I shake my head, unable to process his calm reasoning. “You and Maggie knew, yet you still let me walk right into this thing with Everett. How could you not warn me?”
“Maggie and I talked about it and decided it would be better if you found out on your own, in your own time. We wanted to protect you. Everett’s a good kid. We didn’t want to take that away from you.”
I laugh bitterly, the sound harsh in the stillness of the woods. “Protect me? You think this is protection? I’m just supposed to keep dating him knowing my dad murdered his mother?How?”
“I don’t have all the answers. I wish I did. But I don’t believe in making children carry the weight of their parents’ sins. I suspect Everett might feel the same.”
My chest tightens with disbelief. “You really think it’s that simple?”
“It’s not simple. It’s complicated as hell. But you didn’t do this, Ryan. And you can’t keep carrying it like you did.”
“Are you feeling better now?” Connor asks, throwing a decorative crochet pillow at me when I emerge from my room before dinner. After my outing with Dan, I took a shower and did my hair, and now the entire house smells like Maggie’s pulled pork, and I’ve surprised myself by having an appetite.
“Yeah,” I say, sitting on the couch beside him. Life is moving on, whether I want it to or not. So I need to move with it.
Jasmine is in the recliner, absently channel surfing. She tosses her twin the remote and turns to look at me. “So, I heard a little rumor.”
I’m sure she did. She and her friends are like rumor central. “What?”
“Someone told me Chase Hedlund brought you home from the party.”
“Where’d you hear that?”
“I never reveal my sources. So…spill. What happened?”
If she wants juicy details, she’ll be sorely disappointed. “I’ll tell you what happened. My cousins drove off and forgot me.”
Connor sits up. “Wasn’t my fault! Genius over here said you were getting a ride with Everett.”
“Well, she was supposed to!” Jasmine grabs a wadded-up papertowel near her and launches it at him. “But how did you wind up with the juvenile delinquent?”
“Out of necessity? It’s a long walk home.”
“I hope that’s all it is. Because remember how happy my mom was for you to go out with Everett? She wouldn’t be the same with Chase. He’s trouble.”
As much as I wish I wasn’t interested in Chase, as much as I wish I hated him as much as he hates me, I can’t help but be curious. “Why?”
“He’s constantly getting picked up by the sheriff for drinking or hooking up in public. He skips school so much, there’s no way he’s graduating on time.” Jasmine shrugs. “Like I said, trouble.”
“Well, it was just a ride home,” I tell her. “I had no choice. You guys left, and Everett was busy tending to Nikki.”
Jasmine nods, snapping her gum. “Poor Nik. She’s, like,brokenright now.”
“Have you spoken to her?”
“Not really. I keep texting, but I get one-word responses.” Jasmine hesitates. “Honestly, she and I have kinda been drifting apart. All she wants to do lately is get high or drunk or find older guys to hook up with. She keeps bailing on cheer practice. Didn’t even show up for the game last week. Coach Keenan wanted to kick her off the squad, but I bet that won’t happen now. People already feel bad enough for Nikki and Everett.”
“Really?” I counter. “Because I’ve never heard a single person talk about it at school.”
“It was ten years ago,” Connor points out. “After a while, there’s nothing left to say. Like, their mom was murdered. We allknow that. And Everett made it clear he wasn’t going to discuss it, so eventually people stopped asking.”
“That’s not the only reason.” Jasmine adopts the conspiratorial tone that tells me she’s about to spill some tea. “Nikki told me that JP spoke to Principal Healey last year and told her to make sure kids weren’t bugging Nikki and Everett. It was after that loser, Trevor, started his little Thorn fan club. I think the teachers all banded together to stop people from talking to them about it.”
“So what happened to her?” I ask. “Leah, I mean. She just went missing?”
The unexpected grief that hit me after my father’s suicide has clouded my head so much that I haven’t even gone online yet to research Everett’s mother. Now the curiosity is eating at me.
“Yeah. She was Uncle Psycho’s last victim, and she just disappeared one day. Picked up dry cleaning downtown and was never seen again.” Jasmine pauses as if to search her memory. “I think Leah and JP didn’t have a great relationship.”
