Expelled(49)

“Knitting is a great way not to think,” Sasha explains. “It’s repetitive and dull, which makes it calming. And also there are absolutely no terrible consequences in knitting. For one thing, who cares if you screw up a stitch, or a row, or the entire sleeve of a wool sweater? It’s just not a big deal. And for another, you can always fix it if you want to. You just unravel and start over. In very few other times or activities can you simply undo your mistakes.”

She pushes the scarf closer toward me. I touch it lightly. It’s impossibly soft, and I kind of can’t believe she made it for me. I wonder how many hours it took, how many times she thought about being sorry for lying.

“If you put it on,” she says, “that means you forgive me.”

“It’s hotter than an oven in this kitchen, and I just sprinted two miles, and you want me to put a scarf on?”

She nods. “Then I’ll know that everything is okay.”

I wait for another minute and then I pick up the scarf. “Everything isn’t okay,” I say. “Not yet. And anyway, you hate that word.”

“But you forgive me.”

I can’t help but smile at her. “Yeah, I guess I do.”





47


“Are you sure you want the hash?” Danny, who works the Hamburger Inn fryer, asks Jude skeptically.

“Jude,” I whisper, “that’s the guy who’s making the food—isn’t that, like, a warning flag?”

Jude ignores me. “Yes, please,” he says. “I would like the hash, with a side of more hash.”

“Oookay,” Danny says. “If you say so.”

I order a stack of pancakes, and Sasha sticks with coffee.

“So are you ready for the news?” I ask. “Jude, turn on your camera.”

Jude grumbles as he does so. “I’ve been ready since you texted me last night. I don’t know why you couldn’t tell me whatever it was then.”

“I wanted to tell you guys at the same time,” I say. “Since we all got into this together, I thought maybe we could all get out of it together.”

“Get out of it?” Jude repeats. “What do you mean?”

“I mean I know who posted the photo,” I say.

Jude slams his hand on the counter. “Then spit it out!”

I take a deep breath. “Parker did, with Jere-seven-my’s help.”

Jude’s already halfway off his stool. “I can’t kick Parker’s ass, but I bet I can take Jere-seven-my,” he says.

I reach out and grab his arm. “Hold on,” I say. “Don’t you want to know why?”

Jude sits back down. “Yes. Yes, I do. Tell me.”

I look over at Sasha—she doesn’t look that surprised. Or maybe the better way to put it is that she looks like she’s not even here. Like her thoughts are a thousand miles away.

“Earth to Sasha,” I say.

She turns and blinks at me. “I’m listening,” she says flatly.

“It was Parker’s exit plan,” I say. “He didn’t like his jock life, but he was too much of a pussy to admit it.”

“I don’t understand at all,” Jude exclaims. “What’s not to like about being Parker Harris?”

Then Danny shoves the plate of hash in front of him, and Jude looks at it in alarm. “Although who knows?” he says, pushing a fatty lump with his fork. “Maybe it’s just really tough not being able to figure out what a cravat is.” He snickers at his own joke.

“According to Parker, he has much bigger problems,” I say. Then I explain to them how his dad was living vicariously through him. How Parker hated football but couldn’t break his dad’s heart by quitting. How he couldn’t even get kicked off the team when he tried. “And”—I pause for effect—“he was basically forced to take steroids.”

“No shit.” Jude whistles under his breath. “No wonder he had that eight-pack on his stomach.” He puts down his fork. “This is crazy, Theo. This is huge. The climactic ending to your movie. Like in The Usual Suspects, when you realize at the end that Keyser S?ze was behind everything. But it’s not just Parker who’s the guilty one. It’s his dad and the coach and maybe the rest of the team…” Jude frowns. “I guess there’s kind of a lot of bad guys.”

“I never suspected Parker until recently,” I admit. “He always seemed too dumb to be that devious.”

Jude flexes an unimpressive biceps. “Do you think you and I together could take him out? With an assist from Sasha? I bet she fights dirty.”

“I don’t think trying to kick Parker’s ass is the answer,” I say. “Plus I already punched him.”

Jude’s mouth drops open. “I would have paid top dollar to see that,” he says. “Why didn’t he hit you back?”

“How do you know he didn’t?”

“Because we’d be having this conversation in the hospital, duh,” Jude says.

Sasha still hasn’t said anything. I turn to her. “What are you thinking?” I ask.

She looks down into her steaming mug. “I think this coffee is probably the worst coffee I’ve ever had in my entire life.”