The Rules of You and Me (14 page)

It was probably one of the last family trips we’d had. After that, Dad became so involved in his work that he rarely took time off. Mom and I would go on vacations without him, and as I got older, Mom would spend her time at the spa in whatever vacation spot we happened to be and I would be on my own to explore the sights.

I couldn’t tell Natalie my secrets, but I wanted to tell someone. Everything I’d been keeping in felt so suffocating and I needed to get it out to someone who wouldn’t judge me.

“
Can I tell you a secret?” I didn’t look at Jude as I spoke. I couldn’t look at him. If I did, I’d lose the small amount of courage I had to say the words.

“
Sure,” he said.

I squeezed my hands together between my knees as the truck bounced down the road. “My dad is in rehab.”

It was the first time I’d spoken the words out loud. I had never told anyone before, not even Mark. He had found out from Mom, and I assumed Aunt Lydia had found out the same way.

“
He’s addicted to these pills,” I said. “Vicodin, mostly. It’s been going on for a while, but I’m not sure exactly how long. I found the bottles in my parents’ room. They didn’t even have his name on them, so I knew they weren’t his.”

Jude didn’t talk when I fell silent. He reached over and put his hand over mine. For a moment, the only sound was the soft squeaking of the truck’s shocks as it bumped down the road.

“
One day, at a party we were hosting, I found him passed out on his bedroom floor. We couldn’t wake him up. I thought…” I swallowed as tears stung my eyes. “I thought he was dead. Mom was so afraid the neighbors would see and ask questions, so she made the ambulance come in the back way, to the back door. Like we had to sneak him out of the house to hide our shame. We got him into a rehab center in Greenville. Mom wanted to send him across the country, but Dad wouldn’t go that far. He said he couldn’t be that far from his office.” I laughed. “Even in rehab, all he cares about is his work.”

Jude ran a hand through his hair. “Is that why you’re here this summer?”

I shrugged. “Part of it. I was supposed to be in Paris, with my mom. She still went, even after what happened with Dad. But I couldn’t stand the thought of spending the summer with her, pretending everything was fine. I had to go somewhere else, so I came here.”

We reached Jude’s house and he pulled the truck to a stop in his driveway. I leaned forward, burying my face in my hands. Part of me couldn’t believe I had actually told Jude all of that. He could tell everyone my secret if he wanted. But the other part of me was relieved that someone else finally knew.

“
Sorry,” I mumbled. “I’m pretty messed up. The rules, the dad in rehab, the delusional mother. It’s pathetic.”

“
You’re not pathetic,” Jude said, rubbing his hand over my head. “You’re a normal human being. We all have our little things we try to hide.”

I sat up and looked at him. “What’s yours then?”

He stared at the house through the windshield for a long time. The muscles in his jaw twitched as he swallowed.

“
I can’t move on from my brother’s death,” he said, “even though I know it’s time.”

“
Maybe it’s not time,” I said. “Maybe you’re not ready.”

He shook his head. “It’s been ten months. It’s time, and I know it’s time. But I just can’t…” He took a deep breath. “You still want to know what’s up with the shirt in the tree?”

I nodded.

“
It’s Liam’s shirt,” Jude said. “Before he left, he hung his favorite shirt in the tree. He said every time I came outside, I could look at it and it would be like he was standing there. Like he was here, watching out for us. He made me promise that I would keep a shirt hanging there until he came home and could take it down himself.”

Jude swiped at his eyes with his palms. “And I’ve kept it there,” he said, his voice growing husky. “For a year and a half, I’ve hung a shirt in that tree every day. Even after the guys in uniforms showed up at our door to tell us he was dead, I still kept my promise and hung a shirt in that damn tree. But
he
didn’t keep his promise.”

I leaned my head against his shoulder, feeling him shudder next to me. His hand was warm when I slipped mine into it, my fingers filling the spaces between his.

“
I know I shouldn’t be mad with him. But sometimes, I’m so angry all I want to do is climb that rock and scream at him. He promised to come home and take that shirt down. And now, even when I know he’s never coming home, I can’t take it down myself. I had planned to enlist like he did and get money for college, but I don’t know what to do anymore without him. He always made the plans and I followed. I can’t even paint my own truck because we were going to do it when he came back. I’m stuck in the exact same place I’ve been ever since he left, and I don’t know how to make myself move on. All of the things we planned, everything we said we would do together, it’s all gone. What does it all matter anymore?”

Cars passed by on the street behind us. It was what life did, it kept moving on even you couldn’t.

“
Someone told me that the way you get yourself unstuck is to be the person you want to be, not the person you think you should be,” I said. “It’s okay to mourn your brother. It’s okay to be angry. But you’re still here and you still matter.”

He turned his head toward me. Our noses were only a breath apart.

“
You’re the only person besides my brother who has ever said that,” Jude told me.

I smiled. “I don’t think anyone has ever said it to me.”

He reached up, trailing a finger over my chin. “You are not your parents, and you don’t have anything to be ashamed of. What they’ve done is not your problem.”

“
Sometimes it feels like my whole life is a lie. Everything that people think they know about me isn’t true. And sometimes, I’m not even sure what I know about myself.”

“
I know this person sitting right here,” Jude said. “And she matters.”

His lips were warm and soft, just the slightest brush across my nose that sent a tingle sparking through me. Then over my cheek, my jaw, my chin. And finally his lips met mine in a kiss that made my body explode in sensation. My arms moved around his neck and his slipped around my waist, pulling me into him.

I couldn’t think, I couldn’t breathe. I had never felt this much longing for someone, had never felt this need to be as close as possible. I wanted to stay right there forever. Jude and I were the only two people in the entire world in that moment. Everything else had faded into nothing. It didn’t matter, only what was happening between the two of us was real.

Jude pulled back slightly, his breathing heavy as he looked at me. “Do you want to come inside?”

“
Is your mom home?” I asked.

Jude shook his head. “She’s out,” was all he said, his voice tight.

The house had the stale odor of old cigarettes and newspapers. A thick layer of dust coated the table in the front entryway and the shade on the lamp was crooked. My mom would have had a fit to see this. Jude led me into a kitchen, where dirty dishes littered the countertops. An ashtray overflowing with cigarette butts sat in the middle of the table and the trash can in the corner was stuffed with beer cans.

“
Sorry,” Jude said. “I haven’t had a chance to clean today.”

I tried not to notice the cracked linoleum floor or the stained curtain that hung over the window. “It’s okay,” I said.

Jude walked with his head down, as if he couldn’t bear to look at the state of his own home. I wanted to tell him that it didn’t bother me, but the truth was, it did. Despite my efforts, I felt my nose crinkling up at the sight of a half-eaten slice of pizza on a plate that someone had left on a table in the hall. Big, dark splotches stained the beige carpet. The smell of cigarettes permeated every room we walked through, making my nose burn. I could hear my mother’s voice in my head. “Filthy. Disgusting. Low class. Not our kind of people, Hannah.”

I wanted to scream at my mother to get out of my head. This was Jude, the exact same person I’d been spending time with for weeks now. So what if his house didn’t look like mine? At least he never had to worry about whether his fingerprints showed on everything he touched. No one freaked out when a magazine was out of place.

Jude opened the door to a room and stepped inside. He didn’t turn on the light, so only dim sunshine filtered through the dark curtains. It was a small blue room and the bed took up most of the space. It was made, the pillows aligned just right at the top and the hospital corners marking the end of the mattress. Unlike the rest of the house, the room was clean, everything in its place.

“
I like to keep it clean. I try with the rest of the house, but my mom…” He shrugged. “She’s not exactly the neatest person in the world.”

I felt him step closer as my eyes scanned the room, looking for signs of the person I knew. It was pretty empty. A few books sat on a table, and his deodorant and cologne on the dresser. But other than that, there was nothing personal about it.

“
Where is all your stuff?” I asked. My room was filled with awards and pictures. Evidence of the life I had led up until now.

“
I threw out a lot of things in the days after Liam died,” Jude told me. “Nothing seemed important anymore.”

He pointed to the door across the hall, which was closed. “That’s Liam’s room. It’s just like he left it the last time he was here, a few weeks before he deployed. It’s a disaster area.” Jude laughed. “Liam got that from my mom. They always told me I was the weird neat freak of the family.”

I slipped my arm around his waist, leaning my head against his shoulder. “Do you realize that’s the first thing you’ve told me that makes you different from your brother?”

Jude tensed against me for a moment, then relaxed. “I guess it is. I never could be as messy as he was. It drove me crazy. My cleaning drove him crazy too.”

“
See? You’re really not your brother, Jude. You don’t have to live in his shadow or try to be like he was.”

He let out a long breath, like he was letting go of something he’d been holding onto for a long time. “I know.”

Jude’s arm slipped around me and he pulled me into him. I pressed my ear against his chest, listening to his steady heartbeat. His fingers trailed up and down my arms, making me shiver at the tingles his touch spread over my skin.

I let Jude ease me down onto the bed. He moved over me, his lips pressing into mine. I closed my eyes, blocking out all thoughts of his house and my mom and the rules. The Hannah I wanted to be could do anything she wanted, and this moment, all I wanted was to be here with Jude.

My fingers slipped under the edge of his T-shirt and Jude raised up enough to pull it over his head, tossing the shirt aside. His skin felt like fire under my touch. I had never been this close to anyone, not even with Zac. It excited and terrified me at the same time. I wrapped my arms tight around Jude’s neck, squeezing my eyes shut to keep out any unwanted thoughts.

Jude’s fingers trailed over my skin, following the line of my ribs under my shirt. His hand slipped behind me and my bra fell loose around my shoulders.

I kissed Jude harder, pressing myself against him.

In the other part of the house, a thump sounded and then a door slammed shut. Another thump was followed by a curse.

Jude tensed, disentangling himself from me. “My mom,” he said.

I sat up, running a hand over my hair to smooth it down. “Will she be mad that I’m here?”

He shook his head. “I doubt she’ll even notice.” He grabbed his shirt off the floor and then pulled it back on.

I turned away, reaching behind me to rehook my bra under my shirt. It hit me how far we’d been, how far we may have gone.

He took my hand and led me back to the kitchen. Despite Jude’s words, a ball of nerves formed in my stomach and I held my breath as we entered the room.

A woman stood at the refrigerator, leaning on the open door. She examined the contents for a moment, then slammed the door shut, muttering to herself. She turned, stumbling a bit and reached out to catch her balance on the counter.

“
What are you doing home?” Jude asked.

The woman’s head snapped toward him, her face scrunched into a scowl. I could see the glassiness in her eyes and the redness that rimmed them.

“
My boss is a jackass,” the woman slurred.

I knew that tone. I knew the lazy tongue that mangled the words, the giggle as she swayed again and almost lost her balance. I knew the smell that stung my nose as it filled the room around us. Icy tendrils spread through me and my teeth chattered.

“
You got fired again, didn’t you?”

The woman laughed. “He only thinks he fired me. I quit. I don’t want to work for a jack—”

“
So what?” Jude asked, crossing his arms. “You thought you’d spend the last bit of your paycheck at the bar?”

“
I was out with my friends.”

“
What about the water bill, Mom?” Jude asked through clenched teeth. “What about the electricity? Did you happen to think that we might need that money you were drinking away?”

“
Sorry,
Dad
,” the woman said as she fell into a chair at the small table. She spotted me over his shoulder and squinted. “Whozzat?”

“
My friend,” Jude said.

Mrs. Westmore raised her eyebrows, pointing a finger at Jude. “I know what you’re doing. You expected me to be at work so you’d know when to sneak your girlfriend in here. This is
my
house, Jude. Don’t bring your little sluts in here—”