I was fractured and I'd forced putty into those cracks but it didn't mend anything and it didn't hold. And it didn't really matter because those cracks weren't new. They'd shifted, widened now that I knew what it would've been like with Jude. If we'd had the chance.
I knew better than to open up his messages and scroll back to the start but I was no good at making the right choice in bad moments. The train lurched between quick stops in Forest Hills and Readville. I knew I'd regret it later but I let myself tap his photo and listen while the call rang. All the things I'd always wanted to say bubbled up to the surface, spilling out in a rush when the line clicked over to voicemail.
"Jude. Hi. It's me. It's Audrey. I'm calling because I want you to know I've been really worried about you and you're not even reading my texts anymore and I'm just asking if you're okay. I don't expect you'll give me that but I'm asking anyway. Because I care about you, even when you make it obvious that I shouldn't." My voice shook. My hands too. My chest was one deep breath away from caving in. "And I need to tell you that I know what you're doing. I get it now. You wanted to leave me the way you think I left you. Give me some of my own medicine, right? You know nothing about that medicine, Jude. Not the first thing. I know you'll never believe this but everything I did was to protect you. And I can't believe you'd be so cruel. That you'd let me spend all this time worrying about you and your family. I know that's how it was for you when I left but my god, we werekids. There was nothing I could've done then but I'd never leave you like that now, and you know that. Iknowyou know that."
A shaky breath heaved out of me as the train rolled into Endicott Station. Seven minutes and two more stops until mine came up.
"I hope you're all right," I continued. "I hope nothing bad happened, and if it did, I hope it works out okay. And that's the last thing I'm going to say to you because we can't keep doing this to each other. This needs to be the end."
I stared at the screen for a moment, watching the seconds tick by before disconnecting the call. I felt it like a fresh new crack, right down the center of my chest.
chapter forty-four
Audrey
Today's vocabulary word: premeditation
There wasan art to holding my parents at an arm's length. Expert-level prevarication required planning and finesse, and a quick inventory of the evasions I'd used in the past.
Since I'd thrown myself into the deep end of this post-Jude funk and couldn't be called upon for more than brittle bitterness and reading books that I knew would make me sob, I ran out of excuses when my mother insisted I attend a clambake in the Hamptons.
I tried to hang it all on Bagel. I needed to be home for Bagel. He was still very confused about his current living situation and it didn't help that I talked to myself while I baked. But she knew I'd pet-sit for others who worked with this fostering organization at the last minute because I'd burrowed into that excuse to skip out on another of her parties in the past.
My family didn't always have this kind of money. We'd always been comfortable. Extremely comfortable, even. But we didn't havewaterfrontsummer house in the Hamptonsmoney until I was out of elementary school. I hadn't realized it at thetime, not in any concrete way, not until my parents announced I wouldn't be going to the local middle school with my friends and neighbors as planned.
I remembered getting upset about that. Crying, probably yelling too. Mostly because I hadn't wanted to wear a uniform to school. But my father said it was foolish for me to react that way since I'd finally be going to school with therightpeople from therightfamilies.
The people and the families were of no concern to me. My only priority had been escaping the uniform with its plaid, pleated skirt in a god-awful shade of burgundy. But I'd learned that night—with my mother telling me to stop being hysterical because it made my skin ruddy and my eyes bloodshot, all of which rendered me rather ugly, she didn't hesitate to say—that my father only cared about getting close to the right people. That he'd sacrifice anything, no hesitation.
I knew this because I'd been sacrificed before. More times that I wanted to admit. If the trappings of this clambake were any indication, I was about to be sacrificed again.
And I knew exactly what I had to do.
I spentthe entire ferry ride from New London out to Long Island trying to read one of the books I'd be teaching in the fall but mostly stalking Janet and Rita's social media pages. I didn't know what I thought I'd find there—false; I went looking for any glimpse of Jude—but the two of them posted like squirrels with unlimited access to espresso martinis.
It'd been thirteen days since Emme's wedding and I still hadn't heard a peep from him. It was like I'd dreamed up thewhole thing. If not for the lizard magnet on my fridge, I'd doubt the truth of it too.
But I knew there had to be an explanation. Something serious must've happened. With work or Janet or Percy. Something came up—an emergency. But when I woke up tomorrow morning, there'd be two entire weeks between me and the last time I saw Jude, and chances were high I still wouldn't have an update from him.
No matter how many times I stepped back from the facts as I knew them and peered at the sharp angles, I couldn't explain this without scooping up the blame and carrying it away with me.
Had he planned it that way? To fly in here at the last minute? Drag me away to the back of the barn and then send me off wearing his jacket? And then disappear without a backward glance?
I couldn't escape the sense that he wanted me to know the kind of helpless agony and unyielding grief he'd felt when I'd disappeared on him. I didn't want to imagine Jude masterminding anything like that but I couldn't shake the thought that it was possible.
"Audrey, come back here!" my mother called.
I shrunk a little deeper into the leggy embrace of the hydrangea. I'd made myself very busy with the shrubs and flowers ringing the property since arriving at the clambake. If I looked like I was engrossed in my study of the leaves and the blooms, and not replaying every second Jude and I spent behind the barn or the thirteen painfully silent days since, no one would try to talk to me.
And that was important since I didn't like clams and my social hourglass was maxing out after five minutes. Even if I did have a few landmines to bury.
"I swear I saw her just over there," my mother said to a guy in pink seersucker. "She probably didn't hear us over the waves."
I ducked under a floppy blue mop head and crept, hunched over, between the bushes and the weathered gray shingles of the house. I didn't need anyone to explain to me that my behavior had crossed into bizarre territory. I knew this. But I also knew the best place for me was trapped in this cool, quiet world. At least while I gathered some intel.
"Very choppy out there today," Seersucker replied. "But I'm hearing tomorrow will be perfect for getting out on the water."
"What a relief," my mother said, as if she knew anything about sailing. "The water was empty today. Such a disappointment."
