I landed in the grass, the wind knocked out of me. Air. I clutched my chest with bloody palms. Breathe. Steady. Breathe.
I had to leave before anyone found me. Had to think of a place to go, somewhere safe. But the truth was—the truth was—I wanted more than safety. I wanted…
Oh, how I wanted. I could finally confess that now, couldn’t I? Now that I was at my lowest, now that there was no use keeping the mask of indifference on, now that I had so little of myself left to protect. It was my secret shame: I wanted, I wanted, I wanted.
A woman who wanted was an ugly thing. I knew it made me childish and vulnerable. My whole life had taught me that lesson. But still. For one moment, laid out on the grass, all my ruined, pointless, pent-up wanting was too great to contain—
I threw open the doors to my heart. The pain flooded in. I’d wanted so many things and lost them all. This was the cost.
I lay on the grass and sobbed. The stars looked on, cold and unblinking.
Chapter 37
Now
I let myself remember. Let my shadow self flood me, the subterranean Jessica Miller who wanted so much, and especially the wrong things. It had been her in my dorm room, ten years ago, cutting up the pictures, swallowing the pills. Her breaking into the Student Affairs office, determined to steal back the fellowship. It had been her running to Coop, bloody and desperate, only to push him away the next day. It had been her, and so it had been me.
“What?” Coop studied my face. “You don’t remember?”
“Actually…” I shook my head, catching a glimpse of the floats out the window, the crowd growing close now. “I do. The first crime… It was me.”
Coop nodded. “You and me against the world that night.”
I had hated Heather. I’d hated her so much I’d tried to take away her fellowship, her future, the opportunity she’d carefully plotted and earned. That must be the wicked, unforgivable thing I’d done that had haunted me for a decade. That was how I’d gotten bloody, covered in cuts—escaping through the office window. Not stabbing Heather seventeen times.
I didn’t kill her. The sheer relief of it hollowed me until I felt as light as air. I almost couldn’t process the thought. I’d believed so deeply, and now it didn’t feel right to redeem myself.
I looked at Coop, and everything I felt must have been written on my face, because his eyes softened. “You didn’t hurt her, Jess. I know you. You’re not a murderer.”
He was standing so close, his lips, his eyes, the dark shock of hair, all within reach. There was suddenly only one thing I wanted, and it was the same thing I’d wanted for ten years, fourteen probably, ever since Caro pointed to him across the quad that first day and he lifted his head and looked at me.
But he loved Caro now. I’d lost my chance.
Coop brushed his hand down my arm, his fingers warm against the chill air from outside the window. His eyes were flecked with color, the patterns like twin constellations. Years ago, Coop had been a boy who’d loved me, who’d always been honest, who’d never wanted anyone else. Now he was a man who kept showing up.
A recklessness seized me. What if I was honest, this time without the alcohol? What if I betrayed Caro, became a different kind of villain… Could I have him? Was there a sliver of a chance?
I took a deep breath, filling my lungs with crisp fall air. “I have to tell you something.”
The floor trembled. The sound of approaching footsteps, pounding up the stairs like thunder. Coop pulled away quickly, putting distance between us. I had only a moment to blink at the empty air before Courtney staggered into the room, her eyes lit with victory.
“Murderer!” she shrieked, pointing at me.
Oh god.
The rest of my friends streamed in behind Courtney, sweaty and winded from the spiral staircase, their faces tight with apprehension. All of them were here—Mint, Caro, Eric, even Frankie, still in his grand marshal cape. I took an involuntary step back. It was a tribunal.
“It’s not true,” Coop insisted. “She didn’t do it.”
Caro stalked forward, kicking over a stack of old newspapers, as angry as I’d ever seen her. “Coop, what are you doing here?”
“How’d you even know where to find me?” he asked.
This time, Caro didn’t look ashamed. “I used to follow you here sometimes. I knew this was your place.”
Mint stepped up behind Caro, brushing his hair, dark with sweat, off his forehead. His eyes were the exact shade of the sky outside—except hard and cold as flint. “You both owe us answers.”
Mint’s eyes—they were his tell. He was measured on the outside, but inside, I knew he was simmering with anger.
Eric wound around Frankie and Mint, stopping next to Caro. He said nothing, but he looked hungry.
I glanced helplessly at Coop, who turned to the shattered remains of the diploma frame laying on the floor. I knew instantly what he was after. Evidence. But I’d cast it out the window.
Coop squared his shoulders anyway. “I was the one who broke into the professor’s house ten years ago and trashed it.”
“What?” Caro gasped. “Why?”
Coop glanced at me. He wouldn’t say a word without my permission. He’d stay forever in this purgatory if I asked him.
But I wouldn’t.
“Coop did it,” I said, steeling my shoulders, “because the night Heather died, I told him Dr. Garvey made me sleep with him in exchange for a recommendation letter. I applied for the fellowship like Heather, and I wanted it more than anything. But I lost, and Heather won. Dr. Garvey wrote her a letter fair and square, but for me, he…” My voice trailed off. Ten years later, I still couldn’t bring myself to say the word Coop had written across every room of Dr. Garvey’s house.
No matter—the unspoken message exploded like a bomb.
Caro gasped, hands flying to her mouth.
“I’ll kill him,” Frankie said. “I’ll fly straight to DC and kill him right now.”
Courtney’s outstretched finger, which was still pointed at me, drooped a little as she glanced around, unsure.
But Mint.
His eyes were locked on me, so sharp they cut. His face was turning red—bright, painful crimson staining his skin, creeping up his neck. He looked angry, or…humiliated.
I searched his face. He was ashamed of me. Just like I’d feared.
“When Jess told me,” Coop said, oblivious to Mint, “I was furious. I broke into Garvey’s house and hurt him the only way I could think of.” He looked at Caro. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. But I don’t regret it.”
Eric crossed his arms, the movement drawing my eyes. He wasn’t surprised. There was something else in his face—was it a flicker of pity?
“After the break-in,” he said slowly, “with that word written all over his house, Duquette administration opened an investigation into Professor Garvey’s behavior. One of his TAs—it was a Phi Delt, actually, your year—came forward and said he’d witnessed the professor having inappropriate relationships with roughly half a dozen female students. He was asked to leave, but he got the university to seal the record and stay quiet. And then he skulked off to the White House.”
Half a dozen girls? My chest ached.
“I always wondered”—Eric’s voice caught, but he pushed forward—“whether Heather was one of the girls. If that’s how, with the letter…”
Did I tell him what I suspected? Tell him she’d lied to me about one thing, unwilling to admit the lengths to which she’d gone to get the fellowship, and so she might have lied about this, too? That the truth had died with her, and he would just have to live with the uncertainty?
I looked at Eric. His jaw tensed, waiting for my answer.
“She wasn’t one of the girls,” I lied. “I promise. He didn’t touch her.”
He nodded, and there it was
—a flicker of gratitude.
“You said Garvey’s TA was a Phi Delt?” Frankie scratched his head. “I wonder who. Asshole should’ve said something way before it got to half a dozen girls.”
Eric’s voice turned bitter. “Yeah, well, you Phi Delts weren’t exactly known for your upstanding behavior, were you?”
A Phi Delt had known about Dr. Garvey. Something about that didn’t feel right. There was a connection I couldn’t quite grasp.
“You know what I don’t understand?” Mint’s eyes were cold, but his voice—his voice was low and taut, so intense it surprised me.
Fear bloomed in my chest, dampening my palms.
“Why did you go to Coop? I was your boyfriend. If Garvey…took advantage of you…why didn’t you come to me?”
Coop and I looked at each other. I could sense the storm in him. What would we say? It was the only secret left, and it was too big, too destructive, to ever speak out loud.
The silence stretched.
“Jess,” said Caro finally, her voice shaky. “Answer Mint’s question.”
I caught her eyes. Dark and beautiful, soft with pain. Caro, my best friend. Caro, who didn’t deserve this.
But I needed to do something I should have done years ago. It was much, much too late, I knew that—but for once, I was going to make the radical choice.
I took a deep breath. “Because I was in love with Coop. And I still am.”
Chapter 38
February, senior year
Mint
Mint stared at his laptop, a chill spreading over him. There it was, in black and white, the headline screaming “Housing Crash Claims Real Estate Giant Minter Group.” Just like his mother had warned: It’s coming for us like a tidal wave, and we can’t stop it. Your father made terrible investment decisions. He failed us. We’re going to lose everything.
But they couldn’t. Mint didn’t know what kind of life that would be, to go from everything to nothing. The only thing he could think of, the closest comparison, was senior year of high school, when everyone found out his mother had cheated on his father and his father did nothing—just let it happen, let her walk all over him, let the man she cheated with remain on the board of the Minter Group. When rumors spread through school that his father, a man everyone used to envy, had been witnessed staggering up the driveway outside the Blackstones’ twenty-fifth anniversary party, begging his wife not to leave him. The way people had whispered about Mint in the hallways, the way they’d laughed in the locker room. The way he’d felt. Helpless. Worthless. Humiliated. Losing everything would be like that, but worse.
The door to his room flew open with a bang, as if kicked, and Trevor Daly sauntered in. “El Presidente. Just the man I was looking for.”
Mint snapped his laptop shut and shoved it away. He forced his voice to come out even. “What’s up, Daly?”
Trevor was the last person he wanted to see right now. Not only because he was annoying, one of those teacher’s pet types nobody liked but everybody had to put up with because he was a legacy—but because Mint had hated both Trevor and Charles Smith ever since that humiliating vandalism on the East House float freshman year. Even though he couldn’t prove it, Mint knew it had been them. They’d always been gunning for him.
Trevor shut the door, which made Mint raise his eyebrows.
“I have something to tell you that’s sensitive,” Trevor explained, and Mint stifled a groan. Trevor was also a tattletale; this was probably some story about a brother skimming a few bucks off the beer fund, or something equally inane.
He planted himself on Mint’s bed and kicked up his feet. Honestly, the nerve.
Mint turned around in his desk chair and glared. “Trevor, spit it out. Sweetheart is two days away, and I have details to iron out.”
“Speaking of sweethearts,” Trevor said, with a smile Mint didn’t trust for a second, “I have some unfortunate news about yours.”
He stiffened. “Jess?”
Jess had been distant, though it was hard to pin down exactly how long it had been going on. Maybe a few months, maybe longer. He’d wanted to ask her what was going on, but it was strange, not to mention a little embarrassing, to have to beg your girlfriend to open up to you. The worst part was, she’d stopped touching him. Stopped throwing her arms around him when she saw him, stopped snuggling in bed. She’d even recoiled once when he bent over to kiss her. She’d immediately backpedaled, saying he’d caught her by surprise, but still, it was proof that something was different.
And it was starting to get irritating. Jess had adored him since freshman year—that was what had drawn him to her in the first place, the way she’d looked at him like he was the king of the world. But lately Mint couldn’t help thinking of all the girls on campus who threw themselves at him, literally begged him to take them home at the end of frat parties, when Jess had already gone to bed. He couldn’t help thinking of Courtney Kennedy, the hottest girl on campus, and the way her gaze lingered, the way her mouth curved in a smile that always felt like an invitation. As puffed-up as it sounded, he was Mark Minter, president of the best fraternity on campus, off to Columbia Law next year, heir to the Minter Group fortune—
Wait, no. No longer heir to a fortune, as of today. What would that mean about law school, about his place on campus, his place in the fraternity? His heart hammered as he thought about what the guys would say when they found out their leader had fallen. He pictured them lining the halls to point and laugh as he passed, just like in high school, but so much worse—
“Yeah, who else? Look, you better appreciate this, because I’m actually taking a big risk with my grades and my future by telling you.”
Mint refocused on Trevor. “Say what you came to say.”
Trevor made himself comfortable on Mint’s bed. “You know I’m a TA for Garvey, right?”
“That big-shot econ professor Jess is obsessed with.”
Trevor smirked. “You don’t say. Well, something you may not know about Garvey—it’s kind of an open secret for those of us in the inner circle, but, anyway—he’s a total horndog.”
Mint raised his eyebrows. “Why do I care?”
“You care because Garvey likes to hook up with his students.”
“Disturbing,” Mint said, starting to turn back to his desk. “Why would any college girl do that?”
“I’ve wondered myself,” Trevor said. “I’m sure it comes down to the power. Garvey’s been economic advisor to two presidents, probably going to be advisor to another one after his book comes out. He’s connected. Hell, why do you think I suck his dick? Figuratively speaking, of course.”
“All right,” Mint said, waving his hand, hoping Trevor would get the hint and leave.
“Man, for a smart guy, you’re really thick.” Mint could hear the satisfaction in Trevor’s voice. He swung to face him, and sure enough, the jerk was smiling. “Either that, or you’re in denial. Dude, your girlfriend is fucking Garvey.”
Mint froze. “That’s absurd. Get out of here.” He rose from his chair to tower over Trevor, but the guy didn’t budge.
“Scout’s honor. I saw it with my own eyes. Apparently she asked him for a recommendation letter, and Garvey pulled his favorite trick of asking for a dinner in return. I saw them last Friday night at Garvey’s usual spot.”
The very air seemed to waver around Mint. “Last Friday?”
“Yeah, the night of the Eurovision party. Your girl went to dinner with Garvey, and I hate to say it, but he took her home after.”
Mint fell back against the edge of the desk. “I couldn’t reach Jess that night.” He remembered: dressed in a ridiculous tracksuit, hair in a fauxhawk, dialing and dialing with no pickup. But what Trevor was saying couldn’t be true. Even if Jess was distant lately, Mint had specifically chosen her because she worshipped him, and there was no threat she’d cheat or embarrass h
im. That was the core of her value: she was loyal.
Trevor rose from Mint’s bed and started for the door. He clapped his hand on Mint’s shoulder as he passed. “Sorry to be the bearer of bad news. Figured you’d want to know you were being two-timed by an old guy, though. Pretty embarrassing.”
Embarrassing. From deep within Mint, the panic and fear, rage and indignation, all came together, sparking into a fire. It rose up, dark and terrible, licking over his skin, and he fed it until it grew into an inferno, until he was gripping the desk so hard his knuckles turned from red to white. Just like your father.
***
Mint spotted her from a hundred feet away, walking into Bishop Hall. He’d been waiting for almost an hour, expecting her right after class, but clearly she’d had other plans. The fire burned hot inside him, wanting to get out, but he held it close, jogging after her into the building.
“Jess!”
She froze and turned, face pale. She was the kind of pretty that was safe, that wasn’t supposed to give you any trouble, that was grateful. And she always had been, had adored him, practically worshipped him ever since they met freshman year.
“Hey.” Jess crossed her arms as he approached. She used to open her arms, want to hug him. “What are you doing here?”
“I had a break and wanted to see you.” Mint glanced at the other students hanging in the lobby. “Come here.” He tugged her to a couch in the corner and she sat, frowning at him.
He took a second to study her. Could she really have done it? Betrayed him in the worst, the most humiliating way? It seemed impossible. Trevor had to be lying.
“What’s up?” she asked.
“I wanted to know what color dress you’re wearing to Sweetheart so I can get a matching bow tie.”
Instead of smiling, she flinched. “Um…pink, I think.”
In My Dreams I Hold a Knife Page 24