Chapter 51Isabel, the Assistant
PRESENT DAY
I sat in my backyard and fed two decades of Scout’s diaries to the fire. On the lounge chair beside me, my laptop played footage of the press conference, Captain Randall Xie breaking the news that Scout had surrendered peacefully after confessing to bombing Knox Aeronautics, while CNN commentators dissected it in an incredulous voice-over. I longed to cut through the screen and answer them.Oh,youcan’t believe the turn the Scout Sage saga has taken? Join the fucking club.
Unsurprisingly, news of Scout’s arrest was on every channel, every social media platform, every text and voicemail clogging up my phone. Unfortunately, I was addicted to stewing in it, like the masochist I was beginning to discover I was. Or maybe I was just lonely. Every single person I knew had either abandoned or betrayed me.
The camera cut back to the studio, where a perfectly coiffed anchor wore a deer-in-the-headlights expression. “If you’re just tuning in, a bombshell of a confession from musician Scout Sage: She claims to be the Knox Aeronautics bomber—the LAPD arrested the wrong woman on what is now believed to be a false tip.” The anchor turned to the man beside him. “I’m almost too stunned for words. Has there been a famous young woman more scandalously swept into counterculture since Patty Hearst ran into that bank on behalf of the SLA?”
“And like Patty, I’m wondering whether Scout can even have a fair trial, given her notoriety,” said the man—a legal expert, according to the chyron.
I snorted and tossed a notebook of old lyrics into the fire, watching as the flames blackened the loose-leaf papers. Scout’s lawyer hadwarned her it would take a long time to figure out the mechanics of a jury. Where could she go where no one knew her name? But she’d pressed on anyway.
Another expert wondered if Scout would be charged with arson or something more serious, like domestic terrorism, and I pointed a bingo finger at him. “Arson’s what Scout’s fancy fucking lawyers are negotiating for.”
“A lot depends on the severity of her charges,” said the talking head. “The district attorney will have to weigh the fact that no matter how airtight the case is, there’s a chance Scout’s so popular a jury will give her the lightest possible sentence.”
“Two years for arson in California,” I agreed. That’s what her lawyers had told us. At which point Scout had turned to me and said, “See? Not so bad.”
Surely Scout’s popularity would have an influence on the case, continued the CNN legal expert. People loved her. Even before the accusations, she was known by early fans for being kind.
“That wasmyidea,” I yelled at the laptop. “The whole nice-girl thing wasmygoddamn invention.” It had been my idea to throw out the mean girl and build Scout’s likability as a form of capital. I’d just never intended for her to cash in on it like this.
I slumped on my chaise. These days, I wanted to yell at a lot of people, but none more than the woman currently on house arrest. Instead, I was stuck in my backyard in Los Feliz, talking back to news anchors while destroying every piece of evidence of Scout’s private thoughts and plans.
I pulled a spiral notebook out of the plastic bin. It was an artifact from junior year of high school, the book we’d used to pass notes. I opened it and was hit with grief at the sight of Scout’s teenage handwriting, the big bubble letters.My parents are being impossible, she’d written.They won’t let me go to the party. Can I say I’m sleeping at your house? Georgia might have to come, too. Get your own life, Georgia, am I right?
I looked at the firepit, clutching the notebook to my chest. I didn’t want to erase it. But Scout had told me everything had to go. That night, after our friends voted in a way I would never forgive and it was just us left at her house, Scout had forced me to stop pleading and listen.
“I need you to get rid of it all,” she’d insisted. “Every diary, song book, my sticky notes. Wipe my emails. Don’t leave anything.”
I’d shaken my head. “Why?”
“Because I need to stay in control of the story.” Scout’s face had glowed in the candlelight. “If I confess, I’ll have a better chance of fighting the charges in court than Juliet. She has no money, no fame. But Iz, I’m going to have to deny everything about what we’ve built. I’m going to need to look as innocent as possible. If people think I’m the leader of some”—she scoffed and shook her head—“Hot Girl Murder Club, I’ll have a hard time defending myself. We have to erase it. Erase everything anyone could use to get a read on me, just to be safe.”
I’d gripped her by the arms. “I know you feel like what happened to Georgia was your fault, that you failed her as a big sister. But throwing your life away isn’t atonement. Juliet isn’t Georgia—it’s not your job to save her.”
Scout’s face had flooded with conviction. “It’s like you said at Easton’s: There has to be a line that separates us from them. We’ve answered aggression with aggression for so long, but”—she pressed a hand to her heart, like what she was saying physically hurt—“it hasn’t changed anything.”
“Sacrificing yourself won’t either.”
“Actually, I think it might be the only thing that has real meaning. It costs something. What does revenge cost? Anger is easy.”
“Will you do this even if it means losing me?” It was my final move, the last card I had to play.
Scout didn’t answer me. She didn’t have to. We stood there in the silence of her living room as dawn broke, sunlight filtering through her backyard, and the look on her face was enough. She was willing to lose me over this.
Now I fed her notebook into the fire like an obedient little assistant and watched the flames eat it. We were erasing everything I’d built. I’d been fine with Scout being a star while I lived in the shadows, but this was my life’s work, the one thing I had to show for myself, the accomplishment I was proudest of. Scout would live on in history, for better or for worse, but I would fade into invisibility, the ghost of a woman who’d given everything for nothing in the end.
I was tired of doing what Scout told me. For once in my life, I wanted to choose myself.
Something boomed against the tall wooden gate that shielded my backyard, and I gasped, leaping to my feet, envisioning the Green Lions or the FBI, come to harm me or take me in. But suddenly Brooks’s head appeared above the gate—he was lifting himself up, climbing over the fence. He dropped heavily to his feet on the other side.
“What the hell?” I yelled. “Are you trying to scare me to death?”
“Scareyou?” He straightened in the grass, his handsome face red, sweat at his brow. “You weren’t answering your door.”
I moved to hide Scout’s notebooks from his gaze. “So you decided to break in? What’s wrong with you?”
