What just happened? What is happening? “I don’t—I’m not following.”
He clears his throat. “The night I had dinner with Uncle James, I found something. I picked the lock on one of his desk drawers open and I found it. The ledger. It’s, um. It’s a record of everything. It has price lists of grades for every test paper and every student who’s ever bought a grade from him. And it has a record of his lawyer’s fees and how much of the money’s going to pay the lawyer and the divorce proceedings, and—fuck. I don’t know. I’m sorry. I didn’t know how bad things have been financially for him, and it scared me. I don’t know.” He looks away.
A small voice in my head is shouting, It’s not like that, Danny! He tricked you. He tricked me too. He made it seem like he cared about his kids, but he was only fighting for custody to make everyone as miserable as he was! But thinking about this sours my stomach. I can practically feel the acid eating me away from the inside. Because who cares what Mr. Werner’s motivations were? I killed him. Nothing else matters. I’m the guilty one here.
“I felt so shitty for him,” Danny continues. “I—all summer, I’ve been living off him, whining to him about my parents cutting me off, and there he was, struggling to pay everything off. He never told me any of this stuff. If he did, I would’ve talked to my parents. Apologized. Begged them to help him. But I didn’t know. And he let me stay at his place rent-free and eat his food, and all this time—” His voice cracks and he looks at his feet for a while, scuffing the grass with the toe of his shoe. “I didn’t know what to do. I took pictures of the documents in the ledger, and when I left the room, he told me he’d gotten a call from the school about Sophie, and it was all just a mess. I thought I’d show it to you so you could—I don’t know—clear your name, but then I just—I couldn’t do it.”
“But.” I’m trying to process this, but his words aren’t computing. “That night, I asked you if you found anything, and you said you didn’t.”
“I know!” His face scrunches up like tissue paper. “I’m so, so sorry, Lia. I didn’t know what to do. I sat on it.”
He sat on it. While I went and got expelled and then killed his uncle. Danny looks like he’s about to jump in the river.
“I’m so sorry,” he says.
I pull my hand away, and he doesn’t try to take it back.
“You can hate me all you want. I deserve it. But, um. After what happened to Sophie that night, I couldn’t get over the fact that my uncle’s cheating business kind of caused her death. Because she wouldn’t have gotten kicked out without it, she wouldn’t have gotten depressed, she wouldn’t have turned to drugs, wouldn’t have…” His face scrunches up and he takes in a sharp breath. “Anyway. I just thought I’d let you know that I, uh. I emailed the pictures of the ledger to Mrs. Henderson today. She called me immediately. It took a while to convince her; she seemed really certain it’s all your fault.” He pinches the bridge of his nose. “But she accepted it. Can’t really argue with the evidence.”
My mind’s a blank. No, wait, it’s not. It’s full. And what it’s filled with is rage. Yes, I still feel intense, indescribable guilt. But surging fast, torpedoing through the blanket of guilt, is anger. Because, oh god, none of this had to happen. I could’ve been free. And though I had killed Mr. Werner, I’d done so out of self-defense. Because if I hadn’t, he would’ve killed me. And all of it—every single terrifying, violating moment—was avoidable. Wouldn’t have happened if Danny hadn’t sat on information I so desperately needed.
I want to shriek into the night sky and rip the world apart.
“She said there will be a formal investigation into my uncle. The grades from Mr. Werner’s class are going to be voided. You’ll be reinstated on varsity.” He gives me a hesitant smile.
Varsity. The word shatters through the turbulence, and despite everything, it grounds me. Wrenches me out of the chaos and takes me home. Already I can feel the feel the track underneath my feet. I can smell the rubber, feel the plastic ribbon straining against my chest right before it splits. The weight of gold medals dangling from my neck.
But. But I can’t. I came here to tell Danny the truth. And the truth is—
The truth is I want to stay. I want to stay so badly, I would give anything for it. My soul, if I still had one.
I stare at him, and I don’t say anything. What happened with Mr. Werner lies thick on my tongue, waiting to spill out, and still, I don’t say a word. It was self-defense.
Danny takes my hand, and I let him. He looks into my eyes and says, “You’re safe, Lia.”
I burst into tears.
Chapter 17
I can’t sleep.
Each time I close my eyes, a cacophony of images and noise assaults me. Mr. Werner screaming my name. My own ragged breath ringing in my ears. And that horrible wet sound of the branch stabbing into his eye. I put my fingers in my ears and sing-shout a Billie Eilish song until Anya thumps on the wall and shouts, “Shut up! I’m trying to sleep!”
Yes, well, Anya, some of us are trying to shake off the trauma of their first homicide. But I stop anyway, because there’s nothing worse than a noisy neighbor. Except for a murderer as a neighbor. Though I’m thinking, at this point, Anya would choose a murderer for a neighbor, as long as she’s quiet about it.
After a while, I put in my earbuds and find the shittiest, noisiest music on YouTube. I crank up the volume until my ears are physically cringing, and then I lie there and try to let the music drown me. At some point, despite all the noise, I actually doze off.
When I awake, it’s morning. My earbuds have fallen out onto the bed. Tinny music flows out of them. I grope at my side table for my phone and turn it off. Silence. Sweet, sweet si—
“Lia,” shouts Mr. Werner.
I jerk out of bed. Breathe out. And in. Out again. Don’t think of Mr. Werner. Don’t think of that branch, sticking out of his eye. Definitely don’t think of that.
I put on my uniform carefully, making sure there are no wrinkles on my white shirt, taking the time to get my tie on just right. I wrestle my thick, black hair into a ponytail. I stand in front of the mirror and nod at myself. I look very prim and proper and not at all like someone who has just killed her teacher.
Time for class.
Except as soon as I come out of my room, I realize something’s off. I try to figure out what it is as I walk down the hallway. A couple of rooms have their doors open, and I see girls in there, just chilling on their beds, listening to music, chatting with each other. Why aren’t they getting ready for class? I walk past Elle’s room, and she and Arjuna look up at me and burst into peals of laughter.
“What’s so funny?” I snap. I really shouldn’t engage the trolls, but I’m really weirded out by the fact that no one else seems to give a crap about classes.
“The fact that you’re such a little kiss-ass that you wear your uniform even on weekends,” Elle says.