And then I remembered my idea about asking her to tutor me.
That would kill two birds with one stone. It would ensure I kept my grades up, as well as more contact time with Molly.
A river of satisfaction washed through me at that thought. I purposefully pushed away any idea that the feeling of excitement was due to my being in her company. Phoenix was wrong, yes, I wanted her physically, but that’s all it could ever be. My first impression of Molly the day we met in the library was that she was the real deal. But I now knew that I had been fooling myself.
Stick to the plan. Revert to type. You’re the devil, just like your old man. Use her for your own ends and then walk away.
Yep. Sweet Molly could help me with my studies, and being the gentleman I wasn’t, I wouldn’t give her the chance to say no. The thought of Principal Miller’s face when he found out we were study buddies would be fucking priceless.
And I, for one, could hardly wait for the fallout.
MOLLY
My mother’s approaching birthday had been on my mind, and after a hard conversation with my father, he suggested I stay home for a couple of days. I embraced his decision as I wasn’t in the mood for the bullshit of school. Not when I felt so shitty that I wouldneverhave the chance to give Mum the present I made for her.
Mum’s gift was a hand-carved wooden sign that saidTo the Beach. I’d made it in Design Tech at school as a project and had gotten an A star for my efforts. Mr Findlay, my DT teacher, was impressed with how much heart I’d put into the piece. I’d even painted and glossed it so the finish was crisp and shiny. It was for the garden of our home in Surrey. My motherlovedthe beach, and we had discussed moving closer to the coast one day.
As my father was at work both days, I welcomed the peace. My time at Harbor Heights had gotten off to a shaky start, and having time to myself allowed me to regroup my thoughts and think of a way forward.
On the afternoon of day two, I was bored of having too much thinking time. I’d been messaging Lisa and catching up on what was going on at what would have been my High School. Lisa told me that Melanie Walker threw up in David Marshall’s mouth at the weekend, which was disgusting and funny at the same time. Melanie’s parents owned an off-licence, and so she had easy access to alcohol. David was a geek at primary school. He always sat at the front of class and had been the source of bullying for years. I guess it followed him into secondary school.
Cassius sent me a string of WhatsApps, saying how the village wasn’t the same without me. When he started getting needy, I pulled back, as the contact with my friends just reminded me of the distance between us and made me feel sad rather than happy.
Eying the shoe box where I stored Mum’s more personal items, I took a deep breath. I hadn’t looked inside since arriving in America, but I knew her birthday present wasthere. I felt a wave of sadness that it was hidden away when it should have been on display, but I couldn’t stomach putting it in this garden. A place that was still foreign to me. Everything was so plain out there. Dad wasn’t into gardening, and there were zero plants. In the UK, our garden was covered with stunning flowers and presented a sea of colours. We even had a veggie patch. Our success at growing anything large enough to eat had been hit and miss, but how I’d loved planting those seeds together.
Fuck! Would that knot in my chest ever leave?I touched the Tree of Life pendant around my neck. God, how I missed her.
After spending the rest of that day, clutching a photograph of my mother to my chest, I knew I needed to busy myself instead of wallowing. Mum would have been thirty-six, so fucking young but she wouldn’t have wanted me to be sad.
Whilst I was rearranging my bedroom, I saw a text from Hudson. My phone had been beeping most of the day with messages from my friends in the UK and Aunt Patricia, saying they were thinking of me on what would have been Mum’s special day.
Although they were sent to help, the messages were hindering. Reading them, hurt like hell.
I re-read the texts from my friend Cassius. He was a sweet guy. We had been in the same class since primary school. If I had stayed in the UK, I imagine we’d have started dating, just as my friends had always predicted we would. Cassius Chambers was tall, blonde, and beautiful, and we shared similar colouring. Everyone said we looked like the perfect couple and were well matched, like Barbie and Ken. I’d taken those comments with a pinch of salt. I loved Cassius, but I had doubted I would ever have fallen in love with him. We were too close growing up and knew each other’s secrets. I was a firm believer in keeping some things sacred. Surely, no mystery in a relationship equals no excitement. I stopped those thoughts of Hudson seeping back into my tired brain. Things with him were stacked too far the other way, and he was way too mysterious. Oh, to have a happy balance somewhere. I hated all or nothing.
I typed a reply to Cass’s,I miss you.
Miss you too. Maybe you could fly out and visit me at some point. Dad’s house has a spare room?
A ‘Cassius is typing…’ iconappeared, and I waited.Or we could share yours?Always so cheeky. His comment made me smile.
Nice try.I typed back.
The lump in my throat thickened as I scrolled to Hudson’s texts.Why aren’t you in school? Are you ditching, or sick after swallowing rank pool water?
I ignored him. I couldn’t imagine that he was genuinely worried about me.
We need to talk. I’ll find you after seventh period tomorrow. Assuming you show up at all. What would the principal say?I had already decided to go to school the following day. My mother wouldn’t have wanted me rotting in my room and missing important lessons.
Hudson Gage, (or Sawyer,whatever) could have been a pleasant distraction from my grief, if only he stopped behaving like such a dick. He’d saved my life, but my feelings towards him were still mixed. And I don’t mean the attraction side of things, that still burned like a fricking inferno. The confusion lay in what type of person he was. I wondered if my assumptions about him were correct.Wasthere a good guy in there, trying to get out, or was he a bastard to the bone?
I so wanted to bury the hatchet, but I had no idea how to do that, considering he was the one who started the hostility between us and why?Because I was my dad’s daughter?I had decided that was a rubbish reason. I shouldn’t like him half as much as I did, considering how petty his vendetta against me was.
Maybe my father was an absolute shit to him and made his life hell? Therehadto be more to it. I thought about what he had said about his parents. His mother was dead, and his father was in prison. Hudson’s backstory was one I wasn’t sure Iwantedto know the details of.
Shit. My life was already a mess, did I want to complicate things by involving myself with a boy who was as screwed up as I was?
I needed to keep the Hudson Gages of this world at arm’s length until I found my feet in a place which was still so new to me.
