Sometimes I think maybe it’s still not too late. That if I can find the right words to get through to you, we will find our way back to how things were before.
But what if we can’t?
Fuck Jackson for all that came after.
Love,
Kayla
Camper and Counselor Interviews, Statements, and Posts
August 14–November 24
“I never noticed Jackson before he started hanging with Lainie and Kayla. Then it was like, Oh yeah, there’s that guy who has a thing with Lainie. I assumed he must be cool for her to be into him, but I don’t know. She could have gone out with anyone.”
“I don’t think their relationship was actually all that imbalanced. You never know what’s really going on in someone’s head, right? Or what a couple is like when they’re alone together. I’ve known lots of couples who break up and get back together and break up and get back together. We’re in high school. It’s like that. It didn’t seem weird or outrageous to me, and I don’t remember anyone saying that stuff at the time. I think people just look at it differently now because he’s dead. Once something like this happens, you only remember the extremes.”
“I never actually spoke to Jackson, but I hate him over what he did to Emma. Not the hookup, but the way he treated her after. He told the guys in his cabin, ‘She’s hot but she kisses like a fish.’ Which, first of all, what does that even mean? And second, way to be a total asshole. His friend Nitin stepped up and said, ‘Not cool, man,’ which stopped the laughter, and a few other guys backed Nitin up. Jackson said he was only kidding and Emma is great, and switched to insulting Nitin.
“It got back to her and of course she was completely humiliated. She said it was fine, but it wasn’t. I saw and heard her crying. I hated that guy. I’m not sorry.
“I’m pretty sure he was the source of those stupid rumors about Chef Beverly too.”
“I don’t want to speak ill of the dead or whatever, but what you see of Jackson on the news isn’t the whole story. Nobody’s perfect and he was just another teenage guy—he could be a real jerk sometimes, and he was pretty smug and self-centered. Or maybe that was all posturing because he was deep-down insecure, I don’t know. I shouldn’t psychoanalyze him. But the way he treated Lainie sometimes, I don’t know why she put up with it. I guess she didn’t, in the end. I’m not saying he deserved to die, that’s ridiculous. But he wasn’t some perfect saint like you’d think from the eulogies. He wasn’t even especially nice. Or, he was fine, but he was kind of a jerk to his friends—always sarcastic, and making ‘jokes’ that were really just insults—and shouldn’t your friends be the people you’re nicest to? I don’t know. I guess he wasn’t my type of person. I avoided him as much as possible, which was hard since we were in the same cabin.”
“My mom says some women like to be treated badly because they can’t see their own self-worth. That sounds like victim-blaming, but I think maybe with Lainie it was true. She seemed so confident and untouchable with everyone else, but Jackson was her weak spot. Her Achilles heel. It was like the worse he acted, the more she wanted him. Maybe she put up with his shit because on some level she thought she deserved it. Until the end. Then she just snapped.”
“This one time I saw Lainie throw a soda in Jackson’s face. Just sloshed it right at him. They were fighting about something and he started mimicking her voice, like ‘mih mih mih,’ all high-pitched and stupid, and the next second he was sitting there, dripping wet. Soda and ice.
“Everyone froze, super tense, and Kayla looked back and forth between them like, Oh shit, here we go. Then Jackson cracked up out of nowhere and Lainie did too. Someone clapped and Jackson stood up and took a bow, but . . . it could have gone very differently. They both had tempers, and honestly, they were kind of attention whores. If she hadn’t killed him, I could just as easily imagine the opposite: that he’d be the one to kill her. And if she did really do it, I wouldn’t be surprised to learn it was self-defense. There was a lot more to both of them than meets the eye.”
September 24
Dear Lainie,
The idea of you killing Jackson became a thing pretty early on. I think it started when he told us about his allergies. “So if I wanted to kill you, I should just eat a PB&J and slip you some tongue?” you joked one day at lunch.
“The kiss of death. At least I’d die happy,” he said. You two were having a good day. On again, for the moment.
“Or you could wear a cat-fur coat and rub up against him,” I said. You blinked at me like you’d forgotten I was there.
“Nah, then I’d just get itchy-eyed and snot-nosed. Maybe break out in a rash,” he explained.
“Sexy,” you said.
“That’s my middle name.”
“Weird. I wonder if we’re related,” I said. It worked. You laughed.
Sometimes I wonder if you and Jackson would have kept getting back together if I’d refused to play the third wheel—the kind that smooths out the ride and keeps the tricycle steady. I was the reliable anchor that allowed you to spin faster, faster, without worrying whether you might topple over and crash.
Maybe I should have set you loose. Been my own unicycle or whatever. But that wasn’t the way of us. And in truth, I liked feeling needed. I liked being the one you depended on, no matter what. The one you always returned to.
I played the part that was asked of me, from the start.
“So tell us about this girlfriend. Meghan,” I said the first night we hung at campfire with him and Nitin.
You shot me a look, but it was all for show. You had asked me to bring her up. You wanted to know more about her, but you didn’t want to be the one to ask.
“Randy! That’s Jackson’s private business,” you said. You blew out your flaming marshmallow and pulled off its charred-to-carbon skin.
“Sorry,” I offered.
“No, that’s okay. I don’t mind talking about her,” he said.
I looked to you for direction. You accepted the package of graham crackers from Nitin and focused on crafting your s’more. I took that as a sign to continue.
“How long have you guys been together?” I asked.
“Since the end of freshman year,” he said. “I’d had an enormous crush on her for months, but she barely noticed I existed. I did all this stuff to try to get her attention, but none of it ever worked. She just thought I was some nerdy doofus.”
“I mean, she’s not exactly wrong on that,” you said.
Jackson smirked. “Says the girl who had a whole Tumblr devoted to the Supernatural fandom.”
(Was that true? If you did, I haven’t been able to find it.) You shrugged and sucked marshmallow goo off your fingers. Jackson watched.
“So what happened? What changed her mind?” Nitin asked. He looked as invested in the story as you looked indifferent to it.
“About a month before the end of school, we got paired up for a World History project. We had to spend all this time together working on our presentation, and like halfway through the week she kind of narrowed her eyes at me and said, ‘You know, you’re a lot smarter than you usually act. If you were more like this on a regular basis, I might even give you a chance.’”
“Wow,” Nitin said. (Prediction: It will take Nitin years to make a move on whoever he falls for—like, the person will have given up on their crush and assumed he’s not interested, because he’ll be so polite and shy and also miss all that person’s signals. But once they finally get together, it will be true love forever and he’ll be the king of grand romantic gestures for the rest of their natural lives. And possibly all of eternity as a ghost. Doesn’t he seem like the type?)
“We’ve been together ever since,” Jackson said. “She’s amazing.”
Your face displayed exactly zero reaction, but I noticed a slight twitch in your hand, like the declaration made your fingers jumpy. You took a bite of s’more. The marshmallow oozed out the sides.
“Sounds serious,” I said, slow
ly rotating my stick to keep its marshmallow toasting evenly. Nitin caught my eye and smiled.
“Yeah.” Jackson stared into the flames, looking contemplative. He didn’t seem to notice his marshmallow was on fire. “In a way, this summer feels like . . . I dunno. Like my last chance at freedom or something. Not that Meghan isn’t fun. But we got serious really fast. This is the longest we’ve been apart, by far. It’s weird. Weird but good.” The remains of his marshmallow slid off and hit the ground.
If you weren’t into him, we’d have talked smack later—or possibly then—about him acting like his clearly awesome girlfriend was the rain on his parade. But you were into him. Your eyes shone triumphant.
“What’s she doing this summer?” Nitin asked.
Jackson kicked some dirt over his fallen marshmallow. Someone probably stepped on it later and made their sandals a sticky mess. “She’s in Italy. Her cousins have a place on the Amalfi Coast. So she’s not sitting around missing me, either.”
“Wow,” Nitin repeated.
You didn’t look impressed. “Oh, Italy. Everyone’s so into it, but France is a million times better. Have you been to Paris?” you asked. We all shook our heads. “Best place in the world,” you declared.
I knew for a fact you had never left the country—you’d barely left the state—but I didn’t let on. This show was not for me.
“I might go there for college,” you continued. “Whenever I’m in France, it just feels like the place where I belong.”
“You speak French?” Nitin asked. He was such a gullible sweetheart.
“Mais oui,” you replied.
“Oh là là,” I said.
Nitin smiled, but Jackson seemed bored now that we weren’t talking about him. He stood and wiped his hands on his shorts. “My butt cheeks are falling asleep on this log. You wanna walk?” he asked, looking at you.
You glanced at me to see if I minded. I kept my face as neutral as yours had been before. So you did what you wanted.
“Sure.” You reached out a hand to let him pull you up beside him. Nitin and I watched as you disappeared together into the dark.
Jackson had wanted a carefree summer, and at first you were a huge part of that. At first you were his freedom. But soon you became a threat to it. He couldn’t be free if you and he were attached.
So you pretended you weren’t. You went along with it being a fling. But it wasn’t. He knew that.
It wasn’t just a fling for him, either. And he couldn’t handle that at all. It contradicted everything he’d been trying to prove.
I think Jackson Back Home was a devoted boyfriend who worked hard to live up to Meghan’s standards, because being a good boyfriend didn’t come naturally to him. She was way above his level, and he knew it, so he constantly hustled to prove himself worthy. It was exhausting. He was scared to fail and lose her, but he was also tired. He wanted a summer of just being a selfish prick. Which meant not becoming a good boyfriend to you.
He wanted you to be hot and fun and accommodating and easy, and keep your needs and emotions to yourself. Those were the terms. And for some reason, you accepted them. You bottled yourself up in front of him, and only let things spill over in jokes, or with me.
I hated the mess he made of you. Hated how precisely he slid the knife up under your ribs to slice you open with a gesture, a comment. Hated that you handed him the weapon to do so in the first place. You kept pretending you were down with whatever, that it was no big deal and just a game to you too—which meant you couldn’t ever ask him to stop.
Even when you bickered or pouted or sort of fought back, you were playing the part he wanted you to play. The part of the girl who could have had anyone, but lost her shit over him.
I think Jackson loved the drama. That’s why he was into you in waves, his attention flooding in and out like high tide and low. Running his hands all over you, then remembering he had a girlfriend and acting like that was your fault, when in truth what he wanted was for you to beg and assure him she didn’t matter.
He wanted you to pull him back, be irresistible, so his giving in and cheating again could be blamed on you. After all, you knew he was taken. It wasn’t his fault you kept throwing yourself at him like that, swearing you understood it could never be something real. Listening to him go on and on about how much he loved her, while he was touching you. Reassuring him he was a good person because he felt tortured by his betrayal. Agreeing that what you had together existed in a separate universe from him and her. It wasn’t cheating—it was fate, and it would only last the summer.
UGH.
You played it cool, but I watched it eat away at you. It was my job to do triage while you spun and obsessed, and that ate away at me too. But your drama wasn’t about me. I was just the best friend.
When I finally convinced you to scrape up your dignity and stop letting him play this game, he turned around and made out with Emma.
Poor Emma. You’d barely even noticed her worshipping at our feet all summer, wishing she could be you. But Jackson noticed. It made her easy prey when he needed a willing target to be part of his sleazy revenge.
Jackson needed a new groping post. She leaped to volunteer.
You didn’t blame her for that—you’re not a hypocrite. And besides, she was only thirteen. You laid your wrath on Jackson, where it belonged.
It’s the one time the joke about killing him didn’t seem like only a joke.
You grumbled under your breath about wanting to slice him to pieces, and I suggested ways to make it as painful and humiliating as possible. We killed him a thousand times in our minds in gruesome, graphic detail, until you could look at him across the mess hall with Emma clinging to his side and laugh, genuinely laugh.
His deaths were a rebirth. They brought you back to you.
I thought you’d gotten over it—the worst of it, anyway. You stopped mentioning his name every eight seconds. You got swept up in your usual schemes. Your mood improved to a high that was almost manic. I caught you humming.
I should have known. But I was happy you were happy, and happy to have you back.
The next time we snuck out, you practically flew toward the dock. I stumbled on a root, keeping up with you.
“Careful,” you said as you caught me before I fell. “It’s all fun and games until somebody turns up dead.”
“Is that a rule?” I asked.
You squeezed my arm before letting go. “More like an observation.”
“It’s true that if either of us is in danger of tripping to death, it’s me,” I said. I was born clumsy.
You flashed me a grin. “Don’t worry. I’ll always catch you.”
We settled in at the dock and when I heard the sound of footsteps, I froze, afraid we were caught, but you beamed and Jackson appeared on the path, with Nitin behind him.
“Were you expecting company?” I asked, but the answer was clear. Jackson dropped beside you with a “Hey, babe” and Nitin shrugged apologetically before sitting down to close the circle. I tried to stare some sense into you, but you let all opinions except Jackson’s roll right off you.
Soon you and he slipped off down the path for some privacy. Nitin had a pack of cards and we played Egyptian Rat Screw in the moonlight, keeping our slaps light and stealth, chasing the cards whenever they blew. We completed three full rounds before you returned, and not quick ones. When I was distracted, we were evenly matched.
I was exhausted the next day. Exhausted and grumpy.
You were floating. Jackson was insufferable. I decided this time I would stay out of it. There was no use wasting my breath talking sense into you when clearly you didn’t want to hear it. I would save my energy for when he dumped you again and you needed me.
It didn’t take long.
That guy was so damn predictable. Weren’t you bored by the repetition?
Now everyone thinks they know all about how the jealousy burned in your gut until you flared up and couldn’t take it, and on the next-to-last n
ight, you killed him. Killed him for being a flirt. Killed him for choosing his girlfriend. Killed him for being careless with your heart.
Honestly, Lainie, there are nights I wish I could believe that too.
Dr. Rita found that interesting. “You’d rather believe she snapped and killed him than that he dove in shallow water and hit his head on a rock? Tell me more about that.”
“Not really,” I mumbled. “But at least it would mean she stood up for herself.”
“You see her as a victim here. First Jackson’s victim, and now a victim, a target, of the police.”
“I guess so,” I agreed, to get her off my back and be allowed to change the subject sooner. I’ve started hating talking to Dr. Rita about you. She doesn’t get it. I can’t explain you. She keeps twisting it all wrong.
Jackson was like a pebble in your shoe that for some reason you refused to shake out. That’s not being a victim, it’s making a bad choice. A temporary one. Even if you walked for miles with it, it wouldn’t destroy you. You’d be fine and forget it once the pebble was finally gone, whether you came to your senses and got rid of it or it bounced out on its own.
That’s how it should have been. You should have dumped him and kept walking.
The idea that you killed him in a fit of uncontrolled passion is laughable. Ironic, even. Because even at your most upset, you were always in control of your reactions. When you allowed yourself to rage at him, it was just that—you allowed it. You never let your guard down fully with others. Not in public, and not with Jackson. Only with me.
They got Teflon Lainie. When something stuck to you, it was because you let it. You were never unprepared or unhinged.
If you were to kill someone, it would be cold-blooded. Premeditated.
Don’t worry, I would never tell the cops that.
Haha?
Love,
Kayla
Camper and Counselor Interviews, Statements, and Posts
August 14–November 24
“Lainie killing Jackson was, like, a thing. An inside joke or something. I don’t know. I’m not sure when it started, but it happened all the time. Like, they’d be walking toward each other across the green and Lainie would cock her finger like a gun and make a clicking sound with her tongue, and Jackson would flail his arms and fall dramatically, or clutch his chest and stumble over, or act like half his face had been blown off. Or at dinner or campfire she’d lean over and say ‘bang bang,’ and he’d die. It seemed silly at the time, but it’s creepy now, looking back.”
Nobody Knows But You Page 6