“I can think of worse coping mechanisms.” Phoenix smiled.
“All right. So question and answer. Um. I know I’m a Monk. How are you all here? Shouldn’t you be at Pullman and Columbia?”
Julian gave the answer. “Well, Jer and I have graduated. We had enough credits and the school was happy to play ball with my parents, so to speak. We’re done. College applications sent in, but we aren’t going anywhere until everything is settled and you are fine. Only New York schools, which maybe we’ll need to redo if you are really set on no New York.”
“Let’s wait a second and give her a chance to settle into her new reality.” Jer stood. “But yes, we’ll move schools. This is about us being together. Not about where.”
That was really sweet, only I couldn’t have them screwing up their whole lives for me. Maybe Jer anticipated what I was going to say because he lifted his hand up. “Don’t say it.”
“Okay.” I smiled. Yep, he had read that correctly.
Phoenix squeezed my knee. “I have to finish school. You have to finish school. We don’t have to finish at Pullman. We can go anywhere. Even online. Whatever happens, we’ll do it together.”
I loved that thought. It settled my stomach a bit. He and I were both going to have to repeat Junior year. We’d do it as a team.
Barrett shrugged. “I don’t like school. I was happy to leave for a bit. I’ll go back if you end up in New York, or I’ll go somewhere else. None of us could concentrate with you gone and Phoenix going through this time. School is on pause for the Lents. Our fathers, too. They’re all here.”
“To be fair, only Eric can’t work. He has to actually be at the office.” It was Phoenix’s turn to stand up. “And he seems to be keeping busy. Helping here a lot.”
Their lives were all on pause. I hadn’t asked them to do that, but they had.
“Okay.” Jer made me meet his gaze. “Start talking. What happened with you? Don’t spare us details. I want to know how bad it got. I need to know. Please.”
It was so unusual for Jeremy to say please. I sighed. “Well, I think you know what happened in New York. I grabbed Phoenix’s bag of ketamine. I got caught with it. They left me in a jail cell all night. My aunt gave them permission to conduct a drug test on me which of course was bad because Maggie had drugged me. A detective questioned me, and I didn’t tell themanything.” I directed that to Phoenix. “I’m not a snitch like Hal was or whatever.”
He shook his head, fast. “Red, I would have preferred it if you had told them it was me.”
“No, they didn’t want to know whose ketamine it was. They wanted to know where it had been purchased from. I didn’t tell them. I told them I didn’t know. I didn’t want you to get in trouble with Joe.”
He shook his head. “Joe is no longer a part of my life. But, you had no way of knowing that, and you just kept trying to save me.”
“I felt really sick.” I’d already told Barrett I’d been aching for him, I didn’t need to rehash that right then. “But the lawyer my aunt hired told me they had made arrangements for me to go away to a school for bad kids. They had taken all these parts of my life and lined them up so they fit a narrative. I ran away from home to live with a known drug abuser. I got in trouble in school. I was on drugs. I was carrying a felony’s worth of ketamine. They said I could go or I could go to jail.” I had to get up and move. I walked over to the window so I could stare at the lake.
Arms came around me. Jer’s voice was gentle. “I should not have insisted you talk.”
“No, I get it. You want to know. I would want to know.” I sighed. “I puked in a garbage can, and then I followed him outside where there two guys with a van. They told me it could go easy or hard but it was going. I told them I wasn’t a problem. No one would believe me. And then they drugged me, which was awful because I was already so messed up from the night before.”
I loved that his arms were around me right then. They all moved until they stood facing the window except for Jer who remained where he was.
“I woke up in a strange place. The headmistress was there. She told me the rules. Put me in solitary—everyone starts in solitary. I think you saw it? Were you there?”
Julian kissed my hand. “We were all there. Not that you would remember. Kit tried to leave us home. That was cute he thought that was happening.”
I smirked at him. “I love how you put that.”
“I have my moments.”
“Anyway, they dosed us with things every week. Kept us compliant, but if we needed something else, they did that too. I was always being sent to solitary for standing up for the little kids. And I cleaned and hung around with some girls who didn’t mind sneaking out at night to look at YouTube. It’s kind of hard to really explain to you what it was like. It was just… horrible. All the time and I was pretty sure that I was never getting out until I was eighteen.”
Someone cleared their throat. Kit Lent stood in the doorway. “We have to talk about that. Come see me. The boys don’t know about this yet. Bring her home. She’s released. We’re having dinner. Come to the big house.”
Having delivered that order, Kit left us alone in the room. I froze where I stood. I was leaving the hospital. It had been awful going through this, but at least it had been safe.
“What’s the matter?” Barrett held my gaze. “You’re okay.”
“What’s out there? Where we’re going? Who… will be there?”
He tapped my chin until I looked at him. “Only us. My parents. No one else unless you want to see someone else.”
