She asked, “What did Clay tell you happened next?”
“They were all too fucked up to drive you home.” Jack used his arm to wipe blood from his face. “Nardo called Mr. Wexler because he knew Wexler would shut up about it. They didn’t know what else to do. You were out of your mind. Blake had to give you a couple of bennies to calm you down. You were still yelling at Clay when Wexler and Nardo dragged you into the car.”
Emily looked away from him. She hadn’t only been on acid. Her friends had given her a psychoactive drug that was prescribed to prevent anxiety and seizures. And then they had handed her over to ghastly Dean Wexler so he could be alone with her in his car.
She asked, “Do you think Clay was telling the truth?”
“I don’t know. He’s a liar, but they’re all liars.” Jack had started to weep again. “I’m sorry, Emily. I should’ve told you all of this before. I was ashamed, and I didn’t know how to explain why Clay had confided in me without telling you about—about what I am.”
“I know what it’s like to be judged by people,” Emily told him. “I’m not going to judge you, Jack. It’s none of my business.”
Jack took a sharp breath. “I’m so sorry.”
“You have nothing to be sorry about.” Emily could not let him spiral into self-hatred. She knew there was literally no bottom to the darkness. “How did Nardo find out about you and Clay?”
Jack shrugged, but said, “The only time I can think of was when Clay and I were in my dad’s hunting truck. We took it to the logging road off the farm property. The one that comes out close to downtown.”
Emily knew the road. The old farm property belonged to Gram. She had created a trust so that one day it would pass to Emily.
She asked, “Does Clay know that Nardo saw you?”
Jack nodded, but asked, “What are you thinking?”
Emily wished that she had her Columbo Investigation, but she always kept it in her purse because that was the only place her parents would not look.
She told Jack, “It’s odd that Nardo has kept a secret from everybody else.”
Jack’s lips parted in surprise. “You think Clay knows something about Nardo?”
“Maybe.” Emily thought it made sense, but then a lot of theories had made sense at various times. “Nardo would never turn on Clay. He’s terrified of being alone. He needs someone to prop him up, tell him what to do, who to be. And Clay could turn the whole school against Nardo. No one would believe that he’s—”
“Queer,” Jack finished. The word sounded dirty in his mouth. “You’re right. They’d end up turning on Nardo. And lots of kids are going to Penn. That kind of stink would follow Nardo all the way to college. He’d keep his mouth shut no matter what.”
Emily sighed, because she had reached the same conclusion. “I feel like there’s a wheel in my head, and it spins round and round trying to point to the right person. Sometimes it’s Clay, then Nardo, then Blake, then—”
“Me?”
“I never believed that,” Emily said. “Unless I was telling myself that you’re the best possible person it could be.”
“I do love you, Emily,” Jack said. “I could marry you. So long as you know what I am. I can’t change it. I’ve tried so hard.”
“I love you, too, Jack, but you deserve someone who loves you the way you want to be loved.” Emily added, “We both do.”
He covered his face with his hands. His life had been so difficult. She had always known he was lonely, but she had not realized until now that he’d been utterly alone.
“Jack, it’s not your fault.” She gently took away his hands and held onto them. “All I want is to know who hurt me. I’ve given up on the person being punished for it. And I don’t want to marry any of them, or even know them anymore, to be honest. The thought of any of those jerks being in my life, making decisions for me or my baby, is not only terrifying. It’s disgusting.”
“I want to find out, too.” Jack used his arm to wipe his tears. “What about your Columbo Investigation? Is there anything new?”
“I thought it was Blake for a while,” she admitted. “He’s so transactional, isn’t he? He manipulates people like game pieces around the board. He was so quick to offer a solution that would get him all of the glory and none of the blame.”
Jack nodded. “What made you rule him out?”
“He’s the least popular of the three boys. I honestly don’t think that Clay and Nardo would protect him. Like I said before, they feed off each other. Clay needs Nardo’s adulation and Nardo needs Clay’s coolness, if that’s what you want to call it. Blake is the obvious sacrificial lamb.”
“It’d be the easiest way out,” Jack agreed. “I mean, if they blamed Blake, it would take the heat off them.”
Emily shrugged, but she had come to the same conclusion. Until she talked herself out of it and the circle started to spin again. “Sometimes I think it could have been Nardo. He’s so merciless and selfish. He always takes what he wants. But I figured if it was him, Clay would turn on him, right? Clay always protects himself.”
“Nardo saw me and Clay together,” Jack reminded her. “They’re both holding loaded guns on each other.”
“There’s no guarantee with Nardo. He is very bad at keeping secrets,” Emily said. “It’s almost pathological. If he sees an opportunity to hurt someone, the poison spills out before he can stop it. The thing inside his brain that warns him about consequences is broken.”
“That’s a good point,” Jack said. “It’s why Clay is graduating early, heading out west as soon as he can. He said he can’t trust Nardo to keep his mouth shut.”
“What about Clay? You said he’s into girls, too.” Emily felt her face flush, but she had come this far. “I thought that maybe I—I could’ve done something to provoke him? Maybe I threw myself at him? And he gave in, but he was angry after the fact.”
Jack gave her a look. “Emily, you weigh about a hundred pounds, even pregnant. I think Clay could fend you off. And he’s had plenty of opportunities before.”
Emily felt heat coming off her skin. Clay must have laughed about the crush with Jack.
“What about Wexler?” Jack asked. “He’s a creep. The way he looks at the girls at school is gross. And he’s always trying to find ways to talk about sex stuff with them, even in class.”
Emily didn’t want to think about being in Dean Wexler’s car the night of The Party. She had been nearly comatose. He could’ve done anything. And Nardo probably had known that when he’d loaded Emily into the car.
She told Jack, “Remember, Dean told me that he can’t father children.”
“No offense, but that sounds like something a guy would say so he doesn’t have to wear a condom.”
Emily laughed. “I think you know as much about condoms as I do.”
Jack looked at the ground. The joke had hit too close. “I told you I’m invisible. I hear them talking in the locker room about sex and girls all the time. It’s not nice what they say. Nardo especially, but Clay always laughs at his jokes, and Blake’s usually there to twist the knife.”