The Outliers (The Outliers, #1)(21)

I shrug. “It’s important to him, I guess.” I can feel Jasper still staring at me, and I want him to stop. I want to change the subject before I start bawling my face off. “I just wish other things had been as important.”

My phone vibrates again in my hand then. I brace myself for another message from my dad. But it’s Cassie, finally. Take Exit 39C off 93. Onto Route 203. More soon.

My heart picks up speed as I type a response. Are you okay?? What’s going on?

Can’t talk now. Not safe. It’s an answer, at least. Just not the one I was hoping for.

“What is it?” Jasper asks.

“She wants us to get off at Exit 39C.” I check the GPS on my phone. “It’s about forty minutes away.”

“And that’s it? She didn’t tell you anything else?” That anger is back in his voice. He’s not shouting or anything, but it’s there. Beneath the surface. Makes me wonder how deep it goes.

“‘More soon,’ she said. And that it’s not safe to write more right now.”

“So that’s it?” he asks. “We just keep driving?”

“Do you have a better idea?”

He’s quiet for a minute. “No,” he says finally, his voice beaten down. “I do not have any better ideas. I don’t know what the hell we should be doing. Sometimes, I don’t even feel like I know her anymore.”

He sounds like me now, which I find both comforting and suspicious. “Yeah, I know what you mean.”

“I do think Cassie really misses you,” he says. “She wouldn’t admit it. You know how she is, stubborn like that.” And I do know, but it feels weird that Jasper does, too. “But she was sort of lost without you.” He almost sounds hurt or jealous or something, and I try not to be too happy about that.

“I wasn’t the easiest person to be friends with lately.” And I’d rather just pretend that’s why she and I aren’t talking. Anything else is going to lead straight back to the truth and to how little I really think of Jasper.

“I don’t know,” Jasper says. “Isn’t that what best friends are for? To hang in there when the going gets rough?”

Wait, did Cassie tell him she couldn’t deal with me anymore? Did she say that was why we’re not friends anymore? Was that the way she really felt? Because here I’ve been thinking all along that I’d drawn my line in the sand about Cassie’s behavior. That that was why we were no longer friends. But maybe the real truth is that Cassie got tired of me long ago? My cheeks flush when Jasper looks over at me like he wants to hear my side of the Cassie debacle. But I’ve gone too fast from self-righteous to dumped to talk any more about anything.

“What was your fight about anyway?” I ask, deflecting. There is still plenty Jasper is to blame for. “Maybe that has something to do with this?”

“I hope not.” Jasper sounds guilty again. “Anyway, it wasn’t even really a fight. It was more me yelling and Cassie crying.” He shakes his head, frowns. “Even while it was happening, I felt like it had to be someone else standing there in front of the Mobil station, screaming at his girlfriend. Has that ever happened to you? Where you can see yourself doing something, like, from the outside?” Jasper glances over at me. This is apparently a real question he wants an actual answer to.

“Everyone feels that way sometimes,” I say, even though I don’t like the feel of letting him off the hook for something that sounds potentially so messed up. “Anyway, I’m not exactly an expert on normal.”

Immediately, I wish I hadn’t said that second part out loud.

“Well, only an * keeps on yelling when the other person is standing there crying—no matter what she did. The crazy thing is that the whole time I was yelling, I was thinking, ‘This is the kind of thing my brother does. It’s the kind of thing my—I don’t do this.’” He shakes his head. “I never used to, anyway.”

Why is Jasper confessing this to me? It’s obviously not going to make me like him more. Unless he’s sharing this little bad thing to cover up for something much bigger and badder.

“Why were you yelling at her?” I ask. “You said she did something?”

“She’s been cheating on me,” he says, quiet and sad. “For a while now. I’m ninety-nine percent sure.”

“There’s no way,” I almost laugh. Because that is ridiculous. Being with Jasper was a total prize for Cassie. Complete validation of her worth. As much as I hate knowing that, it’s true. Why would she cheat on him? “Why do you think that?”

“A feeling.” He shrugs. “I might not be the best at reading people, but Cassie was texting somebody all the time and hiding it. But that wasn’t the only reason I lost it on her. She’s also gotten way out of hand lately. I was trying to get her to dial it back. And she freaked out. Said I was trying to control her. And I felt like, screw you, I’m trying to help you.”

“What do you mean, ‘out of hand’?”

“You know, partying and whatever,” he says.

“Partying?” I say, like I have no idea what that could mean. Like I haven’t been worried about the exact same thing.

“Cassie was getting way too wasted, way too often.”