Hudson Read Free Page A

major holiday and family function had been spent with the Werners. Our parents had even enrolled us in the same elite private high school. We knew each other well, though I seriously doubted that we’d have become more than acquaintances had we not been thrown together as we were.
    She should have been the perfect pairing for me. A match made in heaven. We both came from money, were already close. Yet, I had never had the slightest inclination toward her. What was wrong with me that I couldn’t feel anything for her? For anyone?
    “Do you like her?” Mirabelle’s small voice questioned from behind me.
    I turned to find her sitting on the front steps, her arms wrapped around her knees.
    My jaw tensed with irritation. I didn’t share the emptiness of my emotions with anyone. “It’s really none of your business if I do.” I strode past her, into the house.
    Mirabelle jumped up and followed close at my heels. “She’s not for you, Hudson. She’s petty and shallow and not good for you at all.”
    I kept walking, heading to the main staircase.
    Mirabelle continued after me. “And you don’t like her. I can see it in your eyes. You have no interest in her at all.”
    That was true, but it intrigued me to think my sister had noticed. What else did she see? What did she know about me? I stopped mid-step and turned to her. “If you already know I don’t like her, then why did you ask?”
    “I wanted to be sure you knew too.”
    Well, I do. I didn’t say it aloud. I turned away from her and jogged the remaining steps to the upper floor, then disappeared into my room.
    For the rest of the day, I couldn’t stop thinking about Celia and her supposed boyfriend. My chest knotted tighter and tighter as I spun the information in my mind. It wasn’t jealousy—honestly I didn’t care one way or another about her love life. It was intrigue. Obsessive intrigue. It wasn’t the first time I’d felt it, nor, I was certain, would it be the last.
    The idea of love and affection consumed me. I studied it on every occasion that I could. I didn’t understand it. I’d never been in love . I didn’t believe it was even a real thing. I wasn’t virtuous in any way, nor was I inexperienced. I’d dated a few girls. Or rather, I’d taken girls out to dinner and a movie with the sole intent of fucking them afterward. Sometimes I skipped the dinner and the movie and simply fucked. But I’d never had any inclination to spend any real time with anyone. I’d never had feelings for them.
    And even though Celia had set her sights on me the year before, I’d never assumed that she felt anything deeper than the silly crush she spoke of. We’d both been cut from the same cloth. We knew the ridiculousness behind romantic notions.
    Or so I’d thought.
    Now, she said she’d found the one. The idea boggled me.
    It also challenged me.
    What was it that made someone think they loved another? Could the emotion be manipulated? Forced? I decided an experiment was in order.
    It was unfortunate that the results might not be too favorable for Celia. But on the other hand, if love was truly a myth as I believed, maybe I was simply saving her from a lie.
    ***
    I was sunning with my laptop by the pool when Celia phoned me the next day to set up a date to get together. Feigning previous plans, I pushed our meeting off until the next week. I needed time to plan before I saw her. I was meticulous with my experiments, and this time would be no different.
    I tapped my fingers rhythmically on the keyboard as I schemed. After the failure of my last study, I was eager to find success. Perhaps failure was too harsh of a word. My results hadn’t met my hypothesis, but I’d still gained information from the experiment, inconclusive as it was. I’d gotten the idea for the study after two classmates, Andrew and Jane, became engaged. They seemed to be lost for each other, dizzy in their haze of lust which they’d most likely mistaken for something more. I