The Pal List

Chapter 35

Thursday, February 7th

In court on Tuesday, the defense presented their case to the jury. My mom and the defense attorney made their closing arguments, and the judge ordered the jury to go out and deliberate. My mom thinks it could be a while before they come to a decision since it must be unanimous. I asked her if she thought it was going well so far.

"It's hard to tell at this point. Mr. Crawford's attorney called a couple of witnesses yesterday and made a pretty strong defense."
"Like what kind of witnesses?"

"Neighbors that saw Hudson's car home all night and claim to have never seen the blue truck, a forensic investigator that said the evidence at the scene was inconclusive."

"Damn," I say.

"Halle!"

"Sorry. Darn."

"Oh, she's seventeen, Corrine. Let the girl say 'damn,'" my dad says as he rounds the corner from the kitchen into the living room and gives me a hug. "Hey, kiddo."

"Hi, dad."

"I sure do love my Halle hugs," he says as he steps away and sits next to my mom on the couch. "How's Jude doing?"

"He's good. I talked to him on the phone this morning. He'll probably stop by later."

"Good. And you two are good?"

"We're good," I say, knowing why he's asking.

After I got home from school yesterday, my mom and I sat down and calmly talked about how she knew that Jude was coming back weeks before I did. She assured me that she kept it from me for my sake, and that it wasn't her place to tell me about Jude when he still wasn't comfortable coming back. And even though she did it only to protect me and to protect Jude, she apologized for leaving it until yesterday to tell me. I accepted her apology, but then Jude came over a few hours later and I wasn't quite as understanding.

We sat down on the front steps of my house. I intended to talk to him calmly like my mom and I did, but it didn't go quite as planned.

"I'm sorry I didn't tell you that," he said.

I shook my head. "I'm so sick of you saying that, Jude."

"I know."

"Do you?" I said, loud enough that my parents later asked if we were fighting.

Jude looked at me with a little more hurt in his eyes than I was comfortable seeing.

"I'm sorry," I said. "It's just that every time I think that we're good and we're on our way to being okay again, you throw another curve ball at me."

"I know. I do. I didn't come see you in October because I was here for a really short time and it was just to talk to your mom. I had to get everything straightened out with my mom and my grandparents before I could come back and I didn't want to see you and then have to leave again."

Okay, I thought, that's not a bad reason. It would have crushed me to reunite with him and then have to say goodbye again for another few weeks. I guess I could be okay with that.

"Okay," I said. "What about the abuse?"

At this, Jude stopped looking me in the eyes. We were facing each other on the steps, but he looked down at his hands then.

"I didn't want you to know that. I still wish you didn't."

"Why?"

"I'm embarrassed of it," he said, looking at me then.

"And it's okay to feel that way. I've never been in a situation close to that so I can't tell you that I understand how that feels but that's okay. But Jude, there is absolutely nothing about that that you need to be embarrassed to tell me. I get that it's hard to talk about."

"It is," he said.

"But it was a part of you. And I wanted to love every single part of you. I thought I did."

"You did, Halle. That part of me was still there the whole time. I was still completely myself around you."

I nod. "Okay. I just wish you told me. I could have handled it. I could have been there for you through it."

"I know. It's just- he's my dad, Hal. He was the one that taught me how to play catch and how to talk to girls. Every time he did it, he was drunk. And when he woke up in the morning, he apologized and said it wouldn't happen again," he said. "I wanted to believe it and I didn't want to tell anyone because it was easier to pretend that it didn't happen."

I nodded. "Okay. I'm sorry that you had to go through all of that." I grabbed his hands in mine. "Can you promise me from now on that there will be no more surprises? I want to be able to talk to you about everything, no matter how dark it is. I'll do the same for you."

"Okay. I promise."

I hadn't kissed Jude in a year and a half. But when he leaned in at that moment, it felt like no time had passed since the last one. I felt his lips on mine and my mind instantly flooded with all of the good parts of us. And for the first time ever, it flooded with the bad parts too. A relationship isn't always love and happiness and amazing experiences that make every day better than the last. A relationship is knowing every part of each other, good and bad. It's moments like that one, where there was a common understanding about what one another was feeling, and a promise to always make sure that understanding was present. I finally knew that, and I'd never felt better.

We pulled away from each other, and I couldn't help but smile. He did too.

"Do you think things will ever go back to how they used to be?" he asked.

I thought about it. I thought about the way it used to be and how I, too, wanted to go back to that. I wanted it all the way up until Jude came over and we sat down on the steps. But really, I was naive to think that the way things used to be even existed anymore. We change and we grow every single day, especially after this year. But before all of this, I not only wanted to be with Jude, but I needed to. I was so dependent on our relationship that I fell apart when he left. I don't want things to go back to being like that.

"I hope not," I said.

"You do?" Jude asked.

"Yeah," I said, smiling. "Things need to be the way that they are now, not the way they used to be."

"You're right," he said, then stood up and offered me his hand. "I'm freezing and I smell your mom's cookies, wanna go in?"

"Sure," I said, taking his hand. "But those are my dad's cookies. Duh."

He laughed. "Duh."