Bittersweet (31 page)

“Reach, Hudson. Just a little more. Come
on
!”

My resolve fades and I shiver again, inside and out. Cold and fear suffocate me from all sides. The ice cracks against my ribs like fingers reaching up through the cold and I start to cry and I wonder if the deep blue-gray eyes of Watonka Wolves varsity co-captain number fifty-six Josh Blackthorn will be the very last thing I see before …

“Gotcha!” Josh wraps his hand around my wrist and pulls, dragging me as he inches backward. His grip is tight, energy seeping into my limbs. I rise to a crawl, slow at first, faster as we shuffle on hands and knees toward the safety of the runoff. When we reach the edge where the ice ends and the ground begins, Josh stands and tugs me so hard that he slips backward into the snow. I collapse on top of him. I know I should get up but my arms and legs won’t cooperate and all I can feel
is his heart banging against mine like the first time we met, tumbling together on the ice. I’m still crying and he’s shaking beneath me as the wind rushes us, full force.

“I just … I thought you …” He’s breathing hard and jagged, holding me firm against his chest. “Jesus, Hudson. What were you … why did …
God
.” He takes my face into his gloved hands and I close my eyes, cutting off the tears.

The wind roars across the ice and chokes me with another gale, wet and sharp on my skin. Josh grabs my hands and pulls us up and together we fight our way through the swirling white gusts, collecting my backpack and boots, clomping through deep, heavy snow to the rusted outer building of the mill. We don’t stop until we’re inside, shielded from the bitter bite of the wind, thrown suddenly into blackness.

“We have to wait it out,” Josh says, trying to catch his breath. He pulls off his hat and rubs the snow from his hair and we both look around, eyes adjusting to the dark.

The ground floor is mostly empty. Steel bones jut out from walls lined with white veins, ever-widening cracks where the outside light leaks in. When the wind blows, puffs of snow slip through the gaps, piling up on the floor like loose powder.

I sit on an old wooden crate and change out of my skates, grateful for my boots and an extra pair of wool socks stuffed in the bottom of my bag.

The mill feels hollow and haunted, black inside, the faint clangs of old metal ringing like a ghost ship adrift at sea. The sadness of the place snatches at my soul and I shiver.

Ten minutes ago, Josh saved my life.

“Why did you come?” I ask. “I haven’t seen you out here lately, and things have been … we haven’t talked in a while.”

Josh pulls off his gloves and blows hot breath into his hands. “Not since you stopped working with the team. Will isn’t saying anything about it, so I decided to stalk you today until you tell me what’s going on.”

“So you
are
a stalker. I knew it.” I smile. I missed this—our easy and familiar banter, still there beneath the sparks.

“I stopped by the restaurant but the pink-haired waitress—Nat, I think?—she told me you’d left already.”

“Yeah, I asked her to cover my shift.”

“I figured I’d find you here,” Josh says. “Only
you’d
be crazy enough to skate Fillmore today. Not that I expected to find you on the actual lake, but—hey, what’s wrong?” His eyes are soft and warm, two bright lights in all the darkness. My heart fills with a mixture of happiness and dread, the craziness of the last few weeks finally catching up. I open my mouth to speak, but my throat tightens, tears spilling from my eyes as I think about falling through the ice again. He wraps himself around me and presses my head to his chest.

“You see the videos,” I say absently, “but you never think it’ll happen to you. If you weren’t out there today …”

He kisses me on the forehead, caressing my cheeks with his thumbs. “But I was. And you’re lucky I’ve seen a lot of those survival shows.”

“With the guy who eats bugs?”

“Precisely.”

“You’re such a boy. No wonder my brother likes you.”

“Your brother likes me? Score!”

“Score if you like robots, army men, and hamsters.”

Josh laughs. “Who doesn’t?”

Grateful for the levity, I pull away from him and heft my backpack over my shoulder. “Just so you know, I have a granola bar, half a thermos of hot—well, cold by now—chocolate, and some slightly mashed cupcakes. I’m not eating any bugs.”

“Good to know. Watch where you step.” Josh reaches for my hand, gingerly leading me across the building to another large room, where a bunch of desks and file cabinets line the perimeter, covered in junk and cobwebs. On one end, a rusty sign hangs over a doorway, crooked on a single hinge:
DANGER—HOT ACIDS!

“This place is so strange.” I swipe a finger over an old desk, leaving a clean line in the dust. “It’s like they all just got up and left. Nobody packed or took stuff away or knocked it down. It’s just …”

“Abandoned.”

The wind slams into the wall outside, and the entire building moans and shudders against the onslaught. I shiver and retie my scarf, memories slipping through my head like snow through the cracks in the walls. The horrible, slushy sound of the lake beneath the ice. The frozen expanse cracking against my ribs. Everything changing in an instant. How could I be so reckless? Ten more seconds and—

“Hudson?”

“Sorry.” I shove my hands in my fleece pockets, momentarily comforted by the familiar crinkle of Lola’s foundation letter. “I was just … do you think this place is haunted?”

“Nah, it’s not like everyone
died
here. They probably thought it would reopen and they’d get their jobs back. There’s tons of places like this in Ohio, too. Welcome to the Rust Belt.” Josh picks up a weathered jar of something that looks like bright pink cat litter, but is probably one of the aforementioned
HOT ACIDS
.

“Careful with that,” I say. “There’s a reason all the fish around here have two heads and no eyes.”

“Ah, good point.” Delicately, he sets it back on the shelf next to a row of similarly filled containers, some pink like his and others gray or white. “Help me look through the drawers. We need matches or a lighter or something.”

I rummage through file drawers and cubbies until I find an old Zippo lighter with a World Trade Center emblem,
9-11-2001
etched on the back. Obviously, we’re not the first urban explorers to visit the place since its closure, though I can’t think of anyone who’d willingly hang out here other than Dani, who’d probably shoot a thousand pictures in this creeptastic corner alone.

I wish I could tell her about it.

Josh drags a metal trash can over near an opening in the wall and fills it with paper and dead leaves and any other dry material we can safely identify as not a
HOT ACID
. He starts the
fire easily with the lighter, gray smoke billowing up toward the glassless window frames.

“Nice job, Boy Scout.” I rub my hands over the flames. “If we had a can of beans and a harmonica, we’d rock this joint hobo-style.”

“Pull another stunt like that on the ice and I’ll throw your ass on the next coal train myself. Then you’ll know hobo-style.” He sits on a large, empty worktable. “What were you doing that far out, anyway?”

I stash my backpack under the table and take a seat next to him. “I … don’t know. I was skating on the runoff, then I felt like … like I wanted to go … away. Something was daring me, and I couldn’t get far enough. Crazy, right? It’s like I was trying to skate to Canada.”

The fire reflects in his eyes, and in the soft orange glow of the flames, he looks older. Serious. “Hudson—”

“Thanks for … you know. Out there. What you did.” I shudder when I think about it again, imagining the rescue squad fishing me out, blue and gone. Josh explaining to my mom what happened. That he tried, but couldn’t save me …

The tears creep back into my eyes but I force them away. “Hungry?” I hop off the table and grab my bag. “We can have a two-course lunch, assuming you actually
prefer
cupcakes and granola bars to insects.”

“It’s an emergency,” he says. “I’ll make do. But can I ask you a question?”

“As long as it’s not about eating bugs.”

Josh slides off the table and finds some more cardboard for the fire, dusting his hands together over the popping flames. “You doing okay? I mean, are you warm enough?”
Pop pop pop.

“I’m fine. Still kind of freaked out, but I’m warm.” I resume my place on the table and dig out the goodies. “The fire was a good idea.”

“Good.” He sits next to me and takes a cupcake from the Tupperware balanced on my lap, our legs touching.
Pop.

“Yeah.”
Pop pop … pop.

“I just wanted to make sure you weren’t freezing.”

“I’m okay.”
Pop.
“It’s comfortable.”

“Good,” he says.

“Not too hot, not too—”

“What’s going on with you and Harper?”

POP!

“Nothing.” I keep my eyes fixed on the flames.

“So you guys are just … hanging out?”

W.W.H.D.? Hester? Any ideas? No?

“Not exactly,” I say.
Come on, Hud. Now’s your chance. Tell him.
“We’re not … we kind of … it’s not like he was my boyfriend or anything.” I unwrap my cupcake and toss the paper into the fire, wishing I could channel the fearless determination I felt on the ice the moment I heard his voice. The second before the ice cracked and everything changed. “Anyway, what about you? How’s, um, Abby? Angie? What’s her name?”

Oh, Hudson. Your suavity is an example to all.

“Abby?” Josh’s forehead crinkles. “She’s … she’s good.”

“She doesn’t go to Watonka High, right? How did you guys meet?”

“I see you didn’t get the memo.” Josh laughs, and then his face turns serious. He looks at me a moment longer, like he’s trying to decide how to break the girlfriend news, or how much of his secret relationship he wants to reveal.

He takes a deep breath and rubs his head. “Okay, here’s the story. Abby and I go
way
back. We basically met in the hospital when we were born.”

“You’ve known this girl your entire life? Like, literally?” That’s flat-out no competition right there. Born on the same day, in the same hospital? They’re practically soul mates.

“Yep.”

“Whoa. So do you … does she … um …”

“Abby’s my sister, Hudson. We’re twins.”

“Oh thank God! I mean, thank God … that you … have a sister … what a special … um … napkin?” I pass it over and jam half a cupcake in my mouth to prevent the release of any more stupidity. A sister? He has a sister? And all this time, I thought she was his girlfriend? How hard
did
I hit my head that first day on the ice?

I meet his eyes and he smiles, my stomach launching into its own triple/triple combo.

“It’s kind of complicated.” Josh downs the rest of his cupcake and tosses the paper into the fire. “I don’t talk about it much. I guess I figured Will told you or something.”

I shake my head.

“Ever seen
Rain Man
?”

“Mmm-hmm.” And that’s the most intelligent thing I’ve said all morning.

“It’s kind of like that with my sister. She’s, like, off the charts brilliant, but she’s super-particular about order and rules. My mom homeschools her. Abby likes it, but she gets a little stir-crazy. That’s why she calls me all the time. It’s never urgent—just stuff like what happened on
General Hospital
or which neighbor she saw taking out the trash in their bathrobe. But if I don’t answer right away, she freaks. Half the time I’m just calming her down, reassuring her I’ll be home later. It gets intense. My mom had to get permission from the school so I could keep my phone on during class. Thing is, she’d probably be better off in a place with full-time care, where they could work with her one-on-one. But we don’t want to do that to her. She’s ours, you know?”

I think about Bug, how I dumped him off with Mrs. Ferris this morning, how he hugged me and waved and pushed up his glasses without a word of protest. I can’t picture him
not
being Bug, not being okay, not being home with us.

“How do you … I mean, do you guys take her out on weekends or whatever? Do other stuff? Or does she have to stay at home?”

“We go out sometimes. She does okay—depends on the situation. Hockey games are too much for her—she doesn’t like the goal buzzer. But she’s hung out with me at Amir’s a few times. She does better when it’s just a few people. Oh, and
she doesn’t like Will. Too much talking freaks her out.”

I laugh. “I don’t blame her. Sounds like you guys are close, though. That’s cool.”

“Abby’s seriously my best friend.” Josh smiles. “I tell her pretty much everything. We talk about hockey and school and … well, whatever. Stuff.”

“What stuff?”

“Nothing.”

“No, what were you gonna say?”

Josh’s face reddens, the tips of his ears as bright as the flames. He stands to stoke the fire with a loose hunk of metal, his back to me. “Okay, so I told her about you, right? How you helped the team, how we’ve been skating a few times, even about the cupcakes. And now she won’t leave it alone. ‘How’s Hudson, where’s Hudson, are you skating today, what does she look like, where does she live, how many cupcakes can she bake in one hour, what’s her favorite color, when can I meet her—’”

“Blake Street. My record is two forty in an hour, but they weren’t very good. Purple.” I take a deep, silent breath as the fire sparks. “And I’d be honored to meet her.”

Josh drops the makeshift fire poker and crosses the space between us in two steps, hands gripping my arms. I look up to meet his eyes, serious and determined and the rarest, most intense colors I’ve ever seen. It’s like I’m on the lake again, the rest of the world fuzzing out around the edges, the beauty of his eyes the only thing left. I lean closer, our gaze unbroken, fire crackling and warming the air around us. He swallows
and then he’s there, right before me. My heart slams into my ribs and my neck goes hot and I close my eyes just as our lips brush and my breath catches and …