaving.
“I cut my hair once,” I told him, staring at the collection of homes along the road. Somewhere in the distance, I could hear a lawn mower, and for some reason, the sound was comforting. “In elementary school. It was probably as long as it is now, and I took the kitchen scissors and cut it all off.”
“What made you grow it long again?”
“My mom hated it. She’d cry every time she saw me. She said I looked like a boy and that I looked better with long hair.”
Hudson’s fingers paused, stilling in my hair. “I can see why cutting your hair is on your rebellion list.”
“Do you think I would look okay with short hair?” I asked him, but then, that wasn’t exactly the right question. “Would I look pretty with short hair?”
Hudson’s right leg grazed the side of my arm as it slid closer, and he reached around me to gather any remaining loose strands near my temples. His fingertips brushed against my skin in the process, a whisper of a touch.
My cheeks grew hot the longer the question sat unanswered between us, almost like he hadn’t heard me. “Would I look more mature?”
He worked on French braiding the back of my head, expertly keeping pressure on the section to keep it from loosening while he gathered more hair.
His touch was so soft that it tickled, instead of where Mom’s always pulled.
I wanted to pick up the remote and put this moment into slow-motion, live it for as long as possible.
“I think you should do whatever you want to.”
“That didn’t answer my question.”
Hudson’s fingertips brushed along the side of my throat as he built one section up. When he spoke, it was a low murmur. “Long hair or short, I think you’ll still be pretty, Gemma.”