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“I have to go, sweetie,” Mom concludes quickly before hanging up.
It’s not until I’ve been excused for the day, escorted out of the school, and sitting with Chris in his car for about ten minutes that I say another word.
“Take me to North Shore High.”
“What?” he asks, completely confused. His voice is slightly raspy from not having spoken that whole time.
“Take. Me. To. N. S. High,” I repeat, pausing after every word.
“I don’t get it,” he insists.
But I do. I really do get it. Jake wanted to push me away, he wanted me to hate him and so he did the unforgivable. Is that what he was hiding from me? What he was saying I would never forgive?
The first time he mentioned that document to me, I discovered a new sort of fear. The kind I can’t control. The kind I can’tfix.And I’m a fixer. Not being able to do anything about what he held over me was torture.
But he made the torture so sweet, playing with my body, my mind, my feelings. Making me fall in love with him despite Nathan. Nathan might have turned out to be a manipulative monster, but that didn’t make Jake less of one. That’s what my mistake was all along; thinking Jake would change for me. That he would become less of a psychopath, that he would develop strong enough feelings, that he would care about me.
He doesn’t. He doesn’t care about anyone but himself. He doesn’t care about hurting me, about my mom, about ruining my life. He cares that I’m finally not in his way anymore.
He said he had deleted it, that nightmare of a file with everything my mom and I stole from the Bakers. With our last name written in red. Our own personal scarlet letters.
And hesaidhe had deleted it. It was a fresh start for us that night, finally being able to be on an equal foot. Finally falling in love with each other out of honesty. But did he? Did he ever fall in love with me? Or was he just completely set on destroying me?
I fix, he destroys.
This is so obvious to me now. We were never meant to work. Opposites can only attract when they walk the fine line of love and hate. Jake crossed that line so many times, went so far across that we’ll never come back from it.
“Jamie, talk to me,” Chris brings me back to the present.
My throat doesn’t even feel tight anymore. I have no tears to shed, I am pure fury. Rage and hatred are seeping through my veins like poison, ready to kill.
“Start driving. I’ll explain on the way.”
Until today, I would never have told Chris what Jake did. The blackmailing, the threats, the bullying. But during our thirty-minute drive to the North Shore of the Falls, while Chris speeds on the highway, I let it all out. Everything Jake did to me, everything I let him do. I try to work it out out loud, over and over again: how I could have fallen in love with him in the midst of the terror he had instilled in me.
But the worst thing is, Chris doesn’t even look surprised. He drives in silence, his fingers holding the steering wheel tighter and tighter, his knuckles getting white, his neck tensing to the point that I can see the tendons straining.
When he parks in front of the rundown building my stomach twists. The difference between Stoneview Prep and North Shore High is guilt-wrenching. The privilege I grew up in almost makes me feel sick. It reminds me that, had Mom and Dad not worked their asses off, had Dad not been promoted, this is where I would have gone to school. Funny how they wanted Aaron and me to grow up in an area where we wouldn’t be surrounded by crime. They wanted to keep us safe. Oh, the irony.
“Stay in the car,” I say as I grab the door handle. “You don’t want to leave a nice SUV unattended here.”
“I don’t care about my car, you’re not walking in there on your own. N.S. High is no fun, Jamie. People in there don’t react well to strangers walking in unwelcomed. Especially when they recently had a fight with a girl from the North Shore Crew. Besides, I’d like to talk to Jake too.”
“Chris.” My voice is brittle when I continue, “I need to do this. Just me. Without anyone’s help. Without anyone defending poor Jamie Williams. You, Em,Rose,” I still get surprised knowing this girl likes me enough to defend me all the time, “you guys are always there, always saving me. Jake gave a document to the Bakers that is going to put my mom in jail.”
It takes superhuman strength to not let the tears fall. “Injail,” I repeat in a whisper. “I was in love with him, and that’s what I got in return. I need my closure, and I need to do it alone.”
He nods at me and, to my surprise, takes me tightly in his arms. “I’ll be here, waiting for you. I got you.”
I don’t know where to find Jake, but I already know who to talk to as I walk toward the stairs that lead to the entrance of North Shore High. I don’t go to the door, but instead, make my way to the group of men that look just slightly too old to be here. I head toward the one I recognize; he sees me before I’m close enough to talk to him and gets up from the steps he was sitting on.
“Jamie Williams,” he smirks. “I love the uniform.”
I thought my drunk brain had exaggerated Xi’s hotness when I met him at that party. It hadn’t. His dark hair and bushy eyebrows contrast with his long lashes which put a sort of cuteness on his rogue face. His dark skin contrasts with the other white guys around him, making him stand out as the hot one, his hard muscles showing he’s the strong one in their group.
“Aren’t you too old for high school?” I ask as I stop in front of him. I don’t even know his age, I just know he’s older.
“I’m actually at work right now. Do you like my office?”Work.Selling drugs to teenagers? Waiting to beat up their rival gang?
