The Boy on the Bridge

“Your mom is… interesting,” I tell him, placing my tray down beside his.

He smiles faintly, glancing back at me. “She is. She talks a lot. Has she been telling you stories?”

I nod my head. “Apparently you’re a bully, but your dad was also a huge jerk so you can’t help it and that’s okay.”

His eyes widen slightly and his eyebrows rise in genuine surprise. “Wow, thanks for talking me up, Mom,” he says sarcastically.

“She’s very honest.”

“You think I’m a jerk?”

Usually there would be an undertone of humor when we’re going back and forth, but there’s no amusement when he asks that. His gaze slides to mine and even though he doesn’t say anything more, I get the distinct feeling that my answer matters to him.

My heart gives under the weight of his gaze. I have heard things today that reinforce my previous belief that he might be a jerk, but he hasn’t been a jerk to me. I also don’t want to believe he’s a jerk because I like him. I don’t know what to say, though.

Before I have to answer, the lady on the other side of the counter interrupts to ask what we want. We don’t speak to each other while we’re ordering, then we slide down the counter to pay. I start to dig my money out of my purse, but Hunter tells the cashier we’re together and pays for both our meals.

“You didn’t have to do that,” I murmur, feeling a little awkward.

“Wanted to,” he says simply, not looking at me.

I look up at him, wanting to say something but unsure of what. His silence weighs on me more heavily than anything else could, and even though my rational mind brings up the best friend he apparently turned on and chased out of school, my heart counters with the image of him carrying my broken backpack home for me and then buying me a new one, him reading my favorite book and then calling me Catnip.

There’s evidence he might have done some bad things I don’t know about, but there’s irrefutable evidence that he’s done good, too.

He picks up his tray and turns to head back to the table. I don’t think he’ll say anything else to me right now if I don’t initiate, but it’s bursting out of me anyway, so I blurt, “Hunter.”

His steps slow ever so slightly and he looks at me.

I meet his gaze, my heart in my throat, feeling strangely vulnerable. “I don’t think you’re a jerk.”

His gaze locked on mine, he doesn’t respond right away. He holds his silence long enough that I start to get anxious, then he finally says, “No?”

I shake my head vehemently.

A faint trace of humor returns to his tone and his lips curve up ever so slightly. “What am I, then?”

I don’t know how to answer. I don’t know who he is yet, but I’ve seen enough that I want to find out.

I know I’m drawn to him. I know I’m somehow comfortable with him, even though he’s the last person I would ever expect to be comfortable around. It doesn’t bother me to be completely myself when we’re together. We might have some problems, but it’s all superficial stuff, nothing that really matters. Not to me, anyway. Maybe it matters to him, but I don’t care that much what other people think. If Hunter and I could be alone in the world, just us, I don’t think we’d ever have any problems.

I picture us alone together, just the two of us on the footbridge in the woods with no external forces causing conflict—no parents or friends or social hierarchy at school. We’re free to be on the same level—and when we’re alone, we are.

The answer to his question hits me all of a sudden.

I smile, anticipating with pleasure him laughing and telling me what a dork I am. “You’re my Gale.”

He doesn’t call me a dork, but his brown eyes fill up with pleasure and his lips tug up in a smile that makes my heart stutter. “Oh yeah?”

I nod my head, my cheeks flaming. “Yeah.”

The playfulness returns to his tone. “I guess I can live with that.”

Chapter Six

While getting food with Hunter was nice, as soon as we get back to the table—back to his world—the comfort I felt when it was just us disappears. Valerie Johnson has never zeroed in on me before—I only disliked her on Sara’s behalf—but now bad vibes are radiating from her and I am definitely the target. Even when she’s not saying anything to pick at me, I can feel her stewing in my presence. Anytime I speak, she looks aggravated.

Hunter definitely notices, I can tell by the subtle ways he keeps reinforcing that he’s backing my presence here when his friends undoubtedly don’t understand it. He doesn’t say anything to her, though. He must think I can handle it on my own. And he’s right—it’s just annoying.