“You really want to have that fight now?” I asked. “Are we supposed to drop you off somewhere?”
“Oh, I have no problem having that fight in front of all of you. And I’m sure he’s got things to tell us that we’d all like to know. It’s just a question of where it should happen.”
“My house is out,” Alex said. “Parents are home, and I don’t think they’ll leave us alone if there’s going to be a lot of screaming.”
“How about that place we met up last time?” I asked. “After Walmart? It’s not too far from here.”
Justin texted Mark to meet us at the Bayview Diner and got a beep back quickly. He read it and laughed. Well, it was more of a sardonic chuckle. “He’d rather be alone. As if. Come on, let’s go.”
“What if he doesn’t come?” I asked.
“Then we’ll eat eggs, talk about what an asshole he is, and decide what to do about Ms. Davenport. All this anger is making me really hungry.”
“Works for me,” Raj said.
I was surprised to find that I was hungry too. And I knew Alex still wanted to kill Justin, though I wasn’t sure what that would do to her appetite. I started the car back up and headed for the diner. It looked exactly the same as we’d left it; we even had the same waitress.
Mark walked in as we were looking at the menus. “Justin, what am I doing here with these people?” he asked, as if we weren’t even there.
“Nice to meet you, too,” Alex said.
“Just sit,” Justin said, and Mark did.
We were off to a great start. I put down my menu and looked over at him. Now that he was sitting here, I had a vague memory of seeing him around school, though I’d thought he was a student. He had messy dark hair but was clean-shaven and wearing a button-down shirt with a T-shirt underneath. The T-shirt had a cartoon on it. The whole outfit didn’t really add up, but he didn’t look like a teacher, that was for sure.
“The way I see it, you’ve got some things to say that all of us want to hear,” Justin said.
“This is between you and me,” Mark said.
“Not even close,” Alex said.
“Look, I helped you guys,” Mark said. “You got a picture, right? You guys basically own me now. Isn’t that enough? Can I please just go talk to Justin alone?”
“You’re right that we own you.” Even just hearing the words come out of my mouth made me feel powerful. It was an unfamiliar feeling, and I liked it. “Feels pretty terrible, doesn’t it? Now you know what we’ve been going through.”
“As if I didn’t already? You think I was doing this on my own?”
“It’s possible,” Justin said. “And we don’t even know the extent of ‘this’ yet.” He made little air quotes with his fingers.
“Don’t you know me better than that by now?” He was looking only at Justin, his tone and his eyes both pleading.
“I thought I did. Now I’m not so sure.”
Mark sat up straight in his chair and looked off to the side. He seemed to be working something out in his head. “If you’re not sure, then I guess I have to convince you.”
“Exactly,” Justin said. “Start talking. Don’t leave anything out.”
“How much do these guys know already?”
“Enough.”
The waitress picked that perfectly inopportune second to come back and take our orders. We ordered pancakes and omelets and coffee, so much food I think we even impressed the waitress. “Late-night snack, huh? You kids and your metabolisms.”
“Nothing for me, thanks,” Mark said.
“He’ll have a water,” Justin said. “Wouldn’t want you to get a dry throat, from all that talking.”
“Message received,” Mark said, as the waitress walked away.
We waited for him to start, but he was looking off to the side again. Thoughtfully, though, not like he was avoiding us. I didn’t know Justin that well, but Mark didn’t seem like his type at all—he was much quieter, lower key. But maybe that was it; maybe Justin needed someone like that, to balance him out.
“First, I just want to say that I never meant for any of this to happen. Especially not to you”—he looked over at Justin, whose expression didn’t soften at all—“but not to any of you. I didn’t mean to get in a relationship with a student, though I’m not sorry about that at all—”
“Maybe you should be,” Justin said.
“Come on,” Mark said. “Just let me apologize. Yes, I get that getting together with Justin opened the door to Samantha’s blackmail—”
“Samantha?” Raj asked.
“Ms. Davenport,” I said. So we had it. Confirmation that she was Blocked Sender. I started to feel sick. Ordering food had been a mistake.
“But I never meant for any of this to happen. You have to believe me.”
“Enough with the excuses,” Justin said. “Just tell us the story.”
“Okay,” Mark said. “Here goes.”
24.