“Jackson—”
Jackson stands up, talking under his breath, his words weaving into one another like a hiss as he tries to ensure that Doug can’t hear him. “Columbus’s mom is the district solicitor, and he’s a black athlete from a rich family. If the cops find him, he’s fucking done for. Get the hell out of here.” His eyes find mine. “All of you. Tristan, you need to drive. I don’t want them catching anyone else driving your car. Get me?”
I turn away, dialing. My hand is shaking violently. “Nine-one-one, what’s your emergency?” the operator asks me.
I take a breath to answer, but Jackson jerks the phone out of my hand. “I need an ambulance,” he says into the receiver. “Cawood Road, where it meets the river.”
Tristan grabs on to Columbus, pushing him toward the car as he continues to cry. “Let’s get the hell out of here,” she says, keeping her voice even.
Columbus climbs into the backseat and Tristan into the driver’s side. I’m watching the two of them and watching Jackson, who is crouched next to Doug on the phone and Jackson and Doug look so sad and I think I can’t leave him, so I turn to Tristan and say, “Go without me.”
“Are you out of your mind?” she demands of me.
My eyes flash as I turn back toward Jackson. “You better get out of here.”
She waits for half a second more before swearing loudly and taking off. The music is still blasting from the speakers.
Jackson looks up as the taillights get smaller in the distance, sees me, and says, “What are you doing?” Then to the lady on the phone: “No, no. Yes, ma’am, I’m listening,” he continues, trying to keep his voice calm.
I ignore him, crouching next to Doug. “Doug? Sorry, Jackson is on the phone,” I say, staring down at his beaten face. “Can you hear me? Stay with me, Doug.”
“Only need a nap,” he mutters. I grab on to his hand and hold it.
“Maybe later,” I say instead. I don’t know what I’m doing, but my dad watches quite a few emergency-room shows, so I try to do what it seems like they would. “Tell me something. Tell me something you like,” I say.
“The twins,” he says. “My sisters. When they sing.”
I have no idea what that means, but it seems like a good direction to go in. “What do they sing?”
“Christmas songs,” he tells me. “No matter if it’s one hundred degrees outside.” He squeezes my hand back. “Thanks,” he says. “Fucking Columbus.”
“They’ll be here in five minutes,” Jackson says over my shoulder, phone still pressed into his ear. It’s not long after that we hear the sirens approaching. As soon as they arrive and get to work on putting Doug on a stretcher, they’re asking us questions. “What happened to him?” the EMT asks. She’s a tired-looking girl in her twenties.
Jackson answers, “He fell off the back of a car.”
“What car?” she goes on, watching Doug as she works.
“I don’t know,” Jackson lies.
She glances up at him with a face that says she’s heard it all. But when Jackson climbs into the back of the ambulance with Doug, she doesn’t protest. They let me sit in the front seat.
They wheel Doug away from us when we get to the emergency room. Jackson and I sit side by side in the waiting room, and it’s a while before he looks at me. I don’t look back but I can feel his eyes burning into me.
“You need to go home,” he says after a moment passes. “Somebody, I don’t know who, but eventually, somebody is going to come ask me what happened and I’m going to have to lie. I assume you don’t want to be part of that so … You need to go home.”
“You’re going to take the fall?” I ask, my voice already prepared for an argument.
“Don’t say it like it’s noble or something. I never should’ve let them do it. I’ve always known something like this was going to happen.” He leans forward onto his legs, running his hands over the back of his head. I can feel my anxiety spiking. “And you were going to do it.” His eyes find me again. “Doug’s family can’t afford this shit.”
There’s something interesting about him, then, I think. He’s not crying exactly and I’m pretty sure he won’t, but his casual confidence is gone. He looks lost.
I hate that it gets under my skin.
I hate myself for hating it. This is bad.
I try to keep my voice even. I’m not going to touch him because I don’t do that. I’m just going to speak in calm tones and that’s going to make it all go away. “I don’t understand you,” I say.
“I can’t do this right now,” he says, jiggling his leg up and down violently.
Fine. So I don’t touch him exactly—just put my hand on his leg to hold it still.
“Nell,” he breathes.
“I didn’t think you cared about anyone but yourself.”
His leg jerks ever so slightly so I squeeze it.
“Doug and Columbus and Tristan,” I keep on. “I guess you do.”
He does the thing I don’t want him to do. Like he needs an anchor to hold on to, his fingers creep on top of mine, snaking between them. I can feel my heartbeat all over me.
“I never thought you’d be like this.” I flip my hand over so he can really have it and he grips it like a lifeline, holding it against his leg, his eyes trained on the floor. “You work so hard to act like you don’t give a shit about anything or anyone. Why? Isn’t it exhausting?”
“Am I supposed to trust everyone? Everyone I meet wants to use me,” he mutters. “Doug and Columbus and Tristan know me. They won’t sell me out for a couple of days in the Cedar Woods spotlight. There’s no reason for them to try and get close to me because they’ve proved they aren’t trying to get anything from me again and again. I just—” He lets go of my hand suddenly then, his eyes catching on something on the other side of the room. He shoots up out of his chair, standing straight as a man in khakis approaches us. Mr. Hart.
They could be twins, their height exactly the same. Their matching eyes, perfectly straight noses.
“What are you doing here?” Jackson asks, shedding the vulnerability as fast as it came on.
Mr. Hart glances at me, categorizes me as an unimportant accessory, and turns back to Jackson. “Unlike you, some people know well enough to get in touch with me when something happens. The officer who got the call is a friend of the family and gave me a heads-up. And now we’re going home.”
“I’m not leaving until I hear how Doug is,” he tells his dad, his jaw set.
“A suggestion for you, son,” Mr. Hart says in a way that makes it clear it’s not a suggestion at all, “act like you have some sense.”
I feel more than see Jackson’s gaze on me then. He balls his hand up into a fist at his side.
“I’m already going to have to pay Rivera’s hospital bill to get you out of this. Don’t act like you didn’t know I would. He practically lives with us.”
“You enjoying this, Dad?” Jackson says through clenched teeth. But, when I think he’s finally going to lose it, he laughs instead. “You know what? Maybe I did it on purpose.”
“Because your mission in life is to give your mother a heart attack?” Mr. Hart asks, his voice steadily rising.
“Oh, fuck you,” Jackson says, but I’ve seen him build the fortress back up. All his walls are in place. His stance is a challenge. Like never before, I see the two halves of one whole that make him who he is. “Where were you tonight?”
“We’re going,” Mr. Hart says. “It’s not a negotiation. And if it was, I’d still fucking win. So go get in the car and shut the hell up. You,” he continues, pointing at me. “Who are you? Actually it doesn’t matter, you have to come, too. And you can both thank your lucky stars that I heard about this before anyone else did.”
Jackson holds his dad’s gaze. I’m sure he’s not going to relent, but then his shoulders fall ever so slightly and I see the surrender below the surface. “C’mon, Nell,” he says, his voice sharp, “we’re going.”
Jackson
is walking aggressively fast and I have to use every inch of stride my long legs can give me as I follow him out of the waiting room. He pulls open the back door of a black Escalade and walks around to the other side of the car without a word. I get the hint.
Anger is radiating off Jackson as his dad climbs into the front seat of the car. Mr. Hart cranks the engine. “Where do you live?” he asks, and I realize it’s directed at me.
I give him the address in my smallest voice. I don’t like authority figures talking to me like I’m insignificant—like I’m nobody. It’s everything I’m constantly trying not to be.
It’s twenty minutes before we pull up in front of my house. I realize my car’s still at the school. Not sure how I’m going to explain that to my mom.
I get out of the car and don’t look back.
Well, only once.
18
My phone is buzzing when I get out of the shower after volleyball practice the next day. I’ll take you to get your car.
I stare at the number. Even though I deleted all the texts he sent me before, it’s not a hard mystery to unravel. How is Doug?
Fine. He went home last night. Let me take you to your car.
Lia took me to get it this morning. Practice.
In fact, Lia had quite a few words for me after I didn’t show up for dinner last night.
Then let’s go do something.
Mom is knocking on my door then. I throw on a pair of cutoffs and a volleyball T-shirt. I pull open the door, shaking my hair out of my face.
She strolls into my room like she owns the place. Which I guess she technically does. I throw my towel into the hamper. “What are you doing today?” She gives my casual outfit a look of distaste.
“Going out,” I say, because that sounds like something I could be doing.
“With who?”
“Lia.” The lie rolls off my tongue without a thought. I don’t know what Mom would say if I was doing something with Jackson, but I probably don’t want to find out.
“You still thinking about doing some volunteering this summer?” She puts some of my clothes away, and I wish she wouldn’t. It feels invasive at the moment. “I know you were going to just focus on volleyball for a couple of weeks, but I think it would be good for your résumé.”
“Sure,” I say, trying to escape.
“Where were you last night?” She’s looking point-blank at me, through me. I know she knows. I came barreling in late and threw an excuse about where my car was over my shoulder at Dad. I was tired. I went to Lia’s and we went out to dinner and we figured it was stupid to go back and get it tonight since we had volleyball first thing in the morning. Blah blah blah. Dad didn’t ask questions.
I sigh. “I was out with some people from school. And someone got hurt.”
“Doug Rivera went to the hospital, you mean,” she tells me. She crosses her arms over her chest. “Why were you there?”
“Lia thought I needed to unwind and a couple of people from school were hanging out. Honestly, it just escalated. Everyone was having fun and then it went wrong.” I hear how absurd it sounds coming out of my mouth. If I were listening to me right now, I’d think I was full of shit. And I see the way she sees me, like someone not smart enough to know better. “I’m sorry,” I say, and then almost wish I could take it back.
“I know you are.” She closes one of my drawers. “That could’ve gone really badly.”
I push my fingernails into my palms, knuckles tight. “Is this about the rankings?”
She looks down, and I swear I really feel like I know her in that moment. “You have an entire school year, Nell. I’m not worried about it.” But I can tell she is. Me losing to Jackson Hart would be the end of her world. That’s why she was brought to Prep to begin with—to break down the culture people like Jackson produced. To see girls’ names on the rankings list and start shattering all the barriers between us and them.
My phone buzzes and I glance down at it.
I’m down the block.
I stow my phone in the pocket of my shorts. “I’ve got to go,” I tell Mom, half apologetically.
“Nell,” she says, right as I’m about to pass her. I stop so we’re side by side, me going one way, she the other. “Be smart,” she finishes.
I head down the stairs and out the front door, hustling the two blocks to where Jackson’s truck is idling. I jump in. He turns down the music and drives.
“You look wound up,” he says after a moment.
Well. That’s reassuring. “Mom knows I was with y’all last night,” I say.
He nods, pulling to a stop at the exit of our neighborhood. Cold air is blowing from his AC, embracing me like an old friend. “What do you want to do?” I ask him. “We could run.”
He sighs. “Nell, I cannot go running today. It’s over one hundred degrees, and I’m not built like you. I can’t.”
I lean back against the seat, tilting my head up toward the roof. I love when he admits I’m better than him at something. “Let’s do something fun, then.” I don’t remember the last time I said that and wasn’t referring to something involving volleyball. “What do you think?”
He grins at me from the driver’s side. All traces of last night are gone. “I have an idea.”
Twenty minutes later, Jackson is walking backward with both hands around mine, tugging me into a bar on the water.
“This is a terrible idea,” I say.
“Of course it is,” he returns. “That’s why you have to do it. Come on, Becker, live a little.”
“Why do you think this is fun?” I ask him as he drops my hands, and we walk up the steps of a deck and into the bar.
He holds the door open, mostly, I think, so he can hold my gaze. “It’s nice to play pretend sometimes. That I’m older. Free. Just another twentysomething wishing his life away.”
“Yes, we’re terribly mature,” I say, and he laughs. I stop just inside the door and take in the scene. For a restaurant that clearly allows underage drinking, it’s not so bad. The wood is old but looks like it once could’ve held some grandeur. The back area opens onto a huge deck on the water, trees shading it invitingly. There’s all sorts of signed memorabilia from local sports stars and older musicians posted up on the wall. Love Raven’s. And thanks for the best Manhattan this side of the Mason-Dixon. I allow myself to be pulled to the bar.
“Look, this is a controlled environment,” Jackson responds smartly. “We’re not going to do anything stupid. It’s just me and you and a whole lot of forgetting we’ve got to do.” He raises his chin toward me. “Don’t I at least owe you that?”
I stare back at him. “I guess you do.”
“So, Nell Becker,” he says, sitting down in a stool and waiting for me to sit beside him. “Let me buy you a drink. A real cocktail, like the rich kids in movies.”
He’s giving this big, exaggerated performance and I’m unsure whether it’s a show. I eye him warily. “I don’t trust you.”
His eyes light up. “This is brand-new information. Why don’t we make a drinking game out of it? Every time you doubt my intentions, we’ll drink.”
“There’s not enough alcohol in the world,” I tell him, and he laughs like what I said is really and truly funny.
“Okay, then let’s drink and we can both pretend we’re someone else.”
“Who would I be in this scenario?” I ask, watching him carefully. “Someone more like Tristan, do you think?” I think back to the Jeep—to that moment I found something so appealing in her. She’s the cool girl—certainly too cool for the straitlaced girls of Prep—but she doesn’t care what any of us think of her.
“Not in a million years. No, look.” He leans into the bar. “You’re in college studying abroad in some generic European country and you have no responsibilities. I’m, like, I don’t know, some uptight recent college grad who goes to work every day who’s replaced feeling anything with money and a drug problem.”
“Unlike now?” I ask him.
“Fine.” I hit the bar. “Let’s do it. I don’t want anything gross.”
He throws up his hand. “Well, now I have no idea what to order. Lois!” he calls out, cupping his hand over his mouth. A woman who has to be in her sixties with bushy white hair haloing her face and tattoos up and down her arms comes over, laying out two napkins in front of us. “My friend here wants something not gross. Any chance you could oblige?” I bristle at the word friend.
Lois inspects me with a neutral face. “You been talking shit about my bartending, Hart?” she asks in a pack-a-day voice.
“Lois, if I didn’t talk shit about your bartending, I would be lying, and I know how you feel about that,” Jackson returns.
Lois’s eyes smile. “Where’s the rest of them?”
“Exclusive Tuesday. This is Nell,” Jackson tells Lois. “She needs to be eased into all things fun as she is not very familiar with the feeling.”
I give him a look.
“I got what you need,” Lois says smartly. And then she turns to the bar and starts dumping ice into a glass.
“So, is that who you want to be?” I turn back to Jackson. “The son who grows up and stops acting the fool? Does something that will really impress your dad? Makes good but suffers doing it?”
He almost laughs.
“And that’s what you want me to be? Someone who finally follows a whim?” I trace my finger across the bar. “So, if I’m going to be more like you, tell me—how do you even do this?” I look around doubtfully. There’s an older couple splitting a bottle of wine in one of the corners but other than that, we’re all alone. It’s two PM on a Tuesday so that mostly makes sense, but still.
“Well”—Jackson speaks very slowly, as if I am terrible at comprehension—“first you walk into the bar, then you order the alcohol, and then you drink it.”
I give him another look to show I am not amused. “You know what I mean.”
He sighs. “Things are just different for me, Nell. I get what I want. I bring in a fake ID and Lois pretends it’s real because the tip I leave is going to be real. No one asks questions of me. They just do what I say.” He tilts his head toward me. “It’s not like it’s something I’m proud of—it’s just true.”
Winner Take All Page 11