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“There’s no need,” I told him. “There’s nothing they can do, it’s a long way and-”
“They’re your parents. What did you expect them to do?”
I took another deep breath and le
t it out slowly. Of course they needed to know what had happened, but the last thing I needed was my mom fussing around me. She had a tendency to go overboard whenever there was something wrong with me or Kayla. I needed to deal with everything myself, not be treated like a little kid.
In the time leading up to Isabelle getting to the hospital, I talked to nurses about how I was feeling, told them about my knee and got an X-ray arranged for later in the afternoon, and tried really hard to remember what happened at the party. When the police questioned me, I searched every bit of my brain for something that would help me figure out how my drink had been spiked. It was like someone had reached into my mind and removed nine hours of my memory. There was nothing but darkness between me dancing with Isabelle, and when I woke up. I was lucky my friends were around me, and in a weird way, I was glad it was me who took that glass. The outcome could have been a whole lot different if one of the girls had taken it.
I didn’t mention Leon to the cops. I asked Hunter not to mention him either. Just because he was high on my list of suspects, there wasn’t enough evidence to make me send the police after him. Maybe that was too generous of me, but I’d seen first-hand the damage done to people who were falsely accused of something. I needed to be sure, though how I was going to do that, I had no idea.
By the time Isabelle arrived, I was really stressed out, but seeing her walk through the door made everything seem a little less terrible. Janet and Hunter left us to have some privacy, and Isabelle perched on the edge of the bed. She looked exhausted, like she’d been crying all night, and I reached for her hand.
“Hey, beautiful,” I said, softly.
A tear slipped down her cheek, and I hated that I’d made her cry. Again. Her brown eyes sparkled with moisture and she was trembling.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
“Kind of. I’ll know for sure later. How about you?”
She shook her head. I couldn’t stand to see so much sadness in her eyes. I wanted to hold her close, to kiss all the unhappiness away and pretend that the night before never happened. I released her hand from mine and drew her in to me.
“This is all my fault,” she said. “I never should have made you go to that party. Neither of us wanted to go, and now you’re in hospital with a messed up knee. All because of me.”
“No. Not because of you. You didn’t do this.”
“But you didn’t even want to go to Mischa’s, we should have-”
“Isabelle,” I interrupted, stroking her hair, “stop. The only person to blame is the scumbag who spiked my drink.”
Isabelle stilled in my arms. I could still feel her tears seeping through my shirt, but her sniffles stopped and she tensed up.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.”
She answered too quickly.
“Isabelle. Do you know something?”
Slowly, she raised her head. “I don’t think I should tell you.”
“Tell me what?” I asked. “What do you know?”
Her tears began to fall faster and she shuffled away from me, rising to her feet. I’d only known her for a couple weeks but she’d never been anything but open and honest the whole time. With everything that had happened, I needed her on my side, not keeping secrets.
“Isabelle, come on. Spill it.”
“I need you to promise not to tell anyone,” she said.
“I can’t promise that.”
She nodded in understanding, but refused to look at me as she began. “Georgia stayed at the party for a while with Willow after Hunter and I came to the hospital with you. Georgia was really upset by what happened, and while she was out in the garden trying to calm down, Leon found her.”
“What did he do to her?”
“Nothing. But ... she told me he was … he was laughing. At you. He was angry at you for hitting him, but he thought it was really funny that you were the one who was drugged. He told Georgia that … he told her the drugs were meant for her.”
