“One more Manx requiring careful supervision or who knows what he’ll pull.”
“Jackson, stop!” She shakes her head, shakes herself (temporarily) out of mourning the loss of her delusional take on Don, looking more furious than I’ve seen her for a while—even at me. “You got exploited because of your last name. Assumptions were made. . . . But listen up.” She’s right in my face. There’s no way to avoid listening up. “You were trying to save me, and Don, and yourself, and this poor little girl. Are you hearing this, Jack? I spent seventeen years with Art, and you’re not like him.”
I wish I believed her.
“I have your future in an iron grip,” she says. This I believe. “Don’t try to throw it out again.”
Thus the heavy labor to pay for my sins. But there’s no way to make up for what I did to Nicolette. Stuck in my head forever is the image of her giving me that heartbroken last look.
Then Esteban Mendes, who had his arm around her, said, “You come near her, you’re dead. You call her, dead. You text, you get a sock puppet to send her a text—dead.”
He said this within the hearing of the police, his lawyer, Nicolette’s lawyer, my lawyer, and my mom. They kept looking at the little pink case he was carrying, the one holding Nicolette’s dog, Gertie, and they didn’t take him seriously. As for me, by the third time the man got to the word dead, I believed him.
Don isn’t even in much trouble—for him. He’ll be in Witness Protection prison before being released into the world someday with a new identity. Years from now, my mom and I can meet up with him at a secure, secret location. My mom will go. I won’t.
College is weird but good. I live in the Mercer freshman dorm with a roommate and a resident advisor named Bonnie we’re supposed to take our troubles to. My roommate paints his face for basketball games and puts a sock over the doorknob when his girlfriend is there. As far as I can tell, they go at it with face paint on.
I walked on to the crew team. The coach was pissed I hadn’t shown up in the fall, but he wasn’t going to turn me away. I train harder than anyone. I’m still programmed to go for the fastest time, the highest A, the most outstanding honors.
I might have to get an apartment pretty soon, though, before I bang my head against the dorm room wall so hard, I end up staring down the guys in the next room over and then having to go work through my aggression with Bonnie the RA.
I don’t hold out much hope that I’m getting Nicolette back. She got her real life back, and I was never in it. I keep trying to think of ways to show her I’m a different guy. That now I’m the guy who, when his brother tries to dupe him into killing her, says, Are you fucking insane? and calls the FBI—not the guy the police want to sic a big, hovering eye on.
But why would she believe this? How would I prove it?
Hey, Nick, look at me. I’m through the first three months of my first semester of college with a 3.8, and I haven’t once tried to kill anybody? I’ve returned from the dark side, and now I’m into college sports?
Why should she trust me? I don’t trust me.
But I’m planning to get there.
I’m planning to get there, risk my life to walk past her dad and, if I survive that, talk to her: I get what I did to you. I’m sorry. I love you.
Nicolette Says
Now that it’s officially behind me, I can breathe. The untrue story of what happened is such old news, nobody even wonders anymore.
Anytime I get slightly upset, people think I have PTSD. They make me sit down, and they get me a glass of water and a doughnut.
(I say, “Oh no, it’s a frosted doughnut from my hideous past. I’m having a flashback.”
Jack says, “Shut up and eat your frosted doughnut.”
Jack so gets me.
Almost.)
I was a perfect, pure girl for six months.
No infractions.
No detention.
No back talk.
I sent the real Catherine Davis a thank-you card. (Plus her license and four hundred dollars.) For Luna, eight honest words. “I’m safe. Thank you for taking me in.”
Steve finally relented about Jack. It took a while, but how could he miss that Jack was trying to save me? And that I would never give up.
Five seconds later, I’m on the green burner. I’m pretty sure Jack’s crying. God knows, I am.
Jack says, “Before you say anything, I love you.”
I say, “You better. I’m not loving some guy who doesn’t love me back.”
I’m safe.
Jack’s safe—he doesn’t even know how safe.
We’re all safe, and it’s all kind of over.
Steve says I ought to thank my lawyer for the story of what happened. The one that got me back into Cotter’s Mill Unified High School and straight onto homecoming court. Treated like I was a kitten that got rescued from a drainpipe.
The fake yet useful story.
Which is, Jack Manx has self-control and I don’t.