My True Love Gave to Me: Twelve Holiday Stories
Page 80“I’m not in any trouble.”
“Because girls always trade plane tickets with strangers in airports. They’re always flying off to meet some stranger’s boyfriend.”
“That’s funny. According to the people in this car, you’re Hulda’s boyfriend. But Hulda didn’t think so.”
“What’s your point?”
“We all have secrets.”
He turned and stared straight ahead again. “I went on a foreign-exchange trip to Iceland last summer.”
“And…”
The corners of Ethan’s mouth turned up in something not quite resembling a smile. “What happens in Iceland stays in Iceland.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
He glanced back at me. “So, what’s in it for you?”
“I didn’t want to go to New York.”
“What’s in New York?”
Aunt Mary was leaning between the front seats, talking to Ethan’s mother and father. Emily was wearing headphones—I could hear faint traces of music as she closed her eyes, fading in and out of sleep. Ethan and I were alone in the last row, but the SUV was too quiet. Someone might overhear. Get suspicious. Find out.
“I needed to get away, okay? I saw my chance, and I took it. I’ll be out of your hair, and you can start mending your broken heart or whatever just as soon as we stop. I will disappear, and you will never have to see me again.”
I expected him to protest, to complain that I was putting him in an impossible position. I didn’t expect him to actually say, “You can’t just run away.”
But I was not in the mood to hear what I couldn’t do. The list had been too extensive for too long.
You can’t eat that.
You can’t go there.
You can’t be this.
Ethan didn’t know that I was in that SUV-bound-to-nowhere because I had solemnly sworn to never let anyone tell me what I could or could not do ever again, so I leaned closer. “Watch me.”
But he only laughed. “No. You don’t understand. I know my father, and there is no way this vehicle stops until we get home.”
“So I’ll split as soon as we get there.”
But that must have been hilarious, because Ethan just laughed harder.
“What’s so funny?” I asked, but he sank lower in his seat, closed his eyes and whispered, “You’ll see, Not Hulda. You will soon see.”
* * *
That’s how long I sat squeezed into the backseat, listening to Hulda’s fake boyfriend snore. He kept his cap pulled low over his eyes, so I sat alone in the dark vehicle, staring out over the lights of the towns in the distance and the red glow of the taillights of the trucks that passed us by.
When Clint finally pulled off the interstate and onto a small highway I thought we must be almost there, but it was another hour before we turned onto a narrow gravel road that wound and curved through the darkness. The lights of the city were long gone. There were only stars. Millions of stars. Honestly, it was like we were the only people on earth when Clint stopped beside a small white house with a wraparound porch and said, “We’re here.”
“This is your house?” I asked Ethan as we crawled out of the backseat.
“No.” Ethan yawned, and I realized it must be after midnight. “Aunt Mary lives here. We’re next door.”
I turned to look, but saw only dark hills beneath that blanket of stars—a moon so large that it felt like I could touch it.
“With next door being…”
“About a half mile on the other side of that ridge.” Ethan pointed to the darkness.
A cold wind blew my hair into my face, jolting me awake. I watched as Clint carried Hulda’s huge suitcase up the stairs and through a door that opened without a key. That’s when I realized I was literally in a place where people didn’t lock their doors at night and the distance to the nearest neighbor was measured in miles.
If all I wanted was to go away then I’d done it. But Aunt Mary was beaming at me. Ethan’s parents were giving me hugs and wishing me good night. And Ethan kept looking at me as if he expected me to bolt off into the darkness at any moment.
I had to congratulate myself on finding the perfect place to hide.
It was a shame I couldn’t stay.
* * *
Aunt Mary knocked on the bedroom door and it swung open. If she thought it was weird that I was still sitting on the bed with my backpack on my lap, she didn’t say so.
“Do you need some help unpacking?” She pointed to Hulda’s huge suitcase, but I shook my head.
“No, thank you.”
“That’s okay.” She crossed her arms and leaned against the doorframe. “You’ve got five months to settle in.”
Five months. A whole semester. I tried to imagine living in a tiny white farmhouse in the middle of nowhere for almost half a year. I had one bar on my cell phone (I’d checked before removing the battery again), and there was no cable TV. Could a person even live like this? Then I thought about the unlocked door, the big Christmas tree, and the handmade stocking already hanging on the mantel, the name Hulda sewn on in green sequins. And I knew that, for some people, the answer was absolutely yes.
“Your house is nice,” I told her.
“It’s old. Like me.” Aunt Mary laughed. “And it’s empty now that my husband and little girl aren’t here. But it’s mine. I was born here, you know.” She glanced at the old building as if expecting it to finish her story. “This was my room when I was your age. And then it was my daughter’s room. And now it’s yours.” She gave me a wide smile. “We’re glad you’re here, Hulda.”
“I’m very glad to be here,” I said because it was the first lie that came to mind.
For a second, though, I thought it must not have been the right lie, because Aunt Mary looked as if she knew there was something wrong with Hulda. Wrong with me.
Then she shook her head. “I just can’t get over how good your English is.”
“Thank you,” I said, and remembered what Ethan had told me on the drive. “Ethan helped me with it when he was in Iceland last summer.”
“Of course. He’s a good boy,” Aunt Mary said, but then something in the woman’s countenance grew serious. She studied me anew. “I would hate for him to get hurt.”