One of Us is Lying(87)
I don’t know whether to believe her or not. “You wouldn’t?”
“No, I wouldn’t.” Janae doesn’t meet my eyes. “Not for your sake. I didn’t care about any of you. For Simon’s sake. But he wouldn’t listen to me, and then all of a sudden he didn’t need me. He knew what Jake was like, that he’d lose it when he found out about you and TJ. Simon told Jake he could plant everything on you so you’d take the fall and wind up in jail. And Jake was totally on board. He even came up with the idea of sending you to the nurse’s office that day for Tylenol so you’d look more guilty.”
White noise buzzes through my brain. “The perfect revenge for cheating on a perfect boyfriend.” I’m not sure I’ve said it out loud until Janae nods.
“Right, and no one would ever guess since Simon and Jake weren’t even friends. For Simon, there was the added bonus that he didn’t care if Jake screwed up and got caught. He was almost hoping he would. He’d hated Jake for years.”
Janae’s voice rises like she’s warming up for the kind of bitch session she and Simon probably used to have all the time. “The way Jake just dropped Simon freshman year. Started hanging out with Cooper like they’d always been best friends, as if Simon didn’t exist anymore. Like he didn’t matter.”
Saliva swims at the back of my throat. I’m going to throw up. No, pass out. Maybe both. Either would be better than sitting here listening to this. All that time after Simon died, when Jake comforted me, made me drive to a party with TJ like nothing happened, slept with me—he knew. He knew I’d cheated and he was just biding his time. Waiting to punish me.
That might be the worst part. How normal he acted the whole time.
Somehow, I find my voice. “But he … But Nate was framed. Did Jake change his mind?”
It hurts how much I want that to be true.
Janae doesn’t answer right away. The room’s silent except for her ragged breathing. “No,” she says finally. “The thing is … it all unfolded almost exactly the way Simon planned. He and Jake snuck those phones into your backpacks that morning, and Mr. Avery found them and gave you detention, just like Simon said he would. He made it easy for the police to investigate by keeping the About That admin site wide open. He wrote an outline of the Tumblr journal, and told Jake to post updates from public computers with details about what was really happening. It was like watching some out-of-control reality TV show where you keep thinking producers are gonna step in and say, Enough. But nobody did. It made me sick. I kept telling Jake he needed to stop before it went too far.”
My gut twists. “And Jake wouldn’t?”
Janae sniffs. “No. He got really into the whole thing once Simon died. Total power trip watching you guys get hauled into the station, seeing the school scrambling and everybody freaking out about the Tumblr. He liked having that control.” She stops for a second and glances at me. “I guess you’d know about that.”
Yeah, I guess I would. But I could do without the reminder right now. “You could’ve stopped it, Janae,” I say, my voice rising as anger starts to overtake my shock. “You should’ve told somebody what was going on.”
“I couldn’t,” Janae says, hunching her shoulders. “One time when we were meeting with Simon, Jake recorded us on his phone. I was trying to talk sense into Simon, but the way Jake edited things made it sound like it was practically my idea. He said he’d give the recording to the police and pin everything on me if I didn’t help.”
She takes a deep, shuddering breath. “I was supposed to plant all the evidence on you. You remember that day I came to your house? I had the computer with me then. But I couldn’t do it. After that, Jake kept harassing me and I panicked. I just dumped everything on Nate.” She chokes out a sob. “It was easy. Nate doesn’t lock anything. And I called in the tip about him instead of you.”
“Why?” My voice is tiny, and my hands are shaking so badly that Simon’s manifesto makes a rattling sound. “Why didn’t you stick to the plan?”
Janae starts rocking back and forth again. “You were nice to me. Hundreds of people in that stupid school and nobody, except you, ever asked if I missed Simon. I did. I do. I totally get how fucked up he was, but—he was my only friend.” She starts crying hard again, her thin shoulders shaking. “Until you. I know we’re not really friends and you probably hate me now, but … I couldn’t do that to you.”
I don’t know how to respond. And if I keep thinking about Jake, I’m going to lose it. My mind latches on to one small piece of this messed-up puzzle that doesn’t make sense. “What about Cooper’s entry? Why would Simon write the truth and then replace it with a lie?”
“That was Jake,” Janae says, swiping at her eyes. “He made Simon change it. He said he was doing Cooper a favor, but … I don’t know. I think it was more he didn’t want anyone to know his best friend was gay. And he seemed pretty jealous of all the attention Cooper was getting for baseball.”
My head’s spinning. I should be asking more questions, but I can think of only one. “Now what? Are you … I mean, you can’t let Nate get convicted, Janae. You’re going to tell someone, right? You have to tell someone.”
Janae passes a hand over her face. “I know. I’ve been sick about it all week. But the thing is, I don’t have anything except this printout. Jake has the video version on Simon’s hard drive, along with all the backup files that show he’d planned the whole thing for months.”