One of Us is Lying(90)
She tries to catch my eye, but I can’t do it. She wants me to be happy and I can’t do that either. The impossibility of Bronwyn hits me like a punch to the gut: everything she wants is good and right and logical and I can’t do any of it. She’ll always be that girl in front of me in the scavenger hunt, her shining hair hypnotizing me so much I almost forget how uselessly I’m trailing behind her.
“I just want to go home and sleep.” I’m still not looking at Bronwyn, but out of the corner of my eye I can see her face fall, and for some reason that’s perversely satisfying. I’m disappointing her right on schedule. Finally, something makes sense.
Cooper
Saturday, November 17, 9:30 a.m.
It’s pretty surreal to come downstairs for breakfast Saturday morning to my grandmother reading an issue of People with me on the cover.
I didn’t pose for it. It’s a shot of Kris and me leaving the police station after giving our statements. Kris looks fantastic, and I look like I just woke up after a night of heavy drinking. It’s obvious which of us is the model.
Funny how this accidental-fame thing works. First people supported me even though I’d been accused of cheating and murder. Then they hated me because of who I turned out to be. Now they love me again because I was in the right place at the right time and managed to flatten Jake with a well-aimed punch.
And because of the halo effect of being with Kris, I guess. Eli’s giving him full credit for figuring out what really happened, so he’s the new breakout star of this whole mess. The fact that he’s trying to avoid the media machine only makes them want him more.
Lucas sits across from Nonny, spooning Cocoa Puffs into his mouth while scrolling through his iPad. “Your Facebook fan page has a hundred thousand likes now,” he reports, flicking a strand of hair out of his face like it’s an annoying bug. This is good news for Lucas, who took it personally when most of my so-called fans deserted the page after the police outed me.
Nonny sniffs and flings the magazine across the table. “Awful. One boy’s dead, another ruined his life and almost ruined yours, and people still treat this like it’s a TV show. Thank God for short attention spans. Something else’ll come along soon and you can get back to normal.”
Whatever that is.
It’s been about a week since Jake was arrested. So far he’s being charged with assault, obstruction of justice, evidence tampering, and a whole bunch of other things I can’t keep track of. He’s got his own lawyer now, and he’s in the same detention center where Nate was being held. Which I guess is poetic justice, but it doesn’t feel good. I still can’t reconcile the guy I pulled off Addy with the kid who’d been my friend since ninth grade. His lawyer’s talking about undue influence from Simon, and maybe that explains it. Or maybe Ashton was right and Jake’s been a control freak all along.
Janae’s cooperating with the police and it looks like she’ll get a plea bargain in exchange for her testimony. She and Addy are thick as thieves now. I have mixed feelings about Janae and the way she let things get this far. But I’m not as innocent as I’d thought, either. While Addy was zonked out on painkillers in the hospital she told me everything, including how my stupid, panicked slight at junior prom made Simon hate me enough to frame me for murder.
I have to figure out a way to live with that, and it won’t be by not forgiving other people’s mistakes.
“You meetin’ Kris later?” Nonny asks.
“Yup,” I say. Lucas keeps eating cereal without blinking an eye. Turns out he couldn’t care less that his older brother has a boyfriend. Although he does seem to miss Keely.
Who I’m also seeing today, before Kris and I get together. Partly because I owe her an apology, and partly because she’s been sucked into this mess too, even though the police tried to keep her name out of Simon’s confession. It wasn’t part of the public record, but people at school knew enough to guess. I texted her earlier in the week to see how she was doing, and she texted back an apology for not being more supportive when the story about me and Kris broke. Which was pretty big of her, considering all the lies I told.
We went back and forth for a while after that. She was pretty broken up about the part she played in everything, even though she had no idea what was happening. I’m one of the few people in town who can understand how that feels.
Maybe we can manage to be friends after all this. I’d like that.
Pop comes into the kitchen with his laptop, jiggling it like there’s a present inside. “You check your email?”
“Not this morning.”
“Josh Langley’s touching base. Wants to know what you’re thinking about college versus the draft. And the UCLA offer came through. Still nothin’ from LSU, though.” Pop won’t be happy until all the top-five college baseball teams make me a scholarship offer. Louisiana State is the lone holdout, which annoys him since they’re ranked number one. “Anyway, Josh wants to talk next week. You up for it?”
“Sure,” I say, even though I’ve already decided I’m not going right into the draft. The more I think about my baseball future, the more I want college ball to be the next step. I have the rest of my life to play baseball, but only a few years to go to college.
And my first choice is Cal State. Since they’re the only school that didn’t back away from me when I was down.