“What was high school like for you?” I asked and then wanted to take it back. His eyes flashed to mine and his hand stilled.
“A lot different than it was for you, I imagine.” His eyes still roved over my face, but he was no longer drawing, and his expression was tense.
“Oh? How?” I smiled, hoping to either bring us back from this ledge-clinging position, or shove us over the edge.
He lifted his gaze to me then and stared. “For one, I never had a girlfriend.”
I thought of the rose over his heart, and the poem inscribed on his left side. I didn’t want that love to be recent. “Really? Not one?”
He shook his head. “I was… unsettled, you could say. I hooked up with girls. No relationships. Skipped class as much as I bothered to show up. Partied with the locals and the beach tourists. Got into fights often, in school and out. Got suspended or expelled so frequently I was never quite sure when I woke up in the morning whether I was supposed to go or not.”
“What happened?”
His face went blank. “What?”
“I mean, how did you get into college and become this—” I gestured at him and shrugged “—serious student?”
He stared at the pencil in his hand, his thumbnail scraping over the lead, sharpening it. “I was seventeen, about to flunk out for the last time, prepared to work the boat with Dad the rest of my life. One night, I was partying with some friends. We made a bonfire on the beach, which always drew the tourist kids in—and they always wanted to be hooked up. One of my friends was a dealer. Not big stuff—just party drugs. He’d sell high, so we could skim some off without having to pay his distributor for it.
“His sister tagged along that night. She had a crush on me, but she was fourteen. Totally innocent. Not my type. She didn’t take the dismissal well, and started flirting with the guys who financed our night, so to speak. Her dumbass brother was so high he wasn’t watching her at all. My head wasn’t much clearer, but when the guy she was dancing with pulled her down the beach, she looked like she was trying to yank away from him.
“I remember going after them, but everything after that is murky. I was told I broke the guy’s jaw. Got arrested, charges filed. I probably would have ended up in prison, but the Hellers were visiting that week, and Charles did something to make it all go away.
“He and my dad had words. Next thing I knew I was signed up for martial arts classes. I was stupid enough to see the wrong-minded benefit of being able to beat the shit outta people even better than I already could, so I didn’t object. What I didn’t see coming was how it would center me for the first time in a long time. Before he left, Charles lectured me like Dad never had. I didn’t like disappointing him.” He looked at me closely. “Still don’t.”
We sipped our coffees and I waited, holding my tongue, knowing there was more.
“He told me I was throwing my future away, that I was better than drugs and fights. He said my mother was watching, and asked if I wanted her to be proud or ashamed. Then, he promised he’d help me get into the university, pull every string he could pull, if I’d just try. He knew I was looking for an escape, and he gave me one second chance.”
A chill moved down my back at his words.
“He’s good at offering those.”
He smiled, just barely. “Yes. He is. I took it. My senior year looked good, but I’d all but killed my overall GPA before that. I don’t know how he got me accepted, even conditionally. Dad can’t pay for it, of course, so that’s why all the odd jobs. I pay rent for the apartment, but I couldn’t get a cot in somebody’s garage for what he charges me.”
“He’s like a guardian angel for you.”
Raising his light, unnerving eyes to mine, he said, “You don’t even know.”
Chapter 20
I blinked at Erin, confused. “What do you mean, she’s probably not testifying?”
My roommate slammed her phone onto her desk. Slammed the door of our mini-fridge after grabbing a bottle of water from it. Kicked her shoes off and then threw one of them across the room where it bounced off the wall over her bed and landed in the center. “They got to her. Kennedy, D.J. and Dean. Convinced her—or have almost convinced her—that they’ll handle Buck. That she’ll take down the frat and maybe the whole Greek system if she testifies.”
“What?”
“They’re making her feel guilty. For being raped!” I’d never seen Erin so enraged. “This is total f**king crap. I’m calling Katie.”
I got up and crossed the room, holding her forearm to keep her from dialing. “Erin, you can’t tell if Mindi doesn’t want you to tell.”
She looked at me closely. “J, you know how the Greeks work. Everyone already knows.”
“Oh. Right.”
She dialed, and I listened as she told her sorority president what she thought of the proposed cover-up. “Okay, I’ll be there in an hour, with Mindi.” She put the phone down, her expression calmer and more calculating. Sitting on my bed, she took my hand. “You have to go with us, J. You have to tell them what he did to you.”
Somehow, testifying to a bunch of sorority girls was more terrifying than the thought of reporting Buck to the cops or giving a deposition to the district attorney. “W-why?” I sputtered. “I’m not one of you guys, Erin. They don’t care—”
“It shows precedent.”
How many times had I heard Kennedy use this legal jargon—one of his favorites. “Are you sure a failed attempt with me shows a pattern? It’s only twice…”