Chapter 7
Jack
They look at me like I’m a hero, like I deserve their praise and admiration. Like I want it. The noise of the restaurant fills my head. It’s loud, chaotic. The walls start to close in and panic rises in my chest. The sounds blur together into one constant buzz.
“Jack?” Nora’s voice cuts through the static and everything falls back into place. She slides her hand across the table and touches my fingers.
“Yes,” I say. “I am.”
“It’s an honor to meet you,” the manager says in a heavy accent. He shakes my hand and tells me the meal is on them, that they’d never make a hero pay.
There’s that word again.
It couldn’t be further from the truth.
I’m no different than Jason.
I’m also a murderer.
My mind goes into autopilot. I nod and say thank you. Give them what they want to feed their notion of what a good person—what a hero—should be. When they leave, Nora stands. She doesn’t say anything, just holds out her hand for me to take. The moment her small, delicate fingers wrap around my paw of a hand, I relax.
Then, I recoil.
I shouldn’t touch her. She puts up a tough front, but I can see Nora for what she really is: innocent and pure. I was wrong before. The world shit on her, but she didn’t shit on the world. Bad things happened, and she wasn’t the cause.
“Jack,” she repeats, this time sternly, and holds out her hand again. She shuffles her feet and pushes her shoulders back. It’s a small gesture, one most people wouldn’t even notice. But I get it. She’s not going to take no for an answer.
She takes my hand and I give her my heart.
“Let’s go,” she whispers, curling her fingers around mine. We go through the parking lot, across the street, and down one block. I don’t ask Nora where we’re going. I don’t care. I’m with her, and she’s with me, and right now, that’s all that matters.
A thick treeline gives way to a cast iron fence surrounding a graveyard. It’s eerily beautiful, filled will large trees and wildflowers. We go through a maze of graves dated a hundred years ago and sit on a stone bench that looks just as old.
“I’ve always thought it was pretty here.” Nora looks around us. “It’s peaceful and pretty, even though we’re on top of dead bodies.”
Air fills my lungs. I swallow. Exhale. Nora squeezes my hand. “Is it haunted?”
A small smile creeps across her face. “No. That’s a common misconception, though. Graveyards are often holy or sacred. Spirits can’t linger. Zombies or vampires though…”
“You believe in them?”
“Oh yeah. Unicorns and fairies too.” She gently nudges me, then reaches into her purse, pulling out her iPod. She hands me one earbud and puts the other in, scooting closer. She loops her arm around mine and rests her head on my shoulder.
“Landslide” by Fleetwood Mac plays and we sit there together, not talking, not moving. Not thinking. Just listening to the music. I close my eyes, and when the song ends, I turn to Nora.
“I’m not a hero.”
She straightens up and pulls the earbud from her ear.
“My sophomore year, my best friend was responsible for a school shooting.” The words spill from my mouth, hurting on the way out and bringing relief once they’re finally gone.
“Is that how you got this?” Her fingers sweep over the scar on my side.
“Yes.”
Nora shivers. She holds onto me, waiting, not sure if she wants to hear the rest. My eyes close again and I tip my head up, watching a puffy white cloud move across the sun.
“There was an assembly. It was the second to last day of school, and it was all bullshit, you know? Just awards and nobody giving a shit about actual school anymore. Jason wasn’t there. We’d talked about skipping, so I thought that’s what he was doing. I was pissed he didn’t tell me. I’d skip with him. We don’t get service in the gym, so I left so I could send him a text, giving him hell for ditching without me. Something just felt…off. When I heard the first shot, I thought he was in danger. Not that he was the one…the one doing the shooting.”
Nora tightens her hold on me, and if only she knew how much she’s holding me together right now. Images from that day flash before me.
“I’ll never forget that feeling.” I take in a shaky breath. “When I saw Jason holding the gun. Two bodies were on the ground yards from him. I never knew just how much people can bleed. Then he looked at me and it was like nothing was there. His eyes were empty.” I blink, and the metallic smell of blood fills my nostrils. I turn my head, breathing in the scent of Nora’s hair, calmed by the sweet smell of her shampoo. I don’t smell blood anymore. I don’t hear the screams.
“Jack,” she breathes. “I don’t know what to say other than I hate you went through it. I wish I could take it away.”
“Me too.” I breathe deep and wrap my arm around Nora, crushing her breasts into me. “He had three guns. Two pistols and a rifle. He’d already blocked off the exits on the opposite side of the gym. He was going to open fire on the people at the assembly. It’d be like shooting fish in a barrel. He wanted to kill them all.” I run my fingers through Nora’s hair, needing to have something tangible in my hands. “I tackled him. Knocked one pistol from his hands. And he shot me with the other.”
Nora flattens her hand over the bullet wound. Her fingers are cold, and the coolness against my flesh is welcome. It’s reminding me that I’m alive. That I’m not bleeding.
“To this day I can’t decide what hurt more. Actually getting shot or the look on Jason’s face when he pulled the trigger. There was no remorse. No hesitation. We’d been friends since preschool. I picked up the gun he dropped, and it was loaded.”
I stop, throat thickening. I’ve never told this to anyone. Not the police. It didn’t matter. The dead can’t come back to life.
“I could have stopped him then, but I didn’t. I didn’t want to shoot him.”
“Of course not.”
“I should have.” The shame I’ve carried over the last year presses down on me. It’s been suffocating, making every day feel like I’m running underwater against an invisible current that’s pushing back against me. “I should have because he shot and killed someone else in front of me.”
Nora’s body tenses. She swallows hard but doesn’t move away. “You can’t blame yourself for that.”
“I do,” I admit for the first time. “It was a teacher. She was new and young, and I watched her die. I had a loaded gun in my hand and just stood there.” My hands are trembling. I press them against Nora’s back to stop the shaking. “Then he went toward the gym. My sister was in there. My friends. Hundreds of other innocent people sitting on the bleachers. They wouldn’t have been able to get away fast enough.”
The scene plays out before me, no matter how hard I try to stay in the present. I’m transported back, and the burning pain in my side radiates through me.
I clasp my hand to my side, trying to stop the bleeding. My heart races, and somewhere in the back of my mind, I yell at myself to calm the fuck down. Freaking out will only make my heart beat faster, spewing more blood onto the gray and white tile floor.
“Jason!” I yell, voice fading. Down the hall, people are screaming. Teachers shouting for students to take cover and call 911.
Jason whirls around, M9 in hand. The rifle is strapped over his chest, and I see the extra ammo on his belt. He came here to murder us all.
“Why are you doing this? This isn’t you. Stop!”
Jason looks into my eyes. He shakes his head and raises the gun. He shoots and misses. Narrowly. I stagger forward, raising the gun in my hand. “Stop,” I beg him. He shakes his head and steps back, another foot closer to the gym. Veronica is in there. I’ll die before I let anyone hurt my little sister.
“Don’t make me do this!” Everything fades then. I pull the hammer back on the gun. My fingers are slick with my own blood that’s dripping down
my hip and cascading to the floor. Panic fuels my every move, making me act. I have to keep my sister safe. I can’t let Jason go in there and kill another person. I move closer, terror closing in on my heart. With one shot, Jason could end me. He already shot me once. Tried to do it again. There’s nothing stopping him.
He turns and reaches for the gym door. His hand is on the metal pull. I aim, barrel pointed to the middle of Jason’s back. I’m a good shot, having grown up with a police officer for a father. He taught me how to shoot and how to properly handle a gun. I have a steady hand. I rarely miss.
At the last second, I move my aim and shoot Jason in the shoulder. The pistol falls from his hand, and he drops to his knees, but it isn’t over yet.
“Jack?” Nora’s sweet voice breaks through the nightmare.
“I shot him,” I tell her. “But he didn’t die then. He turned his gun on himself. Put it in his mouth and pulled the trigger, but the shot wasn’t fatal.”
Nora gasps. “Oh my God.”
I’m shaking all over now, and Nora slides her arms around my waist. “He died of blood loss before he could get to the hospital.”
“You didn’t kill him,” she says slowly, and I don’t know how she’s so perceptive.
“If I hadn’t shot him, he wouldn’t have bled out.”
“You don’t know that. I’ve never seen someone with that…with that sort of injury, but I think it’s safe to say a head wound like that is lethal from the blood loss alone.”
“Maybe.”
“You stopped him, didn’t you?”
“I did.”
“Then you are a hero, even though you don’t think you deserve to be called one.”
The clouds move away from the sun, and Nora and I sit there in silence for a moment. My arms are around her, holding her against me. But she’s the one holding me, keeping me from going back there and getting stuck in the bloody hallway.
Usually, the scene repeats. Sometimes, it plays out differently and I wrestle Jason to the ground and hold him there until the police come. No one would be dead then, and we’d know why Jason snapped. Other times, it progresses, and he gets in and kills everyone but me.
Right now, I’m sitting in a hundred-year-old graveyard with a girl who’s been through hell too. A girl who’s seen blood and loss and felt the pain of her still-beating heart being ripped from her chest.
A girl I think I’m falling for.
“Why didn’t you tell me before?” she asks softly.
“I liked the way you looked at me,” I confess.
“What do you mean?”
“You didn’t know who I was or what I did. You looked at me like I was a normal person.”
She cups my face in her hands. “What about now? Am I looking at you any differently?”
I search her eyes, fighting with myself to keep from kissing her. “No.”
“I’m not going to, and I’m glad you told me.”
“Me too.” I turn my head, knowing if I keep looking at her, if I keep my mouth that close to hers, I will kiss her. “No one else knows that I hesitated.”
“Hesitation is a negative term. I don’t think not rushing to shoot your best friend is a bad thing.”
“I guess.” I look out at the graves. “Is this where your mom is?”
Nora nods. I stand and take her hand, and we slowly walk through the grass, going to the back of the cemetery. Nora slows when her parents’ graves come into sight. We stop a few feet from them, and I feel like an ass for unloading all my issues onto Nora. We came here to visit her parents' grave on her mom’s birthday, for fuck’s sake
Nora pulls her hand from mine and goes to the stone. I hang back, not sure what I should do. Give her space? Comfort her? I’ve never been good in these situations. But I know one thing for sure: how I feel about Nora.
I spent the last year feeling trapped inside a living nightmare. When I’m with her, I feel like I’m falling, but I also feel free.
Chapter 8
Nora
“You were right.” The screen door snaps shut behind me, and I walk across the porch. “You do take terrible notes.”
“Told you.” I asked Jack if I could look through his notes, making sure I was caught up enough for the new math class. He takes his math notebook, stealing a glance behind me. The windows are open, but Stephanie is busy making dinner in the kitchen, and Doug has yet to come home from work.
“Your notes are terrible, but the sketches in there are amazing.”
Jack looks down, a bit of color coming to his cheeks. I think he forgot they were in there. “I like to draw.”
“You’re good. Those are impressive just for pencil sketches you did during class. They’re really emotional.”
Jack shrugs. “I guess. Did everything go okay?”
“Everything go okay?”
I nod. “I said I had a stomach ache and needed to lay down after school, just in case it gets brought up. What about you? They let you practice?”
“Yeah. I told the coach I felt better. Honestly, I don’t think he really cares as long as I’m there.”
“You are kind of the star of the show.”
“The show?” He smirks. “Have you ever seen a football game?”
I raise an eyebrow, trying to look offended. The smirk is still on Jack’s face, and it’s doing bad things to me. “Oh yeah. I went to a Lakers game last year.”
The smirk turns into a real smile now. “The Lakers. Really?”
I laugh. “Kidding. Well, not about going to the game. But I know they’re a basketball team. But to answer your question, no. I haven’t really watched a full football game. I’ve seen them on TV in passing if that counts.”
“It doesn’t.”
“You have a home game on Friday, right?”
“I do.” Jack comes closer.
“Then I’ll come watch.”
“I’d like that.”
I motion to the porch swing. “Want to sit?”
“Yeah.”
We move to the swing, sitting close together. I tuck my legs up under myself, bent knees resting against Jack’s legs. He pushes off the porch with his feet, gently swinging us. People move along the sidewalk jogging or walking dogs. With the mountains behind us, I feel like we’re in a Hallmark movie.
With Jack next to me, I feel like I might get a happy ending.
“Hey, kids.” Stephanie steps onto the porch. I straighten my legs and sit up, separating myself from Jack. “How are you, Jack?”
“I’m good, thanks,” he replies politely. “How are you?”
“Busy as always, but good as well. How are your parents? We live right next door, but I hardly get a chance to chat.”
Jack shrugs. “They’re good.”
“Dinner will be ready soon,” she tells me.
I don’t meet her eyes. “Okay.”
“It was nice seeing you, Jack.” Stephanie goes back into the house. Jack waits a minute, then slips his arm around me.
“Do things still feel weird?” he asks.
“They’ve graduated from weird and moved onto awkward. She’s trying to help, I’m sure.”
“You don’t sound sure.”
“I just don’t see why they’d care about me.”
“I don’t see why they wouldn’t.” Jack’s brown eyes flash. “You’re one of the most incredible people I’ve ever met.”
“You must not have met many people.”
Jack’s eyes glimmer. “Maybe not.”
He wraps his other arm around me and I look up, lips close to his. My heart skips a beat and my stomach flutters. I want him to kiss me. He brings his head down, pressing his forehead against mine. My fingers go to the scar on his side, right above his hip. I carefully circle it, feeling my pulse increase. He runs his fingers through my hair and then sits back.
“I should go.” He untangles himself from me.
“Right. Thanks again, Jack. For everything.”
* * *
I grab a ba
g full of cookies and a blanket, then head outside to the treehouse. The sun is setting, and the misty rain from this morning left a chill in the air. Jack’s bedroom light is on, glowing behind closed blinds. I stare at it, hoping to catch him walking by. A minute passes without seeing him, so I settle inside the treehouse, wrapping myself up in the blanket, reading and eating.
Two chapters later, Charlie barks. I swing my legs over the edge and peer down. Jack is outside with the dog, throwing a tennis ball across the yard.
“Hey,” I call, feeling all fluttery inside.
“Hey.” Jack throws the ball one more time, puts Charlie inside, and comes over, hopping the five-foot fence. He pauses, looking at the Kellers’ house, and hurries across the lawn and up the ladder without being seen. The Kellers like Jack—they like his whole family—but I’m not sure how they’d feel about us sitting up here together in the near-dark. My grandma would never have allowed it, and I almost feel guilty for violating her rules.
Almost.
“Are you reading a dirty romance?” He grins, and we move to the other side of the treehouse where we’re out of sight.
“Kind of. It’s a paranormal romance and there are dirty scenes.”
“Really?” Jack wasn’t expecting that.
“Yeah. Have you heard of the show True Blood? It’s the series that it's based on. It’s really good.” I set the Kindle down and pull the blanket over Jack. He’s only wearing a T-shirt and jeans. “Aren’t you freezing without a coat?”
“Not yet. I wasn’t planning on staying outside long. You’re kind of distracting, Nora.”
“Should I be sorry?”
“No.” He turns to me, dark eyes meeting mine. A chill goes down my spine and a mixture of desire and nerves run rampant through me. “You’re shivering.” He slides one arm around me, bringing me to him. The warmth of his body feels so good, but the closeness only makes me tremble more. I move into his embrace, and he pulls the blanket around us both. “Better?”
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