Page 68 of Savage Don

“I’m pretty fucked up,” Janice says, and I can hear her wipe back a tear. “I… I saw the body. Everyone did. But I was one of the first. I had just come upstairs when they found him. I was looking for you, but instead, I saw…. that.”

My heart breaks as Janice quietly sobs on the other end of the line. Her emotional response almost makes me feel like a monster. Though, I wonder if Janice would be so sad if she knew why Jonathan was killed?

“Janice, I’m so sorry,” I say, trying to comfort her. “No one deserves to see that.”

“The blood, Francesca… god… it was everywhere. I can still smell it. His head was practically severed from his neck...”

Another wave of sobbing cuts through the receiver, slashing me in the chest. Poor Janice. She was never meant to see something so horrifying. I only wish I could have shielded her from such an awful memory.

“Do they know who did it?” I ask, both in an attempt to turn the conversation away from the gruesome image she’s painting, and to figure out what people know.

“No. No one does. It’s why I’ve been so worried about you. First, you disappeared from the party, then someone was killed, and I couldn’t reach you. I… I thought maybe you had been taken.”

Well, she’s not wrong. I was taken. But it was for my own good… right?

“That’s so fucked up,” I sigh, pushing away my textbooks. “You didn’t deserve that. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t apologize. It was my idea to drag you to that stupid party.”

“I’m glad you did,” I hear myself say. Immediately, I regret it. “I mean, before everything went to shit,” I try to recover. “I think I’d already left before… well, before they discovered the body. I must have.”

“Where did you go?” Janice asks, clearly in the middle of wiping her runny nose.

“I’m not sure, I was pretty drunk. There isn’t much I remember. But I woke up in a safe place. So, don’t worry about me.”

“How hungover were you?” Janice asks. I can tell she’s trying to force some levity into the conversation, but her voice is still so heavy.

“Oh man, you have no idea. Actually, on second thought, maybe I should be mad at you for convincing me to go to that party. I’ve never had a headache as bad as the one I woke up to yesterday morning.”

To my delight, that draws a quiet little laugh from my shattered friend.

“Hey, at least you got to have a little bit of college fun before everything went to shit.”

“I’m afraid that’s why everything went to shit,” I try to joke. “The universe saw me having a bit of fun and decided to make sure it would never happen again.”

The humor is morbid, and the moment I spit the words out, I wonder if I should have, but to my surprise, Janice laughs again.

“I’m just glad you’re alright,” she says, and I can practically hear her tear-stained smile. “See you next week? I’ll almost be glad to focus on school again. It will be a nice distraction from all of this other shit.”

“What else is going on?” I ask, not quite wanting to be alone again. Maybe it’s the guilt of knowing I’m partly responsible for this, or maybe it’s something else, but I don’t want to let Janice go so quickly.

“Nothing, that’s the problem,” she sighs. “I’m just sitting here alone, thinking about that bloody room, over and over again—well, I’m doing that and answering the occasional call from the police.”

“The police?”

A knot tightens in my gut as I’m given another stark reminder of how different Janice and I really are. We aren’t from the same world. Not even remotely. Where I’m from, you never talk to the police, no matter what.

“Yeah, I might have been a tad drunk when they arrived at the scene, and I kept shouting that I couldn’t find my friend. I hope you don’t mind, but I gave them your name and description.”

It’s like she’s dropped a stone in my gut. Sure, the name she has for me is fake. Francesca Durbin. But that doesn’t mean I want the police on my tail, and it’s not because I’m worried about getting locked up. Not in jail, at least.

I’m certain that my father has some crooked cops on his payroll. If they were somehow able to connect the dots, I’d be even more fucked than I already am.

“No… that’s fine. Should… should I call in and tell them I’m alright?”

“You don’t have to do that,” Janice says. “The next time they call me, I’ll tell them that it was all just a misunderstanding and that you’re alright.”

Trying as hard as I can to hide my relief, I pull the phone away from my ear and take a deep breath. Still, something is off.