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“I’ll be careful, Mom,” he says, opening the door behind him and backing toward it. “But I need to go see Wylie, right now.”
His mom’s face is slick with tears.
“Jasper!” she shouts one last time as he steps through the door. “Why do you need them all so much?”
JASPER TRIES TO steady himself as he drives toward Wylie’s house in his old red Jeep—officially his since he paid his brother five hundred dollars for it. Why do you need them all so much? It’s ringing in his head. Because his mom isn’t wrong, in general. She’s just wrong in particular about Wylie.
Jasper pauses at a stop sign as he approaches downtown Newton, meets eyes with a cop parked there, waiting for people to blow through. A reminder: be careful. But Jasper can do this. He can have Wylie in his life and keep himself on the straight and narrow. It doesn’t have to be either-or.
Though it is eating at him that Wylie didn’t even mention she might be getting out. He just saw her and not a word? Jasper wants not to be hurt. Wants not to feel suspicious. But he is. And he does.
Another five minutes of driving, and Jasper stops again—this time at a red light, ready to turn right toward Wylie’s part of town. The so-much-nicer-than-where-Jasper-lives part. Those differences between him and Wylie don’t matter. At least so far they haven’t. But then Jasper and Wylie have been together together in a bubble. What if things are different between them in the real world? What if that’s why Wylie didn’t tell Jasper she was getting out? Does she have doubts?
A horn blasts behind Jasper. The light has turned green, and he’s been sitting there, lost in the tangle of Wylie loves me. She loves me not. He startles, punches down hard on the gas, and lifts the clutch. The old Jeep hesitates before finally lurching forward.
Almost instantly, there’s a vicious crunch. And then a yelp. Jasper’s eyes shoot up as the horn behind him sounds again.
“Shit,” he gasps, jamming the Jeep into park. He claws at his door. “Oh, shit.”
He jumps out, hands shaking, heart pumping as he races around to the front of the Jeep.
“Oh God, did he hit somebody?” a man shouts from somewhere behind. “Holy crap.”
Jasper sees the bike first. The wheel bent, but otherwise in one piece. And then the girl, sitting on the ground, gripping her knee. Her eyes are open. She’s breathing.
He finally exhales.
“Are you okay, honey?” An old woman rushes past Jasper and kneels down next to the girl. “Don’t get up. You need to take your time. Did you hit your head? You could have a concussion.” The woman has short, gray hair and a frumpy tent dress. She turns and gives Jasper the most hateful stink-eye. “Were you on your phone? You were, weren’t you? You could have killed somebody! You could have killed her!”
“I’m sorry. Are you okay?” Jasper asks the girl.
She looks down at herself. “Yeah, I think—”
“So stupid!” the old man piles on as he rushes up from behind.
“You honked at me,” Jasper says quietly, though he knows that getting into it with them is stupid, pointless.
“I’m calling an ambulance. And the cops!” the woman barks, pulling out her phone. She looks him up and down, disgusted. “What kind of person are you?”
“It was an accident!” Jasper shouts back, his face hot. “A mistake. People make them!”
“Stupid, that’s what you are.” The man steps closer, spitting and red-faced. “Are you stupid?”
“Stop saying that, man,” Jasper growls, his fists clenched. He swallows down the urge to use them. Don’t hit him, he’s old. Don’t hit him, he’s old, Jasper chants to himself. But he’s not sure it is working. He can feel the punch already, the impact.
“Stop yelling! Please!” the girl shouts, startling the old couple. She waves her hands. “It was my fault. I ran the light.” She pushes herself unsteadily to her feet. She is pretty and fit in her high-tech, expensive-looking bicycle clothes, even those old-school sweatbands on her wrists and, luckily, a helmet. When she takes it off, her long, dark hair falls over her shoulders. “Please don’t call the police. My parents will be mad at me for not paying attention. They’re always on me for that. And I’m fine anyway.”
Jasper feels a guilty wave of relief. He’d be much happier, all things considered, if they didn’t call the police. His mom would say this proved her point about Wylie being a bad distraction. Coach might consider it his last strike.
“I really am sorry,” Jasper manages, meeting eyes with the girl for the first time. They shimmer between hazel and gold, like two small kaleidoscopes. Jasper’s never seen eyes like that. For a second, he forgets what he was saying. “Um, I didn’t see you.”
“Well, of course you didn’t see her,” the woman snorts.
“You kids and your damn cell phones,” her husband adds.
“I wasn’t on my phone,” Jasper says, and pretty mildly, considering how far up in his face they are. “I was distracted for a second and then you blew your horn—I don’t know what happened. She said she went through the light.”
“It was totally my fault,” the girl confirms as she moves her bike off to the shoulder. The wheel is so bent. There is no way she is riding it anywhere. “I’m not used to so many traffic lights.”
“I’ll drive you home,” Jasper offers. “We can throw your bike in the back.”
He hates the idea of not going straight to Wylie’s right this second. But what choice does he have? He hit this girl with his car.
“If anyone is going to drive her, it should be us,” the woman says. “You should go get yourself some driving lessons.”
The girl looks the woman right in the eye. “Thank you for stopping,” she says, calm but fierce. “But if you could stop yelling, that would be great. I know it’s making you feel good, but it’s not helping me. I already have a headache. And maybe you should worry less about me and more about why your husband is so jacked up that he was laying on the horn like that in the first place.”
“Ugh.” The woman recoils, disgusted. She waves at her husband to come along. “Let’s go. They deserve each other.”
And with that, the two march back toward their Buick sedan.
“THANK YOU,” JASPER says when the couple is finally pulling away.
The girl shrugs. “The biggest jerks always spend the most time pointing fingers.”
Jasper smiles. She’s right about that. “Anyway, sorry again. I’m really glad you’re okay. I should have been paying more attention.”
She tilts her head. “You seem really invested in jamming yourself under the nearest bus. I said I ran the light.”
Jasper feels himself blush. He wants to put his hands up to his face to cover it. “Let me give you a ride home,” he says. “It’ll help me get out from under the bus.”
She looks down at her bike, taking in how damaged it really is. Finally, she nods. “Okay.”
IT ISN’T UNTIL Jasper has her bike loaded into his Jeep and is finally pulling into traffic that he thinks about Wylie again. But maybe the delay is a good thing. To calm him down. He does wish he could call Wylie to let her know he is on his way. But, conveniently, he doesn’t have her number programmed into his brand-new iPhone. God, his mom is good.
“They couldn’t roll over your contacts, for some reason,” she had said when she gave it to him.
But he hadn’t cared at the time. Wylie didn’t like to talk on the phone from the detention facility. She said it was too awkward, people waiting in line, listening to your conversation. Not that he could have called her there anyway. Wylie’s cell number was the only one he really cared about, and with Wylie locked away that hadn’t mattered either until now.
But that’s okay. He’ll drop this girl wherever she wants to go, then he’ll calmly and slowly drive back to Wylie’s house. And he’ll focus. Because even if he doesn’t want it to be, hitting this girl was a reminder: bad things can happen when you’re distracted. Even by somebody you love.
“I’m Lethe, by the way,” the girl says, bringing Jasper back. He’s been inching down Newton’s main street, so totally distracted again.
“I’m Jasper,” he says. “Where to, Lethe?”
“I’m at BC. The campus is just—”
“I know where it is,” Jasper says, and too forcefully. “I mean, I just started there, too, preseason hockey camp.”
Lethe smiles tentatively, motions to herself. “Lacrosse.”
And Jasper feels that familiar tug—it’s fate. He knows that’s stupid, that he is stupid for feeling some kind of connection—even for a second—with some random girl he hit with his car on the way to see Wylie. But old habits die hard. And no one’s perfect. Not Jasper. Not Wylie. Right now all he can do is be polite and responsible and get this girl who he hit with his car home. As fast as he can.
“Lacrosse?” he asks as he focuses again on the road. “That’s cool. I would have taken you for a cyclist.”
“I’d rather be a cyclist for sure,” Lethe says. “But there aren’t any cycling scholarships for girls. And I happen to be really good at lacrosse. So my parents are just like, ‘do that,’ because who I am and what I want don’t even matter.”
Jasper turns to look at her after he stops squarely at a red light. She seems embarrassed.
“Sorry. I probably sound like a spoiled brat,” she says. “I’m grateful, don’t get me wrong. I’m just also really annoyed. Does that make sense?”
“Completely,” Jasper says. Lethe is describing exactly the way he feels now. “My mom works her ass off to give me, like, everything. But I still wish I had, I don’t know, more options or something.”
Lethe turns and looks at Jasper for a long time. “Exactly,” she says. “You know, not that many people are willing to admit it, though. Whenever I say something like that, I always end up feeling like a monster.”
Jasper smiles, shrugs. “I have low standards.”
She nods. “So if you’re at BC, what were you doing all the way over here?”
“I was going to see a friend,” he says.
“Oh, I don’t want to hold you up,” she says. “If she’s expecting you.”
Did Lethe nail the she in a way that was supposed to be a flag or something, or did Jasper just imagine that?
“She’s not,” he says. “I was going to surprise her.”
“Oh,” Lethe says—and like she wants to ask something more but doesn’t.
THE TWO OF them are quiet then as Jasper drives the rest of the way to campus. Finally, Lethe points toward a gate up ahead. “I’m in Mavis Hall. You can drop me on the corner. It’s faster to cut through from here.”
Jasper double-parks at the curb. “I’ll get your bike.”
It isn’t until Jasper pulls the bike out of the back that he sees just how messed up it is, totally unusable, actually. When Lethe gets out, they stare down at it together.
“Let me get it fixed,” he says, turning to look at her. In the sun, her eyes shimmer. “It would make me feel better.”
“No, I can just . . .” But then she frowns. “Can I just say okay?”
Jasper smiles. “I hit you with my car. You can say whatever you want.”
“Let’s start with fixing the bike.”
And when Lethe smiles this time, her whole face glows. She pushes her hair out of her eyes and looks down. She has a leather cuff on one wrist. It’s the kind of thing that Cassie would have worn. Cassie. Wylie. Lethe? Why do you need them all so much? But his mom is wrong. He’s just being polite with this girl. It’s not an actual situation they’re having. Jasper wants to be with Wylie. He cares about her, a lot.
After Jasper puts the bike back in his Jeep, he and Lethe exchange numbers. Then there is a long, strange silence in which Jasper almost tells Lethe that she should know that he is actually in love with Wylie and he is just being nice, fixing her bike. Luckily, he manages to keep his mouth shut.
“I’ll call you as soon as the bike is done,” he says instead. “Good luck with lacrosse.”
“Thanks.” Lethe smiles as she turns for the gate. “Good luck with hockey.”
WYLIE (#ulink_8e9ea2e8-2acf-5b98-ba33-5faeb9f23e01)
“THE HOSPITAL SENT YOUR PHONE BACK,” GIDEON SAYS WHEN I FINALLY GET back downstairs from the longest shower I have ever taken. He puts the phone down in front of me on the coffee table. “I charged it for you, too. I mean, it probably has like nine kinds of tracing crap embedded on it. You should take a look at your missed messages or whatever. Then we should burn it.”
Gideon thinking to charge my phone feels like the nicest thing anyone has ever done for me. I stare down at it and try not to cry.
“Thanks,” I manage.
When I turn it on, one hundred and thirty-six texts flood in. Jasper accounts for 90 percent of the messages, all sent in the twenty-four hours between when he saw me grabbed on the bridge and when he finally snuck his way into the hospital and found me, all some version of “Where are you?” or “Are you okay?”
None of the messages are from today. It’s already two thirty p.m. now, and I still haven’t heard from him. Jasper’s mom might not have told him that I called, except I have a hard time believing that—I feel like he knows I’m out. And yet he hasn’t called, hasn’t come looking. I want it not to nag at me, but it does.
After tapping onto Jasper’s old messages, the number of total unread ones drops to twenty-three. A few of the others are from Gideon. They also came in while I was in the hospital, after he stormed out of the house that morning so angry at Dad and me. Before he knew anything bad had happened.
Gideon sees his messages, too. “Wait, um, I don’t think I would—”
“It’s okay,” I say, knowing as well as he does that whatever he had to say to me then probably wasn’t very nice. “I’ll delete them.”
“Read the one from Dad, though,” he says, pointing.
“Oh,” I say, surprised to see it there. “That’s weird.”
Because it was sent the day I was grabbed, but at three p.m., after I talked to my dad from the hospital. By then, he knew I didn’t have my phone. Why would he have been bothering to send me messages? I have such a bad feeling as I tap on the message.
It’s just a single word: Cassie.That’s the whole of it. It makes me shudder.
“What does that mean?” Gideon asks. “‘Cassie’?”
“I don’t know.”
Breathe, I remind myself. Breathe. But it’s not easy with all the facts crowding in. First I’m drawn to Cassie’s house, then Holy Cow, and now here’s a text from my dad with just Cassie’s name? These things have to be related. I’m just afraid to find out how.
Jasper. Now I really want him here. He is the only person who would truly understand why this has me so freaked out. He was the one who was with me when Cassie died. He was there with me in the hospital, as we swam away from Russo’s house in the dark. But my only option to find him now would be to go to the BC campus to search. And I will if I have to, but I would so much rather he just showed up at my door. But why? What am I afraid I might find? Another girl? I wish I was more sure that wasn’t exactly what I was worried about.
I turn back to my unread texts, hoping to keep myself from thinking any more about it. Wylie, Dr. Shepard checking in. I am always here if you need to talk. Call anytime.Five days later, while I was still in the detention facility, there is another: Wylie, Dr. Shepard again. Getting a little concerned now that you’ve missed two appointments. I haven’t been able to reach your dad, either. I’m sure you’re fine. Just check in.And then the last one from her, one week ago—a week into my being locked up: Spoke to Gideon. I heard what happened. Coming to see you.
“ARE YOU OKAY?” Dr. Shepard asked as I sat down across from her in the detention facility visiting room. “Sorry, that was a stupid question. I’m sure ‘okay’ isn’t the best word to describe how you are. How are you feeling?”
Dr. Shepard laid her hands on the tabletop. And I so desperately wanted to grab them. I just needed so badly to know that I was going to be okay. I wanted to feel some promise seeping through the surface of her skin. But touching wasn’t allowed, and I had never in my life touched Dr. Shepard. Besides, that wasn’t a promise she could make.
“I didn’t do this,” I said.
“Of course you didn’t,” she said.
And she was so genuinely sure of this fact—like without an ounce of doubt. It made me start to cry. Hard and out of nowhere. I’d been working so hard to keep it together, hadn’t cried once since they arrested me. But as soon as the tears started, I could not make them stop. Soon I was sobbing so loud that a guard came over to investigate. Luckily, he just kept walking.
“Sorry,” I said when my tears finally slowed and I was able to take a breath.
