Page 101 of All the Ugly Things
He laughed but it was tight, and his voice was scratchy as he slowly asked, “So, this girl?”
“Yeah. She came for a year at least, before I didn’t see her again. Her church still did, but no one said anything about her so I figured she just got bored of coming and then I stopped.” I faced him, thought of her and her kind words and her smiles. “She would have liked your dad.”
“Yeah.” His voice was full of grit. And God, why was I telling him all of this?
His face was pinched, like he was feeling my pain.
“Anyway, one day, it was months. Maybe even a year when she’d come every month. Never missed it, and after the first few, it was like she looked for me. Smiled when she saw me and at first…” I trailed off. Thinking of the girl with beautiful blonde hair and dark eyes. The way she’d smile, like she was truly, genuinely happy to see me. I shook my head and cleared my throat to stave off the emotions threatening to overflow. I hadn’t thought of her in so long. “God, I thought she was crazy. She was always so sweet, so kind. She had this sweet, just the sweetest aura around her, you know? Like everything she touched turned to rainbows.”
Hudson’s jaw was hard. His teeth ground together. If I would have been brave enough to reach out and touch him, I figured he would have felt like granite for as tense as he’d become.
“Go on,” he practically choked out.
“It was my birthday.” Tears fell and I brushed them away. Why was I so desperate to tell him. Now? Tonight in his truck of all places and yet I’d started this, and I couldn’t stop.
“She didn’t know that. There was no way for her to know. And having a birthday in prison? It was the worst. And she sat next to me at one point, asked me how I was, and I just… I just lost it.”
I forced myself to focus on Hudson. On the torment I saw in his eyes. His were swirling with emotion and it made it harder for me to continue.
He reached over and took my hand, squeezed it and I choked down more tears. His hand was warm, somehow giving me strength to continue even as he said my name on a ragged breath.
“Lilly—”
“You know what she did? It was so dumb. So small and so simple.”
“What?”
“She put her hand on my knee and told me, ‘If I could go back in time, I’d give you my dad. You should’ve had that.’ And she wasn’t talking about her church family or her God in like that churchy way of talking about their ‘father,’ you know?”
He nodded. “I know.”
“Right. Of course you know.” I laughed, cold and brittle, and swiped so many tears away, my fingers were soaked with them. “Because you have one, too.”
He brought my hand up and held it between both of us. He cupped my hand like I imagined he wanted to hug me. So damn comforting. So strong. “I’m sorry you didn’t.”
“Yeah, that’s what she said, and she meant it.” Tears fell down my cheeks and I couldn’t be bothered to brush them away anymore. The memory of that day, how completely serious she was, hit me with such force I sobbed.
It was minutes, long minutes where Hudson said nothing and didn’t move, just squeezed my hand between his and pressed it to his chest where I felt the steady, strong beat of his heart.
“Anyway, she meant it deep inside her. I could tell. She wished I could have had her dad, and that I deserved it and that… well, it meant a lot. I never forgot that. I mean, I had money. I had this family but we were such a fucking mess. We were rich, but in some ways, we were worse than the worst kinds of people. All of us a mess. And this girl who didn’t know me but knew all my ugly secrets, all the ugly things I’d done, all the ugly things done to me… she still thought I deserved something like that.”
I smiled a watery smile up at him. He was blurry, and his eyes were steely. Like he was feeling every single thing I was experiencing all over again.
“It was the best birthday present I ever had,” I admitted.
It had sparked something inside of me when I’d gone back to my cell.
I didn’t have a family who cared. I’d lost the only person in my life who had ever loved me.
But I could be something. This stranger gave me that. Funny how quickly I forgot that gift she handed me when things grew difficult now.
“She sounds lovely. Truly genuine.”
“She was. I think that day, she saved my life a little bit. Gave me hope I could still be someone.” It was a gift I’d never again forget.
“Youcando anything.”
I grinned, and for the first time around Hudson, it didn’t feel broken or crooked or jagged. “I know that now.”
