“His father’s the head of the school board,” he says, disrupting my thoughts.
I blink. “I know. So what?”
Jasper stares at me like I’m stupid, the way he used to, months ago. It hurts more than I’d expect. I’m so weak.
“Fin can get you expelled if he wants, and Fin always gets what he wants.” Jasper stares into the distance.
I bring my brows together. “The fight wasn’t on school property, and he fought too. He’s be implicating himself.”
“Doesn’t matter.”
“But how?” Just because someone is rich and influential, that doesn’t mean they can warp the rules.
Jasper looks resigned. “Because you’re both students. Because the rules are different at private schools and they have more discretion to expel students. Because, as I said, Fin’s father is on the the school board and their family is extremely powerful —”
“But —”
“Because you’ve both fought before, and you started the fight, Kieran, everyone saw it, and you started the fight in the boys’ bathroom, didn’t you?”
“I…yeah,” I admit it.
Jasper stares at me. “What happened in the first fight?”
“Why do you care?” He probably wants more evidence that I’m a violent psycho. It makes sense.
I wish I never told him about how I got expelled from my old school. I wish I never told him about Michael, and how I was dumped. I wish I never showed him how pathetic I am.
“Because,” Jasper answers. “Just tell me. Please.”
And I’m a sucker because I can’t refuse him, not when he asks me like that.
“I walked into the bathroom,” I say. “They were already there. Hudson was terrorising little kids. Fin came out of the cubicle. He said something like, ‘it’s the new kid.’ I already had a bad feeling from the way he was looking at me. He asked me questions, like why did I move, which school did I come from, what my parents did, etcetera. I answered them all vaguely. He was trying to figure out what kind of person I was, and when he figured it out, he looked at me like I was…” I remember the way he looked at me, like I was a bug to step on. “Inferior,” I finish.
“I started to leave, but then he grabbed my arm to stop me, and I hated that. Maybe it’s my fault for being sensitive, but it reminded me of how the people at my old school would shove Michael and me around. Anyway, I asked him to let go, I told him don’t touch me, but he didn’t listen, in fact, he seemed entertained.
“It’s my fault. I started it. In retrospect, it’s so obvious he was trying to goad me, but I didn’t think about that in the moment. I pushed him out of the way, but then he pushed back into the sink. He wouldn’t stop talking. He said something about me being a pussy, so then I shoved him properly hard, and he went down more easily than I expected. That’s when you walked in.” I look at Jasper, who’s watching me intently, emotions clear on his face the way it is when it’s just the two of us.
Then the next second, his face goes blank. “Thank you for telling me,” he says. His voice is too polite. It’s his school captain voice.
“You don’t have to thank me,” I say.
“Okay.” He stands up and gazes at the garden.
I stand up too. “If you have something to say, just say it.”
His gaze whips to me. “What?”
“You’re being…weird,” I say, and his face changes so I know it’s not all in my head. “If you have a problem with me, just tell me.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Jasper says.
I take a step forward, and he takes one back. “You’re lying.”
He shakes his head.
I take another step forward, and once again he steps back, so fast he almost stumbles over his feet. He can’t bear to be close to me.
“I thought we trusted each other enough not to pretend,” I say. “You’re pretending.”
