Bitter

forty-one - cal

Haley's switchblade sat just inches away from me, in the cupholder of my car. Lydia had been holding it and I'd found her swaying slightly on a porch in some random, deserted neighborhood. I didn't know if she'd been in shock or what, but she hadn't spoken to me or really even looked at me when I told her to come with me. Her chin had been bleeding and I had discovered once she'd gotten in the car that there was blood on her palm too, seeping from a cut on it. I'd given her some napkins for it and she had wrapped it around her hand, then fell asleep after we made it to the highway.

Now I was driving, not as fast as I'd been going when I'd gotten Lydia's second text, but I was still speeding anyway. My gaze was set on the quiet highway stretching ahead of me and not once did I take my eyes off it for about fifteen minutes. It wasn't until I heard Lydia moving around that I glanced away, breaking out of a trance I hadn't even noticed I was in. "Can you slow down?" was the first thing she said tiredly. She didn't demand it, just kind of asked it and I could tell if I ignored her and kept speeding, she wouldn't fight me about it and would probably just give up and go back to sleep or something. But I did as she asked. It was the least I could do.

   We were cruising down the mostly empty highway through the night in the quiet car, red lights fading in and out on distant cell towers to my left. Lydia was staring out her window, though she didn't really have a great view of anything because there was just a wall of trees on her side. I was going to ask if she was okay (it would've broken the painful silence) but I didn't because she spoke first.

   "Thank you," Lydia whispered to the glass. She didn't need to say any more. Whatever happened to her caused her to thank me, so it must have been pretty bad.

"Yeah," I replied, focusing on the road ahead. I heard Lydia shuffle around again, so I glanced over to see her legs pulled up onto the seat, her arms wrapped around them. She turned her head to look at me then and I looked away.

"How did you find me?" she asked.

Huh? What was she even talking about? She'd clearly sent an address in the middle of nowhere to me. "What do you mean?" I returned. "You texted me where you were. Hatch Street? Hatcher? I just drove to the closest place that was called that."

There was a small pause before Lydia answered. Even though it was dark in the car, I could see her facing me now out of the corner of my eye. "I didn't think that sent," she explained, more to herself than to me because she said it so quietly. "West threw my phone in the water. At least I thought he did, but maybe he missed somehow." She hugged her legs tighter and sighed, "Hopefully..."

Hopefully she wasn't thinking about going back to find her phone tonight because I wasn't turning around. I really doubted she was thinking about that though because she easily continued on and asked if her mom knew she was fine and coming back now. I nodded because I'd called earlier, just after Lydia got in my car (her mom gave me her number and told me to immediately let her know if I found her daughter). "She was looking for you at Meg's I think and I started driving to Haley's house," I told Lydia, "then I got your texts."

   Lydia didn't say anything back. At least, not until I exited the highway and drove through town, rumbling to a stop at a red light. We were the only ones on the road as far as I could see. "He knows," she whispered, and I looked over at her then, her eyes dark and glistening in the light. "He knows that we've been talking."

   So that's what she'd meant. He knows. I knew he'd find out sooner or later. Haley was insane, but he wasn't stupid. Watching Lydia, how she turned away to gaze out the window again and how her voice shook, I wondered what had happened in that abandoned neighborhood before I'd gotten there. "Lydia?" I tried. She didn't move at all. "What did he do?"

   That was when I found myself reaching for her, hesitantly. Then a bright, green light illuminated the both of us from the stoplight, so I pulled my hand back. She probably needed space anyway. Whatever had went on at that address she'd sent me, she didn't feel like talking about it and that was fine with me. If she told me anything I would probably go driving to Haley's house right now and do something I would regret later. Or maybe I wouldn't regret it at all. The only thing stopping me from going after Haley right now was how tired I was and how I needed to get Lydia home.

When I got to our neighborhood, Lydia sat up straighter, taking in all of the houses and lawns as if she hadn't seen them a million times before. It really wasn't that interesting (she was probably just trying to avoid looking at me), but I didn't say anything about that. If I could get her home without us arguing about something, that'd be nice.

I took a right, arriving on her street and a couple houses down, I pulled into her driveway beside a gray car I recognized as Lydia's. "Here you are," I said over the low humming of my car. I looked over at her in the passenger seat to see her facing away from me, unmoving. "You can go now," I told her, my words coming out a little more forceful than I'd wanted them to. Then I thought about how I should've said something else so she wouldn't think I was being mean, but I didn't get the chance to. Lydia beat me to breaking the silence that constantly surrounded us yet again.

"Goodnight," she mumbled, then took the switchblade from the cupholder. She held it in her palm (the one that wasn't wrapped in cheap napkins) and she finally looked over at me. "I'm going to take this," she said seriously. "I think...I think I'll feel better if I have it with me. Just in case he comes back for it."

   She put it in her sweatshirt pocket. What happened after that made me wonder if she had hit her head and was hallucinating someone else other than me in front of her. A small smile formed on her lips. It was barely there, but that was what it was. A smile. I kind of froze up then, stuck in disbelief and some other feeling I couldn't figure out. She thanked me again, smile already gone, and climbed out of my car, shutting the door. I watched her hurry to her front porch steps and that was when her mom rushed out to meet her. She crushed her with a hug and they stood like that, just before her mom began looking her over, checking to see if anything had happened to her.

   Lydia's mom looked over in my direction and peered into my car, then waved to me. I waved back and put the car in reverse, backing up so I could get out of there as fast as possible. It was hard seeing Lydia and her mom together, actually getting along, all concerned for each other (something I could never imagine Mom and me doing). I always felt out of place when I was there at Lydia's house. I'd never seen her dad or really even heard about him (so I guessed he wasn't in the picture), but Lydia and her mom seemed to be doing fine, just the two of them. Good for them.

   While I was driving away, I glanced in the mirror to see if they were still out front, but they had gone inside and I looked ahead again. I didn't know if I'd ever hear what Haley had done to Lydia tonight, but I did know one thing. Lydia had seen Jason fall, she had pretty much been taken hostage by Haley, and yet, she either said very little or nothing at all about these things. It made me realize Lydia was like everyone else. She wasn't an "angel" and she didn't have some perfect life like I'd thought. She kept things secret, like I did. There, that was something else we had in common along with our hatred for Haley.

   As I drove home, I thought back to when Lydia had confessed in the basement how Jason had died. I had wanted to tell her then what had happened to me over the summer (how that would help her, I didn't really know) but I had ended up keeping it to myself. Now, as that moment ran through my mind, I found that there was some small part of me that wished I had let it slip. I hadn't really told anyone about that summer, except for Jason (who had definitely stabbed me right in the back and told Haley about it).

   I never thought I'd ever want to tell anyone else about it again, but after what Lydia had seen and went through, she'd understand, right? Besides, there had to be other things she was hiding. I always thought I knew Lydia, my enemy of all these years, but it turned out, I didn't know her any more than I knew Principal Norris or even Meg. It was weird and confusing and that was exactly what made me realize I actually wanted to talk to her for once. I wanted to know Lydia Bosher.