Page 18 of Make No Mistake

“I’ll be there in a second.”

“Be safe.”

His words ran through my mind on my short walk to the communications building. Did he think another attack was going to happen? In broad daylight? I made it to the office within minutes, and it was already buzzing with activity and energy.

It was normally pretty quiet at this time of day, but with the attack, people were more engaged. Our photographer was at a computer, and I could see a sidewalk and assumed that was the crime scene.

One of our opinions columnists was chatting with another girl going over possible angles. I nodded at a few people that met my eye, but I went straight to the table Jay occupied.

I say down and pulled out my laptop.

“Alright, what do we have so far?”

He looked up as if he just realized I was there. He had dark circles under his eyes, and one hand was clutching a coffee cup.

“Are you alright?”

He nodded. Exactly what I’d expected since he wasn’t really one for admitting weakness. Being the paper’s editor was a big deal, but it came with a hefty price.

“What number is this?”

I looked down at his cup.

“Three … maybe four. I lost track.”

“Why didn’t you call me sooner? If you needed help, you know I would have come in.”

“No, you need the participation points in Jameson’s class.”

I rolled my eyes but didn’t disagree. If the class wasn’t so boring, I would be there more often and wouldn’t have to sit through stupid days like today reviewing a test.

“So update me. What’s going on and why do you look like you haven’t slept in a week?”

He hadn’t looked like this yesterday, so I knew it was only one long night, but I felt bad he was carrying the burden on his own. I was an editor on the paper and should be in the know when big things like the attack were breaking. Instead, he waiting until he knew I was done with classes to call me. I bet he’d missed his morning class, but he was different. He maintained a 4.0 average, ran the paper, and was on great terms with all of his teachers.

He was basically superman and Clark Kent at the same time.

“I’m fine. I’ve just been up since one.”

“One? But you didn’t leave my place until ten.”

“Yeah I got about an hour of sleep.”

“Go home. I can take over from here.”

He shook his head and took another hearty sip of his brew. “I’ll be fine.”

I fought the urge to roll my eyes, again, and opened my laptop to take notes while he spread out papers in front of me. One stood out immediately. It was a printout of an article from the local paper. The headline read domestic dispute. I skimmed it quickly. It was stating that the girl that was attacked got in a fight with her boyfriend, and it was more of a domestic crime than a random assault.

I pushed the paper forward. “They don’t think this is actually true, do they?”

Jay glanced at the paper and ran his hands over his face and through his hair, making it stand in a hundred different directions. I wanted to laugh at how ridiculously un-Jay he looked but now wasn’t the time.

“That was a theory the school mentioned before the victim had been interviewed. They probably wanted it to be that so it didn’t mean that there was a real problem on the campus.”

I shoved the paper assigned and reached for the next one. This one mentioned sexual assault.

My heart caught in my throat. “Is this one true?”