Chapter Four #2
‘I, um, finished my degree in England last summer. I didn’t have any plans, so I came back here to see my dad for a while. I started volunteering for something to do, and… somehow, almost a year later, I’m still volunteering.’
‘Why don’t you just get a real job?’
She shrugs, keeping her eyes on the road. ‘No green card. And if I want to get a green card, it costs a lot in legal fees.’ She laughs, but it comes off as awkward. ‘Basically, I need to go back to England and get a paid job.’
‘So, what do you do for money?’
She signals left and we turn. I recognize the area, even at night. We’re near the site of our former high school.
‘My dad helps me out,’ she mumbles. ‘I live in his old apartment, and I get free meals where I volunteer, so mostly I eat there.’
‘At the old folks’ home?’
She nods her head.
‘Do you like old people?’ I ask.
‘I like talking to them. Reading to them. Sometimes I find them a lot nicer than people my own age.’
I grit my teeth and wonder if that was a reference to our high school days. Looking at her now, I sort of regret giving her such a hard time. ‘So, who’d you hang out with? You know… when you’re not feeding Jell-O to the oldies.’
‘That’s mean.’
I can’t help but smirk. ‘It was a joke.’
‘I would never expect someone like you to understand why someone like me would want to help older people.’
I laugh a little at that. ‘English, I understand perfectly. You’re a do-gooder. You always were a do-gooder. Why do you think my brother is in your apartment? Any other normal person would have called the cops by now.’
She opens her mouth to speak but looks too embarrassed to give me a comeback.
‘Sorry,’ I say eventually. ‘And I’ll try to stop calling you English. Force of habit.’
‘It’s better than some of the things you used to call me,’ she mumbles.
My lips twist. ‘Right. My memory of high school is kinda hazy.’
It’s a half-lie. For me, high school senior year meant doing just enough to graduate.
That’s all I needed, to keep my GPA high enough that it wouldn’t get me kicked out.
College was never on the cards for me. I already knew that all I wanted to do is ride motorcycles and fix ’em up.
That and get laid, which at the time didn’t seem to be too much of a problem.
Eastvale High mostly had two types: on the one side, the snooty, rich, entitled kids from Electric Hills, and on the other, the down-and-out kids from Rapture, all of whom came with a bad rep, regardless of their scholastic aptitude.
And then there were the ones who didn’t fit, the ones who got singled out, easy pickings for the rest of us.
When we discovered Hollie Palmer had moved to the States with her father from London and was living in an apartment right opposite the school fence…
hell, she might as well have sealed her coffin right there.
Until the night of Amber Bradshaw’s graduation party, I’d never seen Hollie Palmer as anything more than a glasses-and-cardigan-wearing optimist who hung out in the library, headed up the eco-committee and ran fundraisers for the local foodbank.
Now I think about it, if it was her I kissed that night, Amber must have picked her to go in the closet with me to embarrass her, I guess.
Put the nerdiest, most bashful girl in school in a dark walk-in closet with a guy who rides a motorcycle and watch how the situation plays out.
Have everybody laugh at her when she comes back out, her cheeks all flushed.
That kiss though. That was something else. And I’ve never forgotten it.
Amber told me that that kiss inside her mom’s closet was with her. For a time, she had me convinced too, but after kissing her with no blindfold, I knew something was off. There was no chemistry. And I began to think she wasn’t the same girl I’d kissed earlier.
Later that night, somebody laughed and asked me what it felt like swapping saliva with a dork. And I’d remembered she was there, at the back of the room. Hollie Palmer. Wearing them glasses.
‘We’re here,’ Hollie says, pulling up into a parking spot.
I look around me, taking in my surroundings. She lives in the same apartment she always did, right across the street from the site that used to be Eastvale High. ‘Those apartments still unoccupied, huh?’ I say, glancing back between the seats.
‘Most of them,’ she confirms. ‘There are a few lights on.’
‘How come you didn’t go and live with your dad across town?’
‘I have a stepbrother who doesn’t like me very much. Goes to college here. He’s the quarterback on the football team.’
‘Right. What’s his name?’
‘Doug. He thinks I’m a complete loser.’
‘He sounds like an a-hole.’
‘He is a first-class a-hole. Treats me like a tourist, like I’m just visiting. I decided it was best if I didn’t live with them.’
This feels weird. Like she’s trying to open up to me, or something. I don’t really do that emotional stuff that girls go in for. So, I say nothing.
She yanks her door handle. ‘We should go inside,’ she mumbles.
I follow her through a security gate. The apartment building is low rise, and I remember seeing her walk across the road after school, when all the younger Rapture kids had to haul ass onto a yellow school bus.
Inside, we don’t talk as I follow her up some stairs, still holding onto my motorcycle helmet.
‘Look,’ I say, when she stops outside her door. ‘In case I forget to say it, I just wanted to thank you… for picking up Noah.’
She glances back at me over her shoulder. I’m standing too close to her, and without warning, suddenly our faces are almost touching. She jerks her body out of the way, like I’ve done something wrong.
‘Sorry,’ I say and take a step away from her, running a hand over the back of my neck. I’m too warm in this jacket.
We go inside. Inside Hollie’s apartment, Noah’s not asleep. He’s wide awake, and the TV is on. He’s watching the local news channel.
He’s staring at a picture of his own face.