“But how could she even think that at all!” I say. I feel my face growing hot. I’m getting mad now.
“Her son had just died, Belly,” Nina says. “I’m not sure you can blame someone for anything they’re thinking in a situation like that.”
And I stop and I nod, because I suddenly remember that I’ve had the tiniest taste of what that might feel like when I thought Nina was dead, and I don’t think I’d even begun to really feel it yet.
Nina goes on. “So here was Jason’s mom telling me he was gone, and I still somehow didn’t even understand what she was saying. I kept thinking that they must have made a mistake and maybe he was just sleeping! And then finally she just said that she had to go and she hung up. My head basically exploded then and I don’t remember much of what happened for a while. I stayed at the Mothership basically catatonic until the funeral.
“It wasn’t until after the funeral was over that I started to think about some things. Like how I knew Jason would never, ever, ever, ever, ever have done heroin, and how Sean had gotten some up at school that time. And then I started thinking about how weird Sean was acting at the wake. I just had this vivid memory of him sitting next to me on the couch, rubbing my back, and telling me how he and I needed each other now that Jason was gone. And that Jason would have wanted us to go through this together. And even though I felt like something weird was definitely going on, I still couldn’t even imagine that Sean would have done what he did.
“But then something else happened. There was this girl named Jeannie who I’d met at the Mothership. She was this funny girl from Texas with a thick Texas accent and was just in town for a few days. But she was there the night of Jason’s party, and after Jason died, she came to his funeral. So she was hanging out with me at the Mothership the day after and the two of us were sitting out front and she was comforting me and I guess she had her arm around me or something. And I just remember looking up and there was Sean walking up the driveway, and he was just glaring at her with this hatred. The next day she was driving back to Texas and she got in a car accident and the insurance company investigator said someone had fucked with her brakes. Thank fucking God she was wearing her seat belt so she was basically fine, but that’s when it all finally clicked in my head. When I found out about Jeannie, I suddenly realized what had happened.”
Nina leans back in her seat. My heart is pounding. “So what did you do?” I say.
“Well, as soon as I realized what happened I went to the police. But all they said was that they’d ‘look into it’.” Nina makes air quotes with her fingers. “It was obvious that they thought I was crazy and weren’t taking me seriously and probably weren’t going to do a damn thing. So I went to his mom and stepdad and tried to explain but they wouldn’t even talk to me. Meanwhile, I was still staying at the Mothership then. I didn’t feel like I could leave or come home, I was just too messed up. Sean kept coming by to see me and finally I just hid in the basement so everyone would think I wasn’t there anymore. But then I just kept thinking about you and about Mom, and how if Sean was capable of killing his own brother to get to me, and would slice some girl’s brakes just because she had her arm around me, then what would he do to the other people I cared about the most? Wouldn’t killing you guys make me need him? And isn’t that what he wanted? So I decided the only thing I could do that would make everyone safe would be to leave…” Nina pauses. “So that’s what I did.”
She turns toward me, her eyes look wet. “I am so, so, so sorry for what you must have gone through. But I know you, Belly, and I knew if you had any idea about what was going on, you’d have insisted on trying to help me.”