Where You'll Find Me (7 page)

“Yeah. You’re sexy, too.” I lean forward. Even though Nate doesn’t pull away, his legs tense against mine.

“Hanley,” he says, “I don’t think—”

“C’mon,” I interrupt before he can say anything I don’t want to hear. When I slide my hands up to his thighs, he tenses even more. “You know you want to kiss me.”

“Not when you’re drunk.”

“I’m not drunk.” I’m careful to enunciate each word. Nate lifts my hands from his legs and gently pushes me back against the wall. I sigh. “It’s not like I’m asking you to have sex with me. Just a kiss.”

“Not when you’re drunk,” he repeats, and brushes my bangs away from my face with one hand. The touch manages to be innocent and electric at the same time.

“You’re a good guy.”

He frowns. “No, I’m not.”

“Says who?”

“Me, for one.”

“I don’t buy it.”

“You should,” he says, serious enough for both of us.

“I won’t.” I run a finger along the seam of his jeans at the knee.

He sighs and traps my hand with his. “You smell good. Like a campfire.” He leans in, as if he might be changing his mind about the “no kissing” thing.

And that’s when the door opens.

Chapter Ten

It’s happening. We’re getting caught. My own panic is reflected in Nate’s wide eyes. His gaze darts to the side door that leads outside, but it’s too late for that.

“…go to Rosalinda’s first, then to Misty’s. Either she’s with them or they’ll know where she is. Those two. I swear.” It’s my mom’s voice, and she sounds pissed. With a rush of noise that drowns out my mom’s words, the motor on the garage door springs into action.

I’m frozen in place, but Nate slides quickly and carefully under the Trans Am. Our eyes meet right before he disappears from sight.

When the door stops, my dad is speaking. “…find her first, and then we’ll worry about…” The rest of his sentence is cut off by two doors slamming.

They’re leaving. My parents are heading out of the house at three in the morning to find me. They’re going to wake up Rosalinda’s mom and Misty’s parents. They might even call the police. I have to stop them.

As the Trailblazer’s engine starts, I stand, wincing at drunken dizziness. I rush over to the car and wave my arms in my parents’ direction. My mom stops so suddenly the brakes screech, then swears so loudly I can hear her over the running engine.

She throws the car into drive, and I back up fast. With the amount of anger in her eyes right now, I wouldn’t put it past her to run me over and call it an accident.

“Where in the world have you been?” she asks as she gets out, slamming the door behind her. “Do you know what time it is? Haven’t you learned your lesson about sneaking out in the middle of the night?”

Even if I was sober, I wouldn’t know which one of those questions to answer first. “I…couldn’t sleep. I was going to go for a walk.” The lie falls smoothly from my lips. I fight to keep my gaze on my mom’s sleep-rumpled hair so that I won’t look over at the Trans Am.

Mom rolls her eyes and puts her hands on her hips. And ohmygod, my parents were going to go to Rosalinda’s and Misty’s
in their pajamas
. “Hanley, do you really think we’re that stupid?”

Thank goodness Dad jumps in, because I’m close to answering that question with a yes, which might not be a good decision. “Let’s not overreact.” Dad leans against the car. The engine clicks as it cools. He studies me with tired eyes. “You’re having trouble sleeping?”

Leave it to my dad to cling to some shred of hope that I’m telling the truth, that everything’s okay. “Yes,” I say, but before I can expand the excuse, my mom takes three quick steps over to me. And sniffs.

“You’re lying.” The tone makes it sound like she takes pleasure in my mistakes. “Chris, she smells like smoke and alcohol. Not only is she lying, but she’s also drunk.”

“But I…”

“Save your breath,” Mom says. “You’re only making the alcohol stench worse. Inside. Now.”

Mom heads for the house first. Dad follows, but only after giving me a look that stings with disappointment. He presses the button to put the garage door down and turns off the light. As I glance back at the Trans Am, I wonder why he didn’t notice that the light was on in the first place.

…

The conversation inside is quick and predictable:

Mom: “When did you start drinking again?”

Me: “Tonight.” (Lie.)

Dad: “Where were you?”

Me: “Rosalinda’s house.” (Lie.)

Mom: “Do we need to put you back into therapy?”

Me: “No.” (TRUTH.)

Dad: “You’re not going to do this again, right? You’ll learn your lesson this time?”

Me: “Right.” (Lie.)

Mom: “First the detention, now this. You’re grounded for the next three months. School. Home. Nothing else. And bed checks in the middle of the night.”

Me: “Fine.” (Lie.)

My parents seem to believe the lies. I’ve gotten good at telling them what they want to hear. It’s my warped definition of the truth.

…

When my alarm goes off, there are a few seconds in which I hope my parents finding me drunk in our garage was a bad dream. But those seconds pass and are replaced with a pounding headache and images of being trapped at home for months on end. I roll over and hit the snooze button. Twice.

Mom bangs on my door. “Do you really think being late for school on your first day of grounding is a good idea?”

I groan and roll out of bed. It’s too late for a shower. I pull on clothes, hoping they match and are close to clean. I wash my face, take a couple Advil, run a brush through my hair, and partake in what might be the world’s fastest teeth brushing. Even then, I’m late enough for Heather to be waiting in the driveway for me.

The garage door behind my mom’s Trailblazer is open, but as long as I stay close to the wall, I’ll be hidden from Heather’s sight. She can wait another minute. When I reach the Trans Am, Nate is in his usual spot. He smiles at me but doesn’t get up. “Hey. How are you feeling this morning?”

“Like crap. Listen, I’m sorry about last night.”

“It’s fine. I always wanted to see the underside of a Trans Am. Now I have.”

I run my fingers through my hair. It’s still tangled from my rushed brush session. Wonderful. “Could you hear my parents yelling at me from inside?”

“No. How much trouble are you in?”

“Grounded. Three months. Nightly bed checks.”

Nate winces. “Ouch. So, I’m not going to get to see you much anymore?”

I snort. “Grounding has never stopped me from going out before. It’s not going to stop me this time.”

He gives a one-shouldered shrug. “Maybe stopping isn’t such a bad thing. You might need your liver someday.”

Normally, I would shrug the comment off, but I’m tired and crabby and my head
really
hurts. I scoff. “What are you, my dad?”

“No,” he says. “But the partying…the drinking…it’s a lot.”

Heather’s horn blares, but this conversation is not over. “Oh, and you’re such an angel? Just because my version of escape is different from yours doesn’t mean yours is better.”

He holds his hands up, palms out, in defense. “I’m far from perfect, but I’m just saying that you might want to—”

“Don’t judge me,” I snap. “You don’t even know me.”

Without waiting for a response, I walk out to the driveway, where Heather is sitting in the driver’s seat with her arms crossed over her chest and an expression on her face like she just ate a bunch of sour grapes. I climb into the car and mumble something that may or may not pass as an apology.

Heather puts the car in reverse. “God, you reek. Ever heard of soap?”

Instead of answering, I lean my head against the cold window and pray for this day to be over. Every few seconds, Heather glances over at me.

“What’s up with you?” she finally asks, words rushed like they’ve been under pressure.

“I’m hungover,” I mumble, not moving my head.

“It’s something else, though. Even if Mom and Dad are blind, I know you’ve been out drinking a lot more than just last night.”

So Mom and Dad told Heather about catching me drunk. Annoyed with the younger child? Complain about it to the perfect, older child.

“Is it about Kayla?”

The name makes my blood run so cold it turns to sludge in my veins. There are many rules in our house: Put your shoes away. Don’t run the washing machine when someone is in the shower. Toilet paper and paper towel go loose end on top. But perhaps the most important rule, the unspoken one that went into effect one day in eighth grade and hasn’t been broken since is this: don’t say Kayla’s name.

“No,” I say, but it’s more of a cough and a gag than a word, because my stomach is in the general vicinity of my throat.

“Is it about that guy? The one from the mall?”

“Pull over.”

“What?” She glances at me without slowing down.

My stomach gurgles. Heather is going to be seriously unhappy when I vomit all over the upholstery of her meticulously clean car. “Pull over. I’m going to…” I clamp my hand over my mouth. She must get the picture because she slams on the brakes and turns into a McDonald’s parking lot just in time. As I lean out the car door, the smell of vodka and vomit combines with the smell of Egg McMuffin, which makes me puke even more.

When I’m finished, I sit up slowly. My hands shake as I close the door.

“You okay?”

“Yeah.” Physically, anyways. My stomach has settled, and the pounding in my head has backed off.

Heather hits her turn signal, prepared to pull back onto the road. When she speaks, her voice is soft. “I’m worried about you, Hanley.”

All I can do is nod.

Chapter Eleven

We’re walking from English to fourth-hour world history, and I can’t figure out why Rosalinda feels so much less like death than I do. It’s like my feet are stuck in blocks of concrete, and she’s bouncing like a damn fairy. I’m avoiding loud noises and bright lights. She’s talking a mile a minute like the sound of her voice isn’t the equivalent of nails on a chalkboard. If I didn’t have a vague memory of Rosalinda with a beer bong in the middle of the field, backlit by bonfire flames, I’d think she hadn’t been drinking at all.

“Hello? Earth to Hanley. Does that sound good?”

“Does what sound good?” I ask softly, hoping she’ll get the hint and lower her volume a notch or two.

“A movie tonight.”

The thought of doing anything other than sleep is repulsive, so I wrinkle my nose as we make our usual bathroom stop to check makeup. “Can’t. I’m grounded.”

“Sneak out. We can go to the midnight show.”

“Can’t Misty go with you?” My reflection in the mirror accurately reflects how terrible I feel. My hangover isn’t getting worse, but it isn’t getting better, either. Plus, I’m still shaken from the conversation with Heather. From hearing Kayla’s name. I look away from the mirror so I don’t try to picture what my life would be like if she was still standing next to me.

“Her family is out of town this weekend,” Rosalinda says as she applies fresh lip gloss. “And Clinton’s busy, so he can’t take me.”

“Clinton. What’s up with you and him, anyway?”

“Nothing.”

“Doesn’t seem like nothing,” I mumble, spinning the ring on my thumb. Kayla always wore it on the ring finger of her right hand, but it doesn’t fit on mine. I wish it didn’t have to fit me at all.

“Why are you so bitchy today?” She tosses the lip gloss back into her bag. But it must have been a rhetorical question because she walks out of the bathroom without waiting for an answer. I push off the sink and follow her out the door. “What are you going to do instead of a movie? Sleep? Be lame?”

We stop outside my fourth-hour classroom, and I lean against a locker. “Doesn’t sound like the worst plan in the world.”

She rolls her eyes. “Fine. See you at lunch. Be in a better mood, okay?”

“No promises,” I call as she walks away.

That girl is exhausting.

…

The only good thing about world history is that Mr. Brooks has a vast collection of movies, shows he’s recorded from the History Channel, and even a few ancient filmstrips. Today is a movie day, so I doze through the class and wake up feeling slightly better than I did before. Enough that I reconsider the movie tonight. I’ll have to wait until after a bed check, but a movie might take my mind off Kayla and Nate and family drama.

Halfway to the cafeteria, someone calls my name. I glance over my shoulder, trip, and almost fall flat on my face, because it’s Nate. Standing a few feet behind me, backpack on his shoulders, looking like this is exactly where he belongs. Only he doesn’t belong. The last person who was on our campus without permission was taken away in a cop car. I don’t imagine Nate has signed in with the office if he’s too afraid to show his ID to a homeless shelter.

When he catches up to me, I hiss, “What are you doing here?”

He shrugs. “I had a little free time. Thought I’d stop by.”

I grab his hand and lead him to a less crowded hallway away from the cafeteria. “You need to leave. Now.”

He quirks one eyebrow. “I thought we were past that whole ‘you trying to get rid of me’ thing.”

Tugging my hair back from my face, I say, “What if someone finds out you’re not supposed to be here? You have to get a background check and sign over your firstborn to even
think
about visiting our school.”

“Who’s going to know I’m not supposed to be here? I’m a teenager with a backpack. To anyone who cares, I’m a new kid who just moved to town.”

Sure enough, several students and staff members pass without giving Nate a second glance. I start to relax. Rosalinda is probably waiting for me in the cafeteria, but I’m not about to take Nate there. We established at the mall that he’s not an Edison student. Even though Rosalinda’s not the brightest crayon in the box, she might remember this fact and be curious. “Come on.”

The library seems like a decent destination, and I’m pleased to find it almost deserted. I lead Nate to a table in the corner, far from the hallway windows.

“Nice school.” He looks around. “Nice library.”

“Yeah. Whatever.” I sit, and Nate takes the chair next to mine, setting his backpack on the floor. “So, why exactly are you here? Do you need something? Are your living conditions not meeting your expectations?”

“I didn’t like how we left things this morning. I wanted to apologize.”

Nate’s sphere of influence has expanded from my garage to the mall to my school. The invasion into other parts of my world is still setting off warning bells in my brain. “You walked all the way here just to apologize?”

“Yes,” he says. “You’re right. I don’t know what you’ve been through. I shouldn’t judge. I’m sorry.”

But as his blue eyes echo remnants of pain from the conversation about his brother, I think that even though he doesn’t
know
what I’ve been through, he understands it. It takes my unease down a notch.

“I didn’t purposely research where you go to school,” he says, “but it’s kind of hard to ignore the ‘Proud Parent of an Edison High Honor Student’ bumper stickers.”

I roll my eyes. “Gag me.”

He laughs. “I get it. Jeremy was always smarter than me. Better than me at hockey, too. I quit when I realized I couldn’t skate and hold a stick at the same time. But he played on championship teams right up until he got sick. It’s tough being the subpar sibling.” The smile he gives is so sad it almost doesn’t qualify as a smile. I want to ask him how he does that, how he talks about his brother without feeling like it’s going to steal all of the oxygen from his lungs forever. But I can’t.

He leans back in the chair and crosses his arms over his chest. “Come on. You know you’re happy to see me.”

As much as I want to argue, I can’t do that, either. Because on some level, I am happy to see him. Happy the argument is behind us. Happy to have someone who understands what it’s like to be sad. “Maybe,” I say. “Just…surprised. It’s weird when worlds collide.”

Nate rubs the stubble on his chin. “Bad weird or good weird?”

“Just weird weird.”

“Good. You’re not skipping class right now or anything, are you?”

“Lunch.”

“Not hungry? Still hungover?”

“Better than I was earlier. But it’s chef’s choice today, which means they take all the crappy leftovers from the week, dump them into one dish, and call it edible.”

“Gross,” he says, wrinkling his nose.

“Tell me about it. So, what are you up to today, besides sneaking into high schools? Most of us are trying to sneak out, you know. Not in.”

“Yeah, you should stay away from me. My rebel tendencies might rub off on your angelic character.”

“I’ll take my chances.”

With a laugh, he scoots his chair forward. “It’s not too cold out today. I’ll probably walk for a while. Maybe read at the park. What are you doing on your first Friday night of grounded-ness?”

There’s a spot on the table where “Nick” is etched into the wood, but as I run my finger along the surface, I think maybe that “N” is a “D.” “No plans.”

“No parties?”

“Not tonight.”

“Want to do something different?”

I look up from the table. “Like what?”

“Like hang out with me.”

The suggestion is enough to make me giddy. It’s a struggle to rein in my smile. “I would, but I’m not as big a fan of hanging out in freezing garages as you are.”

He smirks. “Unless you need water or sobering up.”

“Evidently.”

“Let’s go out. We can get something to eat. Or a cup of coffee. Something other than drinking water out of my Nalgene in your garage.”

It’s hard to wrap my brain around the fact that Nate, Garage Boy, is asking me out. I’ve never been on a date before. Unless I count the time sixth-grade Steven and I held sweaty hands during the remake of a remake of a terrible horror movie. Which I don’t. Now, this older, mysterious, sexy guy is asking me out.

This could be bad. There’s still so much I don’t know about him, and I’d be deliberately inviting him into yet another part of my world. A million things could go wrong, including destruction of this friendship/flirt-ship we have going on. But part of me thinks it could also go really right. “Okay.”

“Yeah?” With the surprise in his tone, it’s like he thought I’d say no.

“I’ll have to wait until after the first bed check and be home before the second, but it should work.”

“Fine by me.” The surprise is quickly replaced with happiness. Maybe even excitement. “How about Erma’s Café? It’s open late, and we can walk from your house.”

“I’ll meet you in the garage.”

“Perfect.” He glances at a clock on the wall. “I should get going.”

We stand, and he drapes his backpack over his shoulder. I resist the urge to toy with the straps that hang loose by his sides. “Have a good day.”

“I will. Have fun in class.”

“Oxymoron,” I say as we head through the deserted library.

“I’d trade places with you if I could. I miss school.”

The idea is so ridiculous that I start laughing, but the expression on his face stops me. “Oh. You’re serious.”

“It’s one of those ‘you don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone’ things.”

“I’ll take your word for it.”

Nate opens the door for me. For just a second, I let myself imagine what it’d be like if he was a student at Edison and we were together. We would hold hands in the hallway, and he would walk me to class, like normal couples do. The other girls would be jealous of the tall, sexy new kid and wonder how a sophomore—Heather Helton’s sister no less—ended up with him.

But it’ll never happen. Nate’s got too many secrets—maybe even bad ones—and while I’m in no place to hold them against him, the rest of the school might.

We walk slowly toward the main entrance, where Nate will sneak out of the building as easily as he came in. When we reach the double doors of the exit, he asks, “I’ll see you later?”

A little wave of anticipation rushes through me. “Later.”

Nate leans forward, and I think he’s really going to kiss me this time. The boy with the crooked smile and the baby-duck-soft hair and the blue eyes and the cucumber melon–scented skin is going to kiss me. But when I tip my chin up, he reaches out and brushes one thumb against my cheek. “Bye, Hanley.” Then he walks out the door.

There’s always tonight.