Page 1 of Best Man on Campus

Prologue

Jazzy

“This is Mrs. Majiski, Jasmine.” The social worker, who I made the mistake of thinking might give a fuck, hands me off to a woman who takes up all the space in the small office. “She’ll be your foster mother for the next three years. Until you turn eighteen.”

Fat fucking chance. I stare at the woman, who could be a stunt double for the Incredible Hulk and has the fashion sense of a homeless man. There’s no relief to the desolation permeating the woman called Majiski. No smile, no warmth, nothing but those grayish eyes that cut right through me.

Well, fuck. I hope she sees what I’m thinking because I don’t say a word. I can out-tough the bitch, mentally at least. And I sure as fuck can outrun her. In fact, there’s no fucking way I’m staying with her for more than three weeks, let alone three years. I turn back to the social worker, screaming traitor with my eyes.

“Did they find Killian’s murderer yet?” That’s all I need from her. That’s all I need from life now. To sing his songs, my songs, and to find the bitch who killed my… He’s not my uncle.

But Killian is the only man who ever loved me. Or he was.

Now I have no one in the world and nothing but his guitar and a gut full of raging murderous fucking anger to live on. It’s more than enough.

“No,” she says. “Don’t focus on that, Jasmine. You need to move on.”

I don’t bother telling her what she can do with her worthless advice.

Hitching my duffel bag onto my shoulder, I follow the silent Majiski to her car, the social worker trailing us to the door. Probably so I won’t bolt. But I have nowhere to go right now and I’m not the type to live on the streets.

Since I ran away from my last foster home and stayed with a friend, they told me they’re taking me out of my environment for a fresh start where no one knows about the murder. Where I have no fucking friends nearby to help me escape.

With one hand on the passenger door to the commercial van that Majiski leads us to, I spin around. I have one last request for the social worker.

“You’ll call me as soon as the police find the murderer--Sarah?”

She inhales deeply and looks at the sky, then nods at me like a fucking phone call is going to kill her. I open the door, shove my bag on the floor in front, and hoist myself into the van. As soon as I close the door, Majiski pulls out of the parking lot of the DSS building in Concord, New Hampshire, and starts driving me to who the hell knows where. My chest tightens as my heart palpitates with the adrenaline shouting at me, the fight-or-flight urge.

“Call me Majik. You’ll be fine.” Majiski’s smoke-graveled voice cracks open the silence in the van, making me jump and not helping my heart rate get under control.

“No shit,” I say, not feeling it, but not admitting to any weakness. I’m going on instinct here because Grams took care of me most of my life until … Killian took over. Either way I never worried about being weak or being all right or being alone and on my own. But that’s where I am now. Sent straight to my worst nightmare. The foster system. I’m one of those kids I used to feel sorry for now.

* * *

While I waited for the nightmare of foster care to end, plotting my escape, Majik fed me delicious food, giving me the only kind of comfort I can tolerate. A solid dependable presence who kept her distance. I went to the new high school, avoided making friends because I was planning to leave and play my guitar and write my songs.

The only point of contention those first months was therapy.

She won out, even after I missed a few meals in foolish protest.

And I never did leave.

I call it the Majik Miracle that I ended up with a scholarship to St. Paul University where she works as a cook in an off-campus house. I’m a fine arts music major with a minor in poetry. Majik says it was me winning a national high school poetry contest that got me into SPU. We both know I would never have entered the contest without her quiet, dogged insistence.

Before I came here, I called the social worker to find out if Killian’s murderer has been caught. And every week the social worker told me I should be calling the police. Either way, they haven’t found the woman who murdered Killian. Three years later, I don’t think they’re trying.

“What progress have they made?”

“I don’t know, Jazzy. I can’t help you,” the social worker tells me.

“You don’t want to fucking help me.”

“You don’t want help. You’re too afraid to find out the real truth.”

I hang up on the bitch and vow never to call her again. Next week I’m going to SPU. I don’t need her. Dr. Dani, my therapist, says I’m barely ready, but I don’t need her either.

When I turned eighteen, I couldn’t stay with Majik. No matter what she said. She does all right for herself, but the money to support me was gone and the last thing I want to be is a burden.