Page 41 of Dead Girls Don’t Forget

I faltered for half a second, surprised. “How do you know about that?”

He didn’t answer the question. His jaw flexed as he looked straight ahead, but I could feel the restrained anger rolling off him.

“Doesn’t matter how I know. What matters is you’re still going there to spar and coming out marked up like this.”

The lecture hall was half full. Jackson followed me to our usual seats and angled his body toward mine and leaned in.

“I’m going to find out who did that,” he said, quiet, just for me.

"Don't."

"Why?"

"Because it's over."

He looked at me for a long second.

"No," he said. "It isn't."

Professor Sterling walked in before I could answer. Conversations died away as everyone settled into their seats.

"Today we're covering antisocial personality disorder," he said. "ASPD. The old labels psychopathy and sociopathy are outdated, though pop culture still loves them."

A few students snickered. Two guys a few rows ahead immediately pointed at each other.

"Psycho," one of them mouthed.

Sterling asked if anyone knew the difference.

"Psychopaths generally have less capacity for empathy," I said. "Sociopaths can still form emotional attachments, even if they're limited."

"Good," Sterling said.

I wrote it down, though I'd known the answer for years.

When I was sixteen, a school psychologist suggested I had ASPD. It was after I stabbed Chad Bowman in the thigh with a ballpoint pen. He'd shoved a twelve-year-old girl into the boys' locker room, then laughed about it with his friends. I hadn't even thought before I reacted. I'd just seen red.

The psychologist called it a lack of empathy, a clear warning sign.

She was wrong. I cared too much. That had always been my problem.

A guy in the back raised his hand. "So are people with ASPD always dangerous?"

“Not at all,” Sterling said. “Roughly one in twenty-five people shows those traits. Some of history’s most effective leaders likely did.”

I kept writing. Beside me, Jackson looked over more than once. Every time I glanced up, his eyes were already on me.

When the lecture ended, Jackson stayed in his seat while I reached for my bag.

"You answered that question pretty fast."

“I’ve read about it.”

"I figured."

I looked at him. "What does that mean?"

"That it wasn't academic."