Aftermath(62)

A few minutes pass before her footsteps recede.

I want to call Gran. I want to talk to someone who will believe me. But I can’t bring my grandmother into this. While I’ve been doing my daily calls – to her and Mom – I haven’t mentioned any of what’s been happening. They don’t need my problems on top of their own.

I check my phone. Jesse asked me to text when I was done, presuming my talk would take longer than his, but…

I look at the clock on my phone. Nope, mine didn’t take long at all.

I do have a message, though. From Tiffany.

Tiffany: Can we talk?

I hesitate, but I don’t want to be too quick to text Jesse, in case I interrupt his conversation with his parents, so I send Tiffany a quick: What’s up?

My phone rings twenty seconds later. I sigh. While I really didn’t want to tie myself into a phone conversation, I can’t pretend I’m away from my phone mere moments after texting her.

I answer, and she says, “I’m sorry.”

“About what?”

There’s a pause, and I get the feeling she’s been anxiously awaiting my reply so she can apologize, and now she’s confused. But she’s not the only one, and I’m racking my brain to figure out why she’d be apologizing.

“I’m sorry that I didn’t speak up with Mr. Vaughn,” she says. “Jesse had your back, and I didn’t.”

“That’s fine —”

“It’s not. I know you didn’t post that video. Instead of saying so, I got on Jesse’s case, and he didn’t deserve that. I’m sorry.”

“Okay.”

“It’s not okay, Skye. I’ve been a bitch to him, and I’ve been weird about you guys getting back together. I kept telling myself that I must sense an ulterior motive. I finally realized that’s not it at all. How does the cliché go? It’s not him, it’s me.”

Before I can speak, she continues, “Jesse stood by you. That’s what a friend does. Stands with you. Doesn’t hide in the newspaper room while you get chewed out by a VP for something you didn’t do.”

“It’s —”

“I don’t like Jesse because he’s a reminder of the shooting,” she blurts. “Of the fact that my boyfriend killed his brother, and I should have seen it coming. There must have been signs with Isaac, and I missed them and Jamil died, and if Jesse’s messed up, that’s why. Because of something I failed to do.”

“You didn’t —”

“But I feel that way. Right or wrong. Isaac was my boyfriend. I knew he had issues, and I —”

She takes a deep breath. “I was glad when Jesse went to Southfield. One fewer person in the halls to remind me. I already had to see Chris and Owen and others. That was hard enough. Maybe that’s why I don’t care for Chris. In his case, I do get the feeling there’s more to it – he’s too nice, too smooth, and it rubs me the wrong way. And Owen?”

Another deep breath. “Owen was my softball coach the year of the shooting. He had a crush on me, and I thought he was cute, and after the shooting that was just… awkward. But this isn’t about Owen. Or Chris. It’s about Jesse, who has never been anything but nice to me. I feel like he’s another victim, like Isaac and Harley took a good, brilliant kid and wrecked him.”

“Jesse isn’t wrecked. He’s having problems, but he’ll be okay.”

“I didn’t mean – Anyway, that’s my apology. And it’s not just empty words. I’m going to fix this. With the newspaper and with Mr. Vaughn. I’m going to prove you and Jesse didn’t do anything.”

“You don’t need to —”

“I know the newspaper system better than anyone, and I have a few ideas. I’m going to work through them and let you know what I find.”

Jesse

Jesse lies on his bed and stares at the empty walls. His shelves are almost as bare – he prefers to keep his belongings in drawers.

He remembers the first time he walked into Skye’s old bedroom. It looked like the set of a teen movie. Every wall was papered with posters and dog-eared comic-book sketches. Every shelf crammed with books. Even the perimeter space on those shelves was lined with figurines and toys and shells and rocks and whatever else had caught her eye.

That’s what it seemed like to him – that she’d just dumped all this stuff and forgotten it. Which wasn’t the case at all. The comic-book sketches were Luka’s, rescued from the trash when he wasn’t looking. The toys had been childhood favorites. The shells and rocks came from vacations. The figurines were from her favorite TV shows and movies. Even the posters had significance, not just “an ATF poster” but one from a performance in Australia that she and friends had stayed up all night to watch live.

Skye’s room said, “This is me.” And he loved poking around and asking about stuff. She had stories for everything, right down to a shell the size of her pinky nail.

While he envied her crazy room, he didn’t try to emulate it. He liked to store his things away, neatly. But he declared he might hang a poster or two. Yes, he might do that.

He didn’t, of course. Then came December, and Skye asked if they celebrated any holidays, and he said that, besides Eid, his parents recognized the secular side of Christmas, with Santa and gifts and a family meal. So on Christmas Eve, she gave him a present. Two posters. One from the first ATF album they’d listened to together and one from their favorite Doctor Who episode. He put them up that night.