Page 19 of All Fall Down

“I wasn’t the one who pushed Leighton,” he repeats himself.

“You said that already.” Hugo practically growls the words.

Letting the two of them work this out on their own is going to get us nowhere. I step forward until I’m nearly between the two of them, and Jameson frowns. I ignore his concern. We might not have been the ones throwing punches but we’ve been a part of the fray for a while. “Then why would someone push us? She had something on you.”

“On him?” Hugo asks, his confusion growing. He moves forward and I wedge myself further between them.

“Duchess!” Jameson calls in a low voice, but I ignore his warning.

“I overheard Leighton and Monroe talking. I thought they were discussing Jameson, but Leighton told me it was Jonas. It was the last thing she said before…” There’s no need to bring up the accident again. Hugo is revved enough already. I can’t bring myself to look at Jameson. He’d thought that I trusted him that night and then I’d questioned that at the first opportunity. Whatever Jonas had to tell us now better make up for all the damage he’d been doing this summer.

Hugo relaxes a bit as if he’s interested in this explanation, but the color drains from Jonas’s face. I can see the struggle in his eyes. There’s no doubt in my mind that he knows what Leighton and Monroe were talking about that night.

“Okay, you didn’t push us,” I say when the silence drags on. “Did you kill Nathaniel?”

Jonas shakes his head. I believe him despite the guilt written in white across his face. Apparently, Hugo does as well, because he unballs his fists. I have the sinking suspicion that whatever he’s hiding has nothing to do with us. It feels dirty and wrong to force his secrets into the open, but as long as secrets stand between us, we can’t trust each other.

The trouble is that I know what it’s like to hide out in the open. Jonas looks like a cornered animal, and I can’t bring myself to be the one who destroys him. “Then we’re done here. Whatever secret he’s keeping doesn’t affect us.”

Jameson’s head tilts in surprise as he studies me.

“You never stop surprising me, Duchess,” he whispers so only I can hear him.

But my gift of amnesty doesn’t mean that he can keep it trapped inside him any longer. Jonas slides to the ground, hanging his head to hide his face. The rest of us freeze, uncertain what to say. When he looks up to us, his face is tear-stained. No one speaks. It’s an unspoken agreement to give him the time he needs to open up to us. After a few minutes of silence, he begins.

“Monroe knows something about me. Something no one else knows. At least no one at Belle Mère Prep. She’s been keeping it a secret for a long time.”

“Yeah, she’s your girlfriend, man.” Hugo drops to the ground beside him. Could I transition from angry to supportive that quickly, even with Josie? I hope I never have to find out. Half an hour ago, I honestly thought Hugo might kill him. Now he’s practically holding his hand. Maybe he’s a better friend than I am, or maybe Hugo Roth is a better person than we’ve—okay, I’ve—given him credit for.

“I’m not sure where the story begins,” he admits.

I almost suggest he start with why he screwed Monroe at the freshman desert party but I keep the suggestion to myself. Will wonders never cease?

“We’ll listen,” Hugo says encouragingly.

Dammit, Hugo Roth really is a nice guy parading around in a pariah suit.

“Don’t worry,” he says to me as if he can read my mind, “I’m still a dick.”

“No, you’re not.” Jonas’s voice is almost wistful and the dreamy undertone deepens as he begins his story.

“Most of you don’t know my older sister. My parents sent her off to school in London not long after I turned ten. Hugo’s met her.” He pauses waiting for Hugo to nod, then continues, “There’s always been rumors around it. She was fourteen at the time, and well, you know my parents. They make Donald Trump look like a liberal. Most people believed she’d gotten herself in trouble.”

Did people still think like that? Especially in Vegas? And what did that even mean in trouble? It seems to me that half the adults I know didn’t want their own kids. Why blame a girl for getting pregnant when you did it yourself?

“She didn’t do anything. She was the perfect daughter. I was the reason she got sent away. I suppose they thought that they’d better keep their real problem child close to home.”

“But why send your sister away?” I blurt out before I can stop myself.

“I think that the main reason was because Jessica was my only ally in the house. She understood me and more than that, she sympathized. Our parents weren’t just hard on us. They expected perfection. I was their dirty little secret. Their son that liked to play with his sister’s dolls. It was easier to send the only other person that knew away. Jessica made a lot of friends there—powerful, rich friends. She’s marrying some duke or baron or something next year. I haven’t even met him,” Jonas confesses. “I guess it was better for her to go there. Sending me away would have been a reward for what my parents saw as acting out. So, I stayed here and with Jessica and her dolls gone, they shaped me into a man, by their standards. Lacrosse, soccer. Any sport imaginable. When I hit high school, they didn’t encourage me to date. They demanded it. If there was a party, I had to be there. Drinking, sex—they could forgive all my sins as long as they were red-blooded, male sins.”

As he spoke pieces of Jonas that had always been a puzzle to me began to click into place. When we’d dated, he hadn’t breached the second base barrier. Being with him had been warm and comfortable. Of course, I’d been smitten as a kitten. What girl wouldn’t have fallen for the second coming of Justin Bieber at that age? When he’d gotten together with Monroe, I assumed he’d wanted sex and she’d been a more willing participant. That’s how I’d wound up in his best friend’s bed trying to prove something to myself. But maybe Jonas hadn’t wanted to have sex with me…or her. But if that was the case, why had he?

“It was fine for a while. I had a girlfriend that didn’t mind making out, and she was nice. She never pushed me for more, and I don’t think she suspected who I really was.” His eyes stray over to mine, and I can see the silent apologies in them. “And then I screwed up, and Monroe West was there to catch me as I fell.”

“Monroe has never caught anyone,” Jameson says coolly.

“I don’t mean that she helped me,” Jonas clarifies. “She saw my indiscretion as an opportunity. She had a secret of her own, which she revealed to me along with some pretty damning cell phone photos. It was my worst nightmare but she gave me an out. She wanted the whole school to know that she was taken. All I had to do was get drunk and screw her at a party with enough witnesses.”