But Hudson never forgave me.
We got away with it, but the next day at school, Hudson would barely look at me. I kept trying to talk to him, and he just kept saying, I can’t, I can’t. Somehow I didn’t realize quite how shaken he was. I didn’t realize it was the sort of thing he would never be able to get past.
Without Hudson, I was a disaster in math the next semester. And without his friendship, I was even more of a disaster. The only other person I had to talk to was my mother, and she was also in mourning. I had nobody. So when Mr. Tuttle was nice to me, what was I supposed to do? Turn him down?
He was just trying to be nice. Even though no one would believe me, he never did anything inappropriate. If I had a father like him, maybe I wouldn’t be so messed up. It kills me that his whole life got screwed up because of me.
It takes me over an hour, but I finally get my locker mostly cleaned out. My books are sort of damp, but I’ll just have to let them dry out overnight. There’s nothing more I can do.
Just as I’m making one last trip to the bathroom for paper towels, I look out one of the windows in the hallway—it’s pouring, of course. I did remember seeing on the forecast that it was going to rain later, but I figured I would be able to beat the weather. Now I’m going to have to bike home while buckets of water are being dumped on my head.
I do one final wipe down of my locker, and just as I’m finishing, none other than Mr. Bennett comes down the hallway. I blink my eyes in surprise at the sight of him. He’s here late a lot, though, because he’s the staff supervisor for the school newspaper.
“Hello, Addie,” he says. He looks into my locker, which still has a tiny bit of shaving cream clinging to the corners I couldn’t quite reach. “What are you doing?”
My instinct is telling me I should lie, but instead I blurt out, “Someone sprayed shaving cream all over my locker.”
He flinches. “Ouch. Who was it?”
I just shake my head. He raises his eyebrows, but there’s no way I’m telling him.
“Fine.” He glances into my locker. “Need any help cleaning it up?”
Mr. Bennett’s reaction is such a stark contrast from the way his wife snapped at me earlier. “Actually, maybe you can reach some of the shaving cream in that corner over there.”
“You got it.”
Mr. Bennett winds up helping me clean out the rest of the shaving cream, and we devise a way to put the books back in the locker to optimize them drying out. It all kind of feels like a geometry problem I don’t know how to do, but it will be fine. I’ve done the best I can anyway.
“Thanks,” I tell Mr. Bennett as we get my locker closed. I have to remove the broken lock, and I replace it with the one from my gym locker. “That would have been tricky.”
“No problem.” He arches an eyebrow. “You need a ride home?”
I wince. Mr. Tuttle drove me home a few times, which was one of the examples of “inappropriate behavior” that the principal cited. “No, thanks.”
“It’s pouring though,” he points out. “And you don’t have a car, do you?”
I snort. “I don’t even have a driver’s license. Just a stupid permit.”
“Well then. Maybe you shouldn’t turn down a perfectly good ride.”
I don’t know what to say. Obviously, I would rather get a ride in Mr. Bennett’s nice, dry car than have to attempt to ride my bike home, or worse, walk it home in the rain. My mom is still at her shift at the hospital, so there’s no chance of her picking me up for at least another couple of hours.
“I don’t want to get you in trouble,” I finally say.
He nods soberly. “I appreciate that. But honestly, it will be fine. I’ve driven other students home, and I haven’t lost my job yet.”
When he says it like that, it doesn’t sound like such a big deal. It’s just a ride from one human being to another. Just because he’s my teacher, he can’t give me a ride home? That seems ridiculous.
“Okay,” I finally say.
This is not a big deal. Nothing bad will happen.
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Chapter Twenty-Nine
ADDIE
MR. BENNETT IS PARKED CLOSE to the back entrance of the school, but he still produces an umbrella, and I huddle close to him to keep from getting wet. But not too close, obviously.
His car turns out to be a gray Honda Accord. It’s weird because I expected something flashier, like a bright red convertible or something, which is weird because it’s not like Mr. Bennett is flashy. But this car just seems so much like an adult car, even though Mr. Bennett seems like one of the kids.