“Addie…” he says.
“Really. Go to practice. You’ve done enough.”
Hudson doesn’t look happy about it, but he obligingly turns around to join Kenzie. Although before he disappears down the hallway, he turns around to look at me one last time. And he looks so sad.
That surprises me. I mean, Hudson is now one of the most popular kids in school. His life is infinitely better than it was when it was just us two losers hanging out together. But for a moment, I wonder if he misses when it was just the two of us. I wonder if he misses me as much as I miss him.
But we’re never going to be able to be friends again. Things will never be the way they used to be between the two of us.
Not since Hudson helped me kill my father.
OceanofPDF.com
Chapter Twenty-Eight
ADDIE
I END up grabbing a lot of paper towels.
The best thing would be if I could figure out how to get a hose and spray down the entire locker. I grabbed most of my books from the bottom of the locker, and I formed a little stack on the floor. For the most part, they seem to have survived the shaving cream, so there’s that.
It would’ve been easier if Hudson were helping me. Of course it would be. It almost killed me to have to send him away, especially since he was extending the first olive branch since it all went down nearly a year ago.
I will never forget that day. The best and worst day of my life.
As I clean out the shaving cream from my locker, I close my eyes and remember the evening my father stumbled home drunk for the zillionth time. It wasn’t even that late, but of course, it didn’t matter. My dad could be drunk at two in the afternoon.
Hudson was at my house studying. We often studied together, although now he had football practice and on top of that a part-time job, but whenever he could, he came by. Hudson’s strongest subject was math and weakest was English, the reverse from me, so we tried to help each other.
He looked alarmed when we heard my father yelling downstairs. I remember telling him, Just ignore it. He’ll probably pass out soon.
But that wasn’t what happened.
My father bounded up the stairs of our house, yelling and screaming. And when he found Hudson in my room with the door closed, he was livid. Despite the fact that he knew we were friends, we were clearly studying, and Hudson had been coming around since we were little kids, he started yelling about how I was a slut and Hudson was taking advantage of his daughter. And he just wouldn’t stop.
It was Hudson who finally stood up to him. He had been working out for football for nearly a year and a half, and he had grown over the summer and was now taller than my father. He stood over him and said in a low growl, You can’t talk to Addie like that.
Anyone with common sense would have backed down at that point, but not a guy who had recently downed a bottle of whiskey. Hudson was only making him angrier.
The two of them kept shouting at each other in the hallway. It was my father who shoved Hudson first, right in his chest. I don’t know what Hudson would have done next. I don’t know if he had it in him to punch my father in the face, even though his hand was already balling into a fist.
As it turned out, though, I was the one who shoved my father back.
I didn’t even realize how close we were to the stairwell. I was as surprised as anyone when he stumbled hard backward and then went tumbling down the stairs. Hudson and I both flinched when we heard the sickening thump at the bottom of the stairs. We raced down the steps and found my father lying in a crumpled pile, his neck twisted at an unnatural angle.
Hudson was freaking out. I saw him endure years of bullying and never shed a tear, but this was the first time he looked like he might cry. He’s dead, Addie! We killed him!
I wasn’t absolutely sure he was dead, but I wasn’t going to get close enough to him to find out. And I wasn’t going to take the heat for giving him exactly what he deserved.
We have to get out of here, I told Hudson.
He stared at me, blinking his watery eyes. What are you talking about? We have to call the police. Or…or an ambulance…
You want to go to jail?
I had to drag Hudson out the back door. We took the shortcut from my house to his back door, and ten minutes later, we were safely locked in his bedroom. I tried my best to stay calm, but Hudson continued freaking out. This is wrong, he kept saying. We have to tell someone what happened. We have to call the police, Addie.
Of course, only an hour later, my mom came home from her shift at the hospital and found my father lying dead at the bottom of the stairs. There was no evidence of foul play, and his blood alcohol level made it clear that he had lost his balance at the top of the stairs and taken a tragic fall. And as far as anyone knew, Hudson and I were together in his room studying the whole evening. So nobody ever found out about our roles in his death.