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“No, I mean…You never tried to find me after prom,” I clarify. My suspicions of her grow as I remember that with each passing day when I didn’t hear from her, I became more convinced that Theo and Emmett were right about her. “You never called or came by my house. You never tried…”
“Ophelia, you never know what’s going on in Jameson,” she defends. “I’m sorry I hurt you, but things are so rough there…If someone vanishes and you don’t hear news of them being dead or hurt, it’s usually because they want to be left alone. How come you never called or visited me? That’s all I was waiting for.”
I shake my head in confusion, rapidly losing sight of what I think is right or true. It’s funny how one reminder of Jameson can do that to a person. “They had me convinced…I thought maybe…”
“What?” she asks. “You thought what?”
“That you were the one who drugged me,” I confess.
I expect her to be mortified by the accusation, but she tilts her head with sympathy and a knowing frown. Suddenly she seems to understand everything, and like a true Jameson survivor, nothing shocks her. She does what I need her to do the most, what I’m secretly hoping and praying she will do, and simply reaches her hand across the table for mine.
“I didn’t drug you,” she states. “I promise. I know it’s hard to know who to trust there, but I’m your friend. I would never hurt you.”
I instantly know she’s telling the truth. We sit there for hours and talk about everything that happened after prom.
“I knew I should have told someone what I saw,” she says after a while with a haunted look in her eyes.
“What do you mean?” I ask.
“As we were walking into the school that night, I saw two guys lurking at the edge of the building,” she tells me, shaking her head. “One was a student. The other was Theo. I knew you were trying to make amends with him, so I didn’t think it was anything to worry about. But something always nagged at me, telling me it was off.”
I think back on Theo and Emmett’s stories. Theo claimed he went to the school after he heard Emmett was released from jail and got there just as he was driving off, with me in the backseat. But according to Bridgett, he was out front hours before that. Was he getting that guy to drop something in my drink? The absence of my former tour guide’s outburst had nothing to do with prom or the change in hierarchy. It was all on purpose to distract me from what he slipped in my cup, and it was from Theo’s direct orders.
I tell Bridgett every last little thing. She confirms what I always hoped was true. Emmett was telling the truth. She listens in horror as I describe the flood in the junkyard and how I was forced to choose between them.
“How did you know to choose him?” she asks, taking another sip of her coffee.
“It was something that Coach Granger said at Malcolm’s funeral,” I reply. “He thought it was a shame for any young person to die because no matter how bad they are, they stand more of a chance at changing their ways before it’s too late. No one would ever know if they would find some way to turn their lives around and become a decent person.” I pause as my heart swells. I realize just how much I miss Coach and wonder if I would be sitting here now without everything he did for me along the way. “I figured if he could bring himself to feel that way about Malcolm, after what he did to his son, I could feel the same sympathy and hope for Emmett.”
“So your dad is...?” she asks.
“Yep,” I answer coldly. “I decided regardless of who was telling the truth, my dad had spent his life doing terrible things, and for all I knew, he’d never stop. But Emmett could walk away from it all…and maybe change. Live a decent life.”
“You made the right choice,” she assures me.
It’s something I always hoped I would hear. I’ve done my best not to let it haunt me, considering I could have just as easily tried to run away again and let them both die there. Choosing between two evils is never easy.
Our conversation eventually drifts off into normal things. She tells me all about her classes and where she’s living now. We exchange numbers before we part ways, because of course the first thing we both did when we got here was change our numbers. It was just another way to reduce the likelihood of someone from Jameson coming back to haunt us. We promise to stay in touch and hang out soon, letting the tension that grew between us become a thing of the past.
She turns to me with a big smile on her face just before she walks away. “Do you think you’ll go to the ten-year reunion?”
I gawk at her like she’s out of her fucking mind, but then she laughs and I realize she was only kidding. I think we both agree that someone would have to drag us kicking and screaming before we’d ever step foot back in that town.
As I walk home, I wonder how I would feel right now if the opposite had happened when I ran into Bridgett. What if she knew something that indicated Theo was telling the truth instead? Sure, I felt justified in my choice at the time, but how would it feel right now to walk away knowing I let my own father die when he was telling the truth all along? Or what if Bridgett didn’t know anything that confirmed things one way or the other, and I had to spend the rest of my life never really knowing who had lied and who hadn’t.
Now that I have the relief of knowing Emmett was telling the truth, it’s hard to imagine it being any other way. I don’t know how I would have handled another outcome.
Later that night, I lay in my bed, unable to sleep. I stare up at the ceiling, squirming with the awareness that the memory of how Emmett’s body once felt curled up next to mine is still so vivid. I swear I can hear him, smell him on my sheets even though this is a new world he’s never had any part in. My heart still aches for him the way it has since we first met.
I close my eyes and see his staring back at me. I roll over and think I brush up against his skin. I think I see him in the corner of my room or hear him call my name. Knowing the truth has summoned his ghost and it's back stronger than ever.
But maybe he’s not a ghost. Maybe he’s still alive out there somewhere and if he is, I can only hope that he’s okay. I never looked back as I ran out of the junkyard that night. I watched him climb back onto solid ground and left, still not knowing who to believe. If he did make it out, I hope he got out of Jameson for good and found something that is making him happy. I can’t imagine what he would be like without the constant threat of that town. What if he was so unrecognizable that I didn’t know
him anymore? What if I didn’t love him anymore?
Part of me is tempted to know what that looks like, but mostly I’m just terrified. I don’t know what I’m scared of anymore. Maybe I’m just clinging to fear out of habit. One glimpse back into that old life at WJ Prep and I almost unravel. I know I have to pull the covers over my head and go to sleep. Tomorrow will be another day in my new life. My life without Emmett. And I will survive it just like I have survived every day here and every day before I came here.
But as I drift off to sleep, I wish more than anything that I knew where he was or if he was alive at all. I think I would have heard if he had died, but if he did, it’s possible no one even found him out there. No one would have thought twice about him disappearing. If anything, people were surprised he stayed for as long as he did after everything was taken from him. I know he stayed for me.
