Jesse and I are in what remains of the bleachers behind NHH. It looks as if some haphazard effort was made to tear them down, but there’s still a section remaining. On the scoreboard, someone has spray-painted #63 Jamil Mandal. Never forget!
Jesse shouldn’t be here. I want him anywhere but here. This, however, is where he wants to be. Sitting on those bleachers. Staring at those words.
“When he first made the team, I came to see him play,” Jesse says. “I thought that might make things better. If I…” He shrugs. “Supported him, I guess. It made Mom and Dad happy. But then Jamil said I was doing it for them, sucking up, and I thought that meant he didn’t want me there, so I stopped going. Things got worse after that. He was on me all the time, and I didn’t know why. I’d stopped going to the games, like he wanted.”
Jesse pulls one knee up, hugs it. “I wonder now if he was challenging me, you know? Seeing if I’d just been doing it for Mom and Dad, and when I stopped, that seemed to prove…”
He brushes back his hair and sighs. “I don’t know.”
And he never will. That’s what hurts the most.
“Whatever Jamil did,” I say, “is on him. If he wanted you at those games, he needed to act like it. Otherwise, he was setting up a game with rules you didn’t understand, and then punishing you for not following them.”
He nods.
“Can we go now?” I ask.
When he hesitates, I say, “I’ll stay if you want to, but I’d like to talk about what this adds to the case.”
He straightens, expression relaxing. It’s like flipping a switch on a track, reminding Jesse of the direction he needs to go. The path out of the dark place he’s in right now.
We start walking.
Jesse wants to begin by discussing suspects.
Lana Brighton is one. She’s gone quiet since the petition thing, and she’s been avoiding me at school, but as Jesse says, “That doesn’t clear her. She might have realized it makes her the number one suspect and so she backed off.”
We talk about the three seniors, too – Marco, Duke and Grant. I tell Jesse what they said about the shooting and Jamil. I hate doing that, but apparently they’d already made it clear that they weren’t Jamil fans, so Jesse isn’t surprised. As for them as suspects, Jesse seems to be the one they’re trying to antagonize. None of what they said to me was any variation on “you shouldn’t be here.” Still, Jesse wonders if he was their focus only as a way to keep us apart – ensuring that I don’t find an ally in Jesse. We’ll have to see if any of them have a connection to the shooting.
Jesse also tells me what he found last night.
“Your school account was hacked,” he says. “The password was reset. That’s how they did it. They claimed to have forgotten your password, which was only a system-generated one. You hadn’t linked an outside email to the account, so it asks you a security question. Except, since you never accessed it to set a security answer, it bypassed that step and used a captcha.”
“Those things that make sure you’re not a spambot.”
“Right. Awesomely lame security. Get past that, and you’re in. The password you gave me – the default one – didn’t work, so I had to hack it. Took me exactly four minutes.”
“Which means it didn’t require killer tech skills.”
“My dida could do it, and she needs my help with Facebook. The account was accessed on one of the school library computers, which only tells us that the email was sent by a student, staff or volunteer. No one is going to sneak into the school and access our computers.”
“Once, maybe. Not twice. And not leaving me notes, trapping me in the office, setting the fire…”
“Don’t forget the texts.” He glances over as we cross a street. “You are going to tell me about the texts, right?”
I do.
“Let’s see them,” he says, putting out his hand.
When I don’t give him my phone, he looks at me. “Skye?”
“It’s not just texts. There are… video clips.”
I tell him about Leanna’s clip. Then I show him the text that accompanied it.
“I’m going to ask for a copy of the video,” he says. “I know you don’t want me watching it, but that’s the only way to narrow this down. I said earlier that those images at the school were taken from video clips… and someone’s been sending you video clips.”
“So it’s probably the same person.”
“Yes, which means those clips are a huge clue. I’m going to need them.”
We cross another street in silence. Then I say, “Can I just send you that one?”
“How many are there?”
“Two.”
More silent walking.
“It’s about Jamil, isn’t it?” he says quietly. “The other clip.”
I nod. “Please don’t ask me to send it, Jesse. You didn’t want me going into NHH, and you were right. There was…” I inhale. “Outside the bathroom. Where Luka… There was… On the floor, there were still traces of his…”
He reaches to take my hand, and I push it into my pocket, as if I didn’t notice him reaching for me. I’m shaking, and I don’t want him to see that.
He stops walking. “Skye…”
I keep going. “Don’t ask me to send Jamil’s video, okay? Just don’t. Please.”
“All right.” He catches up and swings in front of me. “Can you stop walking for a second and talk to me?”
I shake my head and turn away as my eyes fill. “I’m fine.”
“No, you’re not.”
I walk past him. “I’ll forward you all the texts. I can tell you content from the second video – the parts that have nothing to do with the shooting, in case it helps you track down a source.”
“That’s fine, Skye, but can you —”
“There’s something else, something that makes a lot more sense after today.” I tell him about the voices in the hall. “It’d be the same person, I’d guess. Using similar tech. If it happens again, I’ll find the speaker.”
“If it happens again, I hope you’ll text me immediately,” he says as he falls in beside me. “Since we’re apparently not talking about what you found at NHH, I’ll move on to the audiovisual part. It isn’t my area of expertise, but Chris might be able to help.”
“Right. He’s mentioned setting up systems for people. We can talk to him. But that doesn’t explain what I heard. I was in the bathroom stall, and two girls were talking about the petition – the petition that doesn’t exist. Then I heard the same conversation in the hall. How is that possible?”
“Do you know who the girls were?”
I shake my head.
“Was there anyone else in the bathroom at the time?”
“No, and that’s the problem. If no one else was there, who recorded it?”
He walks a little farther, and then says, “Other than that conversation, did you hear the girls in the bathroom say or do anything?”
“No…” I think it through. “Which could mean even those voices were recorded. Someone came in, played it, and then left.”
“Exactly.”
Mae texts shortly after that, and I jump at the excuse to leave, before Jesse tries to circle back to what I saw in the school. If I talk about that, I’ll break down. Jesse remembers a tougher girl, and I’m going to be that person for him.
I hold it together for Mae, too, retreating after dinner for homework. It’s only after sleep comes that my defenses drop, and I descend into nightmare.
The next morning, I manage to make it to school with plenty of coffee and concealer under my eyes.
It’s a quiet day. No notes. No voices. No calls to the office. No talks with Mr. Vaughn.
Tiffany needs me to do newspaper work at lunch, and then, after school, Jesse has his trainer over. He invites me to drop by in the evening, but I’m… I’m feeling off. Part of it is still finding my balance after yesterday. Part of it is the rough night. And part is, yes, that I’m worried I’m going to disappoint him.
I don’t cold-shoulder Jesse. I wouldn’t do that. He was there for me yesterday – really there for me – and this is my issue to work through. In math, I smile and chat. When I pass him in the halls, I give him another smile and a nod. When I tell him I can’t come by after his track session, I smile and make up some excuse about Mae wanting me home.
But I’m smiling. Always smiling. You’re fine. I’m fine. We’re fine. Everything’s fine.
He buys it, and that’s all that counts.