Page 40 of The Plus One
“Monsters, the both of you,” Indira growled, aiming a feeble kick at him. Jude laughed.
“I love that you kept these,” he said, his voice quieter as he sat down cross-legged on the ground, reaching toward a pale green notebook with a shiny cover. He took it in his hands, dragging his fingers along the edges, and Indira’s heart thumped painfully in her chest like he was doing the same to her cheek.
“You werealwayswriting in them. I feel like I rarely saw you without a pen and diary in your hand when we were kids.”
He wasn’t exaggerating. Indira loved journaling when she was growing up. Even before she knew how to write, she was filling pretty notebooks with swoopy scribbles. As an adult, she still had a dangerous notebook-buying habit, but rarely took the time to fill them.
Indira picked up one of the books and flipped to a random page, cackling as she read the first line.
“Oh my God, if this isn’t perfectly on brand,” she said, angling the notebook so Jude could read too. He scooted closer to her, and Indira could feel the warmth of his body. He tilted his head and they both read.
Jude is a bad boy but mama told me I need to be nice. Mama also taut me a new word called compeshin and said it would be nice if i had it for Jude like i have it for baby birds i find in the woods because his parents work a lot so he is with us a lot. I’m going to write Jude a letter so we become friends.
“That’s so fucking cute,” Jude whispered, tracing his finger over the indents in the paper.
Indira flipped to the next page. Sure enough, there was a letter to Jude, but it was sporting a giantXthrough the center of it.
Dear Jude,
Hi how are you I am good. Do you know what the word compashen means? Mama taught me today it pretty much means being nice to people. I think that I will show you compashin and you can show me compashon and we can be best friends.
Thank you,
Dira
The diary entry on the adjacent page read:
Jude is still bad and he dunked me in the pond today. Got water up my nose. I’m done giving him campashin.
“Oh my God, I remember this day,” Indira said, jabbing her finger at the last entry and gazing up at him.
“You do not,” Jude said, giving her a skeptical look. “We were so young.”
“I think I was like six or seven, but I seriously do remember it. Collin was being all sweet and gentle helping me get into the pond in the woods by our house, and you came up and pushed us both under.”
Jude started laughing. “That doesn’t sound like something I would doat all.”
Indira rolled her eyes. “And that got Collin all riled up so then he started dunking you and then next thing I know I’m being splashed from every direction by you two ding-dongs.”
“Okay, actually, I do kind of remember that,” Jude said, his eyes lighting up. “You werescreaming. But your hair looked like a deflated poodle draped across your head and Collin and I couldn’t stop laughing. You whined about that for hours.”
“Yes!” Indira said, jabbing a finger in his chest. “No lies were reported in my journal! Youwerebad.”
“Theworst,” Jude deadpanned.
Indira scrunched her nose up at him. “A menace to society. And our parents wondered why we never got along.”
Indira had overheard countless conversations between her mom and Jude’s parents, the three of them shaking their heads in defeat as they tried to understand their kids’ heated dislike.
“You just had it out for me,” Jude said, all puppy-dog eyes and innocent lilt to his voice. “Never gave me a chance.”
“Not to be a know-it-all—”
“It seems like you’re going to go for it anyway…”
Indira reached over and smacked Jude’s arm. “I was always the one following you and Collin around, begging to play with you. If anyone’s to blame for our reasonless feud…”
“It’d be me,” Jude said, all humor faded from his voice. He paused for a moment, looking down at the diary. “I truly am sorry for always excluding you and teasing you.”
