ADDIE

SIX MONTHS LATER

WHEN I GET to the school parking lot, Hudson is leaning against his car, talking to some of his football buddies, even though the season is over. I watched every single game, and Hudson killed it. He deserves the title of star quarterback. He’s going to get a scholarship to a great college—they’re all going to be fighting over him.

When Hudson sees me, he raises a hand in greeting. “Addie!” he calls out, as if I could possibly miss him.

I jog the rest of the way over, a dopey smile plastered on my face. I’m smiling a lot more lately. Ever since I got my best friend back, the world seems a lot brighter. I’m still not Miss Popularity, but I don’t care. Hudson is all I ever needed.

And this year has definitely been wild.

After Kenzie and I talked to Detective Sprague, she attempted to get an officer to bring in Nathaniel, but then he took off. I guess he knew he was in deep trouble and decided it was better to disappear than to be labeled as a sex offender.

They might have searched harder for him, except Mrs. Bennett suddenly materialized. She had some story about deciding to take a bus somewhere to get away for a few days. She paid in cash, she said, and she had no idea everyone was searching for her. Sprague had my story on record about what Nathaniel and I did to her, but she refused to confirm it—and she was not, in fact, dead and buried—so there was nothing the police could do.

Of course, Mrs. Bennett and I both know the truth. And we both know that if I had buried her with dirt instead of leaves, everything could have gone very differently.

In any case, she never returned to Caseham High. She resigned when the scandal came out with her husband, and then she left town. We ended up with a substitute teacher for the rest of the term. I wished it could have been Mr. Tuttle, but I heard through the grapevine he got another job at a high school two towns over. They’re lucky to have him.

As for Mr. Bennett, it turned out that Kenzie and I weren’t the only “soulmates” he had among his students. It makes me sick when I think about it sometimes. I feel so stupid.

One thing I’m grateful for is that I have Kenzie to talk about it with. She and I have for real become close friends this year. We have spent hours talking about Nathaniel. It makes me feel better that somebody as smart and beautiful and popular as Kenzie Montgomery could be taken in exactly like I was. And she says talking to me makes her feel better about the whole thing too.

Plus we’re both getting professional talk therapy. It all helps.

“Took you long enough,” Hudson teases me when I reach his car. “What were you doing in there?”

I was late because Lotus and I were putting the finishing touches on the poetry magazine, which we have been doing entirely ourselves since Nathaniel took off. But I don’t want to tell him that, because I want it to be a surprise when he sees the magazine. “Sorry! I’m here now at least.”

One of Hudson’s football buddies laughs. “Your girl really got you whipped. How long does she have you waiting for her anyway?”

Hudson laughs too, and he doesn’t correct his friend who called me his “girl.” It makes me wonder. Especially since when we walk from his car to the school every morning, he sometimes reaches out and takes my hand in his. He’s not dating Kenzie at least. I’m pretty sure he was seeing some girl at the beginning of the year, but not anymore.

“You taking off then?” one of the guys says to Hudson as he opens the door for me. It’s unnecessary that he does that, but it’s sweet.

“Uh-huh,” Hudson says. “Addie and I are going to get some milkshakes before I have to get to work. See you later, Walsh?”

“Later, Jay,” the other kid says to Hudson.

As Hudson climbs into the driver seat next to me, I say to him, “Okay, I’ve got to ask. How come all your football buddies call you Jay?”

“Well, you know, we all call each other by our last names,” he says. “But Jankowski? That’s a mouthful. So they just call me J for short. I kind of like it.”

That’s fine, but he’ll always be Hudson to me.

“All right,” he says, “we better go. My shift at the shoe store starts at five, so we’ve only got one hour for milkshakes.”

Hudson really does work harder than anyone else. Aside from school, he works at Simon’s Shoes several days a week, and he also babysits his one- year-old brother all the time. But even with all that going on, he always makes time for me.

We pull up into the lot near the diner that has the best milkshakes in the entire town. I wonder if we’ll share a single milkshake, and if we do, what will that mean? I like Hudson. A lot. Is he my soulmate? I don’t know. I kind of think that’s a stupid question.

Just after he parks, Hudson’s phone buzzes, and he pulls it out of his pocket. He reads a text message, and a smile touches his lips.

“What?” I say.

He shoves the phone back in his pocket. “Nothing. Just this old friend of mine.”

“Girlfriend?”

His smile becomes sheepish as he rubs the scar he got on his forehead back when we were stupid kids worming under the fence surrounding his house. “You could say that. She…uh…she really liked shoes and used to come to the shoe store all the time, and, um, yeah.”

Hudson’s pale skin turns bright pink, which makes me think this customer at the shoe store was a whole lot more than just a customer, but for whatever reason, he doesn’t want to admit it. Of course, that makes me wonder even more who she was. And if he had fallen for her the way I’m starting to fall for him.

“Does she go to our school?” I ask.

For a moment, he looks like he’s not sure how to answer the question. “She used to,” he finally says.

Maybe she was a year ahead of us. I would have known if he was dating someone in our own class.

“Anyway,” he says, “she…uh…she was having a hard time for a while and was pretty messed up, but she’s doing a lot better now. I’ve known her for a while, and she seems happy for the first time ever, so that’s nice, you know? I want her to be happy. She deserves it.”

Definitely a girlfriend—I can see it all over his face. I wonder if this is the same girlfriend he had at the beginning of the year, but I’m afraid to ask. Anyway, it’s none of my business. He’s not with her anymore.

We both get out of the car, and Hudson reaches for my hand. He laces his fingers into mine, and when he smiles at me, I smile back. As we walk

to the diner together, I decide that I am going to get a vanilla milkshake with a lot of whipped cream and a cherry on top, because I deserve a treat.

THE END