You guys. I was absolutely BLOWN AWAY by the reception to the first chapter. I was so nervous to post and all of the kind support was so incredibly appreciated. I really have loved working on this story and it makes me so excited that others are already enjoying it and are interested in seeing how everything plays out.
Without further ado, here we go with chapter 2!
It felt like the beginning, at least it did to me
- Haunted by the Band Camino
(June 2000)
Jay has seen the cycle before: a station wagon pulls up, a kid with a garbage bag hops out, they disappear into the house next door, and then six months later, the station wagon returns, and the kid with the garbage bag leaves.
A week later, a new kid with a new garbage bag shows up and the cycle continues.
Jay does not know how long the cycle has been going on. Probably since he was six, maybe seven. He remembers the first kid to stumble onto the lawn of his next-door neighbor's house, dragging a much too large garbage bag for his small body. Erik Doyle, who was all sandy blonde hair and glasses, was the first of the cycle, but most certainly not the last.
His neighbor, Mr. Donovan, has been taking in foster children for the past nine years and Jay does not think any of the children have lasted in his house for more than six months. He is not sure why, if Mr. Donovan is a terrible man or the kids wind up with a better placement, but all he knows is they all inevitably leave.
Sometimes Jay gets close to the kids who come to live next door. Especially when they were younger, Jay and his older brother Will would play with whichever kid was there. He remembers when he was nine, there was Bruce Rivers, who was really good at football and taught Jay how to throw a spiral. When he was eleven, there was Sally Johnson, the pretty girl with red braids who Will had the biggest crush on. He remembers that his brother made her a valentine and was going to give it to her, but she accepted a Valentine from another boy at school instead.
So, as he sits on his porch, reading the latest of the terrible books that his English teacher assigned them for summer reading, he is not surprised when he sees another kid with another garbage bag making their way to Mr. Donovan's door.
He can't get a good look at her from this far away, but he thinks she has to be a few years younger than him. She has long, blonde hair and she has a flannel shirt tied around her waist, torn-up jean shorts underneath.
As soon as she looks at him, she looks away and he can't be quite sure, but clearly, she does not look happy to be here. Maybe this isn't her first house, and she has seen some less than kind things at her previous placements or maybe this is just her natural disposition.
Jay does not put much thought into it though. He figures it will be the same cycle with this girl. They'll exchange pleasantries for six months until she inevitably leaves, just like the rest.
"You gonna quit staring at me or do I need to call the cops?"
The voice snaps Jay out of his trance and he looks up from his spot on his porch steps to see the blonde girl from next door standing a few feet in front of him, in her own front yard, hands on her hips as she stares Jay down. She came outside maybe an hour ago, just kicking the dirt and walking around, and clearly, at some point, Jay started watching her.
"Sorry," Jay mutters. "Was just thinking."
"Didn't realize thinking necessitated staring at me, but okay," she rolls her eyes, and he can tell she is used to being like this, on edge and ready to fight.
She drops her arms and starts to turn around to go back to whatever she was doing when Jay calls out, "You just move in?"
She clicks her tongue, hands instinctively finding their way back to her hips. "Yeah, but you know that. You saw me yesterday."
"Right...I'm Jay."
"Okay?" She draws out slowly, waiting for him to finish his thought with eyebrows raised.
He closes his book and throws it behind him, chuckling as he does so. "This is typically when you tell me your name."
"Yeah, we don't need to do this," she motions between them. "I'm staying for what, a couple of weeks? I doubt this guy keeps kids for long. So, we don't need to do the whole pretending to be friends thing."
He wants to tell her it's not true, but he knows it would be a lie. Because the cycle he has seen for the last several years, it has been consistent, and he doubts she will be the exception to the rule.
But she's already different from the rest. She's a little tougher and a little bolder and there is something about her he can't quite put his finger on, but it's intriguing, to say the least.
"Wasn't pretending," Jay says with a shrug. "Just trying to be nice."
He watches as the girl glances up and down while she tries to make sense of him. The whole encounter feels strange, and he can't quite understand her hesitancy, but he thinks that maybe kindness has been rare in her life. Like, maybe she is trying to test out the waters to make sure this is not a trick. Her eyes stay focused on him, studying his features for a while before she finally takes a few steps closer over into his yard.
"What are you reading?"
Jay turns around and grabs the book from the ground and hands it to her as he says, "Animal Farm."
She chuckles lightly as she inspects the book, flipping through the pages, pausing every now and then to read a passage. "Is it good?"
"I don't know," Jay breathes out truthfully. "Can't focus long enough to get past the first chapter."
The girl throws the book back to him and shakes her head. "You gotta read it out loud then. Helps with focus."
He eyes her questioningly and for the first time, he sees the girl crack something resembling a smile. "How do you know that?"
She pauses and for a moment, he thinks she is going to turn around and go back to her yard, but after a good thirty seconds, she finally says, "My older brother...he couldn't focus while reading either. Almost failed English two years in a row. Eventually, he figured out that if he read the book out loud, it would help. He used to read to me, and I would keep him on track."
Jay smiles at her words, the little memory making her more human and more relatable. "Are you offering to keep me on track?"
"I'm just giving you a suggestion," she says in a small voice, and she starts to walk back towards her yard, but he calls out to her again.
"Can we try it?" He yells across the yard, causing her to turn around in surprise. "I feel like it's weird if I just sit here and read out loud to myself. People will probably think I'm crazy. Plus, if I fail a summer reading project, my dad is going to kill me."
He watches as she considers his offer and for the first time, he can't read her face. He is not sure if she is angry or amused or just straight-up annoyed, but after a while, she just plops herself down on the ground and crosses her legs as she looks up at him.
"That Donovan guy has no books, no games, and no TV. It's hell over there."
"So, you'll help?"
She shrugs her shoulders. "I got nothing better to do."
Jay nods skeptically but opens up the book, lets out a cough, and begins.
"Mr. Jones, of the Manor Farm, had locked the hen-houses for the night, but was too drunk to remember to shut the popholes."
Every day for the next ten days, Jay reads a chapter to her. He is surprised on the second day when he walks outside to his porch and finds her already sitting in his yard, waiting for him to read the next chapter. He does not mind though, because reading out loud really does help him focus and every day he learns a little something about her.
With Chapter 1, he learns that her name is Hailey. That's all she will tell him, but it's enough.
With Chapter 2, she tells him that she is fourteen and she is going to be a freshman in high school, just two years behind Jay. She's got two older brothers, one who is Jays' age and one who is the same age as Jay's older brother, Will, who is a senior in high school. She hasn't seen her brothers in a while, but she doesn't say why.
After he reads Chapter 3, he finds out that she is Greek and she used to speak the language, but she has forgotten a lot of the words. She tells him that in a perfect world, she would take Greek in high school as her foreign language, but she is sure she is going to get stuck taking something boring instead.
When he finishes Chapter 4, she tells him that she has been in foster care for almost three years. She doesn't tell him why, just that she and her brothers got removed from their house a few years ago and never went back.
He learns why she has not seen her brothers in years with Chapter 5. Apparently, it's hard to get placed with siblings when you are in foster care, even harder when you are all teenagers.
"No one wants the teens," Hailey tells him, knees pulled up to her chest as she sits in the grass in front of his porch, the same spot she has been in every day since they began. "Everyone wants the cute babies. So, it's hard to end up in a house if you're a teenager. No one is enough of a saint to take three teens."
When he closes the book after Chapter 6, she tells him that her older brother, Thomas, is going to age out of the system in four months and he has a plan to get a job and take in his younger siblings. Hailey looks sad as she tells him about the plans for the future, almost like she knows that it is never going to work out and she is going to age out of the system the same way Thomas will.
He is barely done reading Chapter 7 when she vaguely tells him what happened. There was a robbery at her parent's diner a few weeks after her twelfth birthday. When the police started looking into things, they didn't all add up. A few follow-up questions led to home visits and those home visits led to the three siblings being removed.
She tells him why they were removed after Chapter 8. In an emotionless voice, almost like it's a rehearsed monologue, she tells him how her father used to get drunk. She doesn't go into any more detail than that.
After Chapter 9, she tells him she has been in 14 placements since she first landed in the system. She tells him she just wants to land somewhere permanently, but she does not think that will ever happen.
After Chapter 10, the last chapter, though? He learns something happy.
He learns that Hailey Upton has a sweet tooth.
His mom asks him to run to the corner store and pick up a few things for dinner, so after he finishes reading to Hailey, he invites her to go along with him. She gives her stereotypical not interested answer, but he can tell she is dying to do anything to get out of the house for a few hours, so she finally accepts his offer.
"You want something?" He bumps against her shoulder playfully when he catches her lingering in the candy aisle.
"No...just looking," she murmurs, but her gaze is still on the row of chocolate bars in front of them.
"What?" He tries again and this time, she cracks a small smile.
"Thomas used to get Peter and me candy bars after the really bad days," she reminisces. "My mom hated when we would have them because she thought it would spoil our dinner, so we would sneak into the backyard or down the street to eat them."
"Did you have a favorite?"
She nods. "Peter liked Snickers. I liked Milky Way."
Jay's face scrunches up in disgust. "Those are gross."
She pushes him with a laugh, and they get a glare from one of the other shoppers in the aisle who must just think they are two troublesome teens. When the older woman turns around, they both burst into a fit of giggles, Hailey shaking her head at Jay.
"They're not gross, you're just wrong."
It's not lost on him that this is the most that she has smiled since they first met. He quite likes how she looks when she is smiling, when she lets her guard down and she can finally be carefree.
"Get two," he says.
She looks at him in confusion. "Why?"
"Just get two," he tells her again, ignoring her question. "But we're not eating them until later."
He walks down the aisle to continue getting the rest of the things his mother sent him to the store for, Hailey catching up to him a few seconds later, two chocolate bars in hand. As she throws them into the shopping basket Jay is clutching, she questions him again.
"Why are we getting these if we can't eat them?"
"You'll see."
Hailey peers at him with a strange look, scrunching up her nose. "You know you're an idiot, right?"
He smiles at her, nodding towards the cashier, appreciating the way that even though she is insulting him, her smile has grown. "Yeah, I know."
There is melted chocolate on his hands and hot plastic rubbing against his thigh, but he thinks that this might be the first time all summer he has felt truly happy.
After dinner that night, Jay meets up with Hailey outside of their houses and all but drags her down the street, ignoring her constant questions of "Where are we going?" and "Why won't you tell me?" and "Can I have my candy bar yet?"
She is clearly confused when they get to their destination and he thinks she almost looks cute like that, face all scrunched up and eyes squinted.
"The park?" She questions. "What, do you want me to push you down the slide or something?"
He shakes his head at her teasing and grabs her hand, tugging her the rest of the way, right up to the swings. She just stares at him as he plops himself down on the plastic swing, unwrapping his candy bar as he pushes at the ground with his feet.
It takes her a solid minute to sit down in the swing next to him, reluctant as she does so, her eyes trained on him as she holds her still unopened Milky Way.
"So," she says slowly. Her feet are firmly on the ground and her one hand tightly grips her swing chain as she watches him gently swing back and forth. "Is there a reason we are here or are you just weirdly obsessed with swings?"
He chuckles and takes a big bite of his candy bar, wiping at his face before he answers her. "You said you used to always sneak away to eat your candy bar."
"And this is where we are sneaking away too?"
He nods, humming quietly. "My brother and I used to come here a lot. My dad...he's nowhere close to everything you've been through, but he can be a lot. So, sometimes my brother and I would come to the park for a few hours when he was especially bad."
"And you would sit on the swings?" She questions, finally unwrapping her candy.
"Normally we would play baseball or something," Jay says with a shrug. "But it's a little hard to do that and eat, so I improvised."
He thinks she is going to tease him, tell him it's a silly idea and they are teenagers, way too old to be swinging like children, and that they should just go home.
But she stays quiet and takes a small bite of her candy bar and starts pushing her feet against the ground to swing herself back and forth.
"Are you close with your brother?" She asks in a quiet whisper after a few moments.
"Yeah, I guess," Jay tells her after one final bite of his candy bar. He crumples up the wrapper and sticks it in his back pocket, mindful to make sure the chocolate doesn't stain his shorts. "I mean, we're a year apart so we kinda have to be. But he's alright, I guess. It's a little annoying being known as 'Will Halstead's little brother' at school, but other than that, it's okay."
"You go to Tilden?" She asks, referencing the local high school and Jay shakes his head.
"De La Salle."
Hailey lets out a low whistle and Jay digs his feet into the ground, stopping his swing. "What?"
"That's a rich people school," she comments.
"Don't I know it," Jay scoffs and he starts swinging himself again. "I'm not supposed to know this, but the school is doing my family a favor by letting us go there. I don't know what deal my dad worked out with them, but we totally can't afford that school."
Hailey nods at his words. "Do you like it?"
Jay gives her a little shrug. "It's school. Where do you go?"
The question gets Hailey to laugh, and she does not answer at first, taking one more bite of her candy bar before she folds her wrapper and places it on the ground.
"Liberty, Lake View, I'm supposed to be at Tilden this fall..."
"Why so many schools?" Jay asks, immediately regretting the question as soon as it leaves his mouth.
Her face changes and it looks a little like hurt and remorse and he can tell there are a lot of stories hidden behind those blue eyes that he is yet to hear.
"Sometimes you have to switch schools when you switch houses. And I've switched houses a couple of times."
He opens his mouth to respond, but the question does not come out, so instead, he watches her, swinging gently back and forth, blonde hair flowing in the wind, hands tightly gripping the metal chains. Her focus stays on him and after a moment, she lets out a sad laugh.
"You can ask whatever it is you're thinking."
He can feel his cheeks flush red at the way she calls him out, but he tries to hide it with his question, "What were the other houses like?"
This time, it's Hailey who stops swinging. She waits until her swing has completely slowed, tightening her grip against the chains as she looks past him at the ground. "Some were okay. I had this one really nice family, the Jeffersons, who were great, but they got pregnant with their own kid, so they sent me back. Some have been bad. Used the money they are supposed to use for our food and clothes for alcohol and cigarettes among other things. Most of them have been somewhere in between."
"What about Donovan?"
Hailey shrugs. "Feeds me and doesn't hit me. So, I guess I can't complain."
She says it so simply, like meeting the bare minimum is worthy of a reward and it makes his heart break. He told her that this is the spot where he goes to escape his father, but he knows he will never quite understand all the things she has experienced.
He doesn't know how she does it: the constant changing of houses and the chaos and the countless other difficult things he knows she is not telling him. She is strong for being so young, wise beyond her innocent years and even though he barely knows her, he thinks she is a better person now than he will ever be.
It's quiet for a few minutes as they gently swing back and forth, Jay unsure if he should offer her comfort or change the conversation entirely.
"We should get back," she whispers, and he thinks that he has done it. After two weeks of convincing this girl to open up to him, he has effectively rebuilt every wall he knocked down in a matter of minutes.
The walk back to their houses is quiet and awkward and Jay wants to say something, but he is not sure what. He's not good with words and he's not great with girls, but he thought he was kinda okay at whatever this is with Hailey. Apparently, he was wrong.
He stops on the sidewalk in front of her house and stands awkwardly, waiting for her to march across her lawn and slip into her door and not come out until the station wagon comes to take her away.
But she lingers.
She kicks her tennis shoe at the ground and draws little circles in the dirt, avoiding all eye contact as she whispers, "Thanks for today. And thanks for the candy bar."
He smiles softly. "Anytime, Hailey."
She looks up hesitantly, not quite smiling, but definitely happier than she was when they left the park.
"I'll see you tomorrow?" Jay asks, letting out a breath he did not even know he was holding when she nods. The corners of her lips finally curl into a smile, and she does not say another word as she turns around and disappears into her house for the night.
She is a mystery, this Upton girl, unlike the other kids who have moved into that house. Jay can't put his finger on it, but there's something about her, something that makes him want to know more.
(July 2000)
That's how they spend the summer. Nights at the park, chocolate bars in hand, swinging and laughing and exchanging stories.
He tells her about his dad, about how the man has all these plans for his life and Jay wants none of them.
Hailey tells him about how she is terrified to age out of the system because she's got no plans, no safety net, no future.
"We should run away together," he says one night, trying to play it off as joking, but it sounds quite serious to Hailey. She shoots him a strange look, confused by his words, and she watches as he struggles to redeem himself.
"Not like that," he quickly continues. "Just like, once I graduate high school, we should get out of Chicago. We could both get jobs and get some crappy apartment and just do whatever the hell we want."
It's not the worst idea she has ever heard. She has thought about running away a time or two and if she was older and could work enough to support herself, she would do it in a heartbeat.
And she has only known Jay for six weeks, but if the foster care system has taught her anything, it's how to judge someone's character, and she thinks he is a good, decent person and she would not mind running away with him.
"Whatever we want?" She asks nervously, and he chuckles, nodding.
"Whatever we want."
"We could aimlessly roam the city at two in the morning?"
"I suppose," he hums.
"What about listening to music really loud and dancing in the apartment?"
He shakes his head but does not argue with her. "We could do that too."
Hailey thinks a bit harder, smiling when the ideas keep popping in her head. "And we could eat whatever we wanted and go out on Friday nights and sleep super late on Saturdays with no one yelling at us?"
"Anything, Hailey," he gives her a soft smile. "Anything we want."
"Where would we go?" She peers over at him from her swing, noticing how green his eyes look as the sun starts to set and the sky starts to go dark. It's the first time she has noticed it in the past few weeks and maybe it's just because of the silliness of the conversation, but it makes her smile.
Jay shrugs. "New York? Or maybe somewhere warm?"
"Florida," Hailey says confidently. "It's warm there."
Jay smiles at her enthusiasm. "Okay, but not Orlando or anything like that. Too much of a vacation spot."
Hailey thinks for a moment, using her index finger to tap at her chin theatrically before she looks up at him with her brilliant idea. "Tallahassee."
"Tallahassee?"
"It's in Florida and it's not Orlando," she explains. "Plus, the name sounds cool. So, we should go there."
He laughs at her explanation, shaking his head in amusement. "Tallahassee it is then," he hums.
She can almost see it, them living in some little studio apartment with mattresses on the floor and not enough food in the cupboards, but still ridiculously happy. It would be freedom, doing whatever they wanted whenever they wanted, no overbearing fathers or inattentive foster parents. Just them against the world.
"What are you going to be?" He asks her. "Like what job are you getting?"
"Cop," she answers immediately. "I want to be a cop."
He raises an eyebrow at her, and she can tell he's not quite dismissing her answer, but he is a little surprised.
"When my parent's diner got robbed, there was this badass cop named Platt," Hailey explains. "She was a detective, and she just commanded the room so well. The minute I met her I knew I wanted to be just like her when I grew up."
Jay nods at her answer, a small smile playing at his lips. "I think you would be a good cop."
"Thanks," she feels a bit of heat rise to her cheeks and tries to distract herself by asking him the same question. "What about you? What are you going to be?"
"I honestly have no clue," Jay laughs out dryly. "Never really thought about it much. Being a cop doesn't sound bad, though. Or maybe I will be a mechanic or something."
"We should get a dog," she says quickly, barely even acknowledging his answer about jobs. "I've always wanted a dog."
He laughs and shakes his head but amuses her. "What kind of dog?"
"I don't know. A big one though."
"Lab?"
"Nah," Hailey shakes her head. "German Shepherd."
"Hailey, what are we going to do with a German Shepherd?" He asks between chuckles as he pulls himself up on the chains of the swings, hoisting himself up so he is standing on the seat. He looks down at her with a smirk as he adds the last part. "Those things are bigger than you."
"Cute," she has to crane her neck up to see him, but she makes a show out of rolling her eyes and sticking her tongue out at him. "But he would protect us. Guard the apartment and all that."
"Hailey, I hate to break it to you, but I doubt we can afford the two of us and a dog."
Annoyed, she picks up a handful of mulch from the ground and throws it at his leg. "We're imagining here, Jay. Let me imagine."
"Who said I was imagining?"
"Jay-" she breathes out and the look he shoots at her, it's everything. It's sincere and it's honest and it says I would run away with you tomorrow if we could.
But they can't. They're just two teens stuck in their crappy lives, and this is how it needs to be right now.
"Maybe we'll get to Tallahassee one day," she whispers and if she closes her eyes tight, she can picture it so vividly, almost clear enough that she gets herself to believe it's real.
(September 2000)
So, Tallahassee becomes their thing. Maybe it's a pipe dream, but they both need some kind of distraction from the lives they are living now, her constantly jumping from house to house and him with his dad, so they dream of a better life, of a good life.
"We should get one of those fridges where the water comes out the front door," Hailey says one day while they are at the park, what has quickly become their place. School has just started and their time at the park is starting to be shorter, but much more frequent. They're here every night now, laughing and swinging and talking. She stands on the swings, lightly swinging back and forth as Jay sits at the swing next to her, his attention alternating between looking up at her and the grass in front of him.
"What?" He laughs.
"You know, the fridges where you press a button and water comes out."
"A water dispenser?" He clarifies, laughing as she nods vigorously. "Why in the world are you thinking about what fridge we should get?"
"Because," Hailey looks down at him, rolling her eyes. "Those are the fridges rich people have. So, one day, we should get one of those."
"If you say so," he murmurs, amusement clear in his voice. He doesn't fight her, and Hailey takes it as a win, humming contently to herself.
She's not sure how it happened, but in the past three months of doing this thing, silly as it may be, he has slowly become her best friend. In all her years, Hailey has not known much about friends, but she knows Jay Halstead is it.
He is kind and he is caring, and he continues to put her first unlike anyone else in her life. In the short time she has known him, he has become one of the most important things to her.
"You ever think about your life in the future?" She asks, almost in a whisper, and he glances up at her to make sure he heard her correctly.
"Aren't we talking about the future now?" He questions.
"You know what I mean," Hailey shakes her head. "Like getting married, kids, growing up. All of that stuff."
Jay shrugs his shoulders, but she does not miss the way his cheeks start to redden and his eyes begin to shift towards the ground. "I don't know. Not really."
There is no reason for her to think it's a lie, but something about it sounds off. Like maybe he has thought about it, and he does not want her to know for whatever reason.
"You?" He asks as he lifts his head up towards her again.
Hailey sighs as she jumps down from her swing, landing awkwardly on her feet with a thud. She kicks some of the mulch off of her sneakers before sitting in the swing next to him. "I don't know. Maybe?"
"Maybe?" He questions cheekily and she is rolling her eyes and kicking his foot before he can say anything more.
"I just always saw my parents…." she hesitates, telling herself she does not want to bring down the light mood. But more accurately, she doesn't want him knowing the true depth of all she has seen. "I don't know. I guess if I ever wanted that, I would just want better than what they had."
"You'll get better," he whispers, almost to himself. "You deserve better."
She just stares at him, replaying his words in her mind. Due to moving around so much, she has known a lot of people, but most of them never thought she would amount to much. They thought she was less than deserving of a better life and this was the life she would get.
And then there's him.
And maybe he's a kid, just like her, but something in him knows that she can do this, something in him believes in her in a way no one else has, and Hailey can't even explain how good that feeling is.
"Thanks, Jay," she whispers. Both of their swings are still and if she closes her eyes and listens, she can hear the wind around them, softly blowing. Everything is still for a moment, but somehow, in the simplest of ways, it feels like things have shifted.
"I think this has been my favorite house," Hailey murmurs. Jay looks up at her in surprise and her own smile melts, becoming warm.
"It's just…" Hailey starts. "All the other houses there were no other kids my age around and if there were, they were the worst."
The corners of his lips curl up as he realizes what she's saying, his smile turning from shy to smug. "You saying you like living next to me?"
"I take it back," Hailey groans, pushing her feet to the ground so she can start swinging again. "That's the last time I ever try to be nice to you."
"You like living here," he continues in a teasing tone. "Hailey Upton cares about me."
"I tolerate you," she fights back, but she knows it's no use. The cats out of the bag and for the first time in a long time, she has shown her emotions.
Normally, it's scary, but with him, it's not as bad.
He must notice the exasperated look on her face, but he shakes his head with a chuckle and says, "I like that you're living next to me. You're not half bad, Upton."
She is about to respond, maybe with her own sweet words or more likely, a teasing comment, when a group of five girls, probably around their age, skip down the walking path in front of the swings, singing out loudly.
"Look at the stars, look how they shine for you," they half yell, half laugh out as they stumble down the path. "It was all yellow."
Hailey shakes her head, watching as the girls continue to giggle down the path, finally looking at Jay with a disgusted look when they are out of sight.
"What?" He questions with a chuckle.
"That is like the dumbest song," she scoffs. "And they can't even sing."
"I'm sorry," Jay cocks his head to the side, stilling his own swing to stare her down. "You hate the song 'Yellow'? Who hates that song?"
"I do," Hailey shrugs, ignoring his beading eyes on her. She starts swinging a little faster, Jay keeping his eyes on her for a few more seconds until he finally starts gently swinging again.
"You are something, Hailey. You know that?"
"Because I don't like the song?" She asks.
"Among other reasons," Jay hums. "I swear, you make no sense."
'I wasn't aware that you were trying to figure me out."
He shoots her a look that she can't quite read, a rare occurrence for her. She prides herself on being able to read people like an open book, but right now, with him, she is not sure. But something deep in her feels like he is saying that he wants to know more, that he always will.
She lets out a low sigh. "When the song first came out, I was in a group home. This girl that I shared a room with, Hannah, used to sing it all the time. It was super annoying."
"So, now you hate the song?" Jay asks lightly and Hailey nods.
"It's silly, I know," Hailey murmurs, feeling slightly embarrassed for even saying anything now, but Jay shakes his head.
"You're right," he laughs. He digs his feet into the ground and stops his swing, glancing over at her. "It's kinda a dumb song."
Maybe he is agreeing with her because he wants to make her feel better, or maybe something deep down in him knows there is more to the story, like he can sense that she doesn't hold many fond memories of that group home. It strikes her as odd because there is no way he can truly know. He can't know that is the house where she had to fight for food or that song played on the radio in the dusty old living room when Hailey sat on the stairs for hours, waiting for her parents to come for a visit, but they never showed.
But somehow even if he does not know all of that, he knows her.
And Hailey thinks the safe response would be to tease him on it, but the way he is smiling at her right now, it is making her feel better. So, instead of teasing him, she decides to just enjoy this happy feeling. She jumps off her swing and comes to stand in front of him, nodding over to the park exit.
"Wanna get going?"
"Tired of me already?" He teases, but he still jumps off his swing and starts to follow her lead towards the sidewalk.
"I was tired of you weeks ago," she laughs.
Jay bumps his shoulder against hers, shooting her a sneakily sweet smile. "And yet you continue to hang out with me."
"Yeah," Hailey whispers. "I do."
(November 2000)
Summer turns into fall quickly in Chicago and before they know it, school is underway and there are leaves on the ground. A lot changes, but one thing doesn't: nights at the swings.
Jay gets a lot of teasing from his brother about the amount of time he is spending at the park with the pretty girl next door and his mother tells him time and time again that he can bring Hailey around the house, but he doesn't let any of it phase him. The nights at the park are simple and they are theirs and he wouldn't change it for the world.
They talk about school, how they both hate it and they wish they went to school together because that might be the one thing that could make something as painfully boring as calculus or world literature a bit more bearable.
It's his junior year and he should be spending his time doing homework or joining a club or working on his college essays, but rather he spends them in the park with two candy bars and Hailey, but honestly, it's a much better use of his time.
He doesn't know how it happens, but she slowly becomes his best friend. She knows all of his secrets and she makes him laugh and she gets him in a way that no one else ever has.
And maybe, she is funny, and she has pretty blue eyes and he has a tiny bit of a crush on her and that's why he does not mind spending every spare minute with her.
Jay is normally not one for school dances, but Homecoming is coming up and for the first time since he started high school, he's got a girl he wants to ask. He likes the idea of seeing Hailey in a pretty dress and dancing with her to some dumb song his friends find catchy and maybe even finding a moment to kiss her like he has been thinking about more and more lately.
So, two weeks before homecoming, he goes to the store on his way home after school and he gets flowers and an extra-large Milky Way bar, planning to sit outside of his house and ask her to homecoming right as soon as she gets home from school.
He plops himself down on his porch, nervous anticipation in his belly. It's not like it's the first time he has asked out a girl, but it's the first time he has asked out his best friend, so he is feeling the pressure of it all.
But when Hailey does not come home at her normal time, he starts to feel even more anxious.
He waits and he waits and he waits until his mother is telling him it's time for dinner and that he needs to come in.
"Mom, Hailey still hasn't come home," he argues with her, insisting that he wait at least five more minutes to make sure she is alright.
"I'm sure she is just out with friends from school," his mom assures him. "But you need to come in and eat dinner. Now, Jay."
He knows that's not it. He's Hailey's friend, not some classmates, and right now, she would normally be getting ready to go out with him to their spot. He feels bad going inside, but he does as he's told, leaving the flowers and the chocolate on the porch, hoping that Hailey will notice them whenever she gets home.
They are still there when he comes outside after dinner.
When the sun goes down and the street lights come on, he grows tired of waiting. He marches right up to Hailey's house and knocks on the door, hard, and waits for a response, but not surprisingly, there is nothing. He knocks again and then a third time until the door slowly opens and there is a strange woman he has never seen before.
"Can I help you?"
"Yeah," Jay starts nervously, gripping the flowers in his hand by his side. "Is Hailey here?"
"Hailey?" The woman questions.
"Mr. Donovan's foster daughter," Jay explains, trying to lean past the woman to see if he can spot Hailey in the house. "She's lived here for a few months."
The woman nods and lets out a little "oh," realizing what he's talking about. "Honey, Mr. Donovan had a heart attack today. Social services came and took her."
Jay feels his heart drop into his stomach. "Where...where did they take her?"
The woman shakes her head. "I'm sorry, I don't know. I'm his niece. I'm just here taking care of some things. She was packing up when I got here."
"All of her stuff is gone too?"
"I mean, you can go look around in her room if you would like," the woman offers awkwardly and it seems like she is trying to do whatever she can to help this poor, sad child. "But she left with a garbage bag around noon."
Unable to form any words, Jay nods and waits for the woman to let him into the house. He realizes now that he has never been inside, and he does not actually know where Hailey used to sleep. Mr. Donovan's niece points to a room down the hall and Jay wanders blindly to the bedroom.
The room is small, only a bed and a closet in there. The walls are mostly bare, with peeling wallpaper and a few cracks. Sure enough, though, the room is empty and all of Hailey's things are gone.
He is about to leave, to run out of there and throw the damn flowers in the trash when he notices a piece of paper on the bare mattress.
Tentatively, he walks across the room and picks up the note.
Hey Jay,
I'm assuming that you are going to be annoying and march over here demanding to know what happened to me, so I figured I would leave you a note for when you do. Social Services is waiting outside so I don't have a lot of time, but I figured you deserved an actual goodbye.
I haven't had a lot of good people in my life. I've moved around a lot and that's made it hard to make friends. But I am really happy we met. You are my best friend, and I don't know what I would do without you.
I'm gonna miss you a lot, but I know you'll be fine. You have a good heart. Don't lose that.
I'll see you in Tallahassee.
Hailey
He feels tears get caught in his throat as he reads the letter. This can't be happening. She can't be gone.
It's not fair. He's supposed to be asking her to Homecoming and they are supposed to have a few more months together. He tricked himself into believing that maybe she would stay longer than six months and that they would be able to spend the winter together, sipping hot chocolate and throwing snowballs at each other. Then, the snow would melt, and he would teach her to play baseball and they would celebrate Will's graduation, and everything would be fine.
But she's gone.
She's gone and he has no clue where she is and if he will ever see her again.
He folds up the note and shoves it in his pocket, throwing the flowers onto the bare mattress and leaving the house.
When he gets back to his house, he plops himself down on his porch and stares at the Milky Way bar he bought Hailey. It feels wrong to eat it and it feels wrong to throw it away, but honestly, he does not know what to do with it.
So, he leaves it on the steps, at the spot where he saw Hailey for the first time, and he just lets it melt.
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I'll see you next week for chapter 3!