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Half the campus is walking around with my face displayed on Kennedy for President T-shirts, and the other half seems split down the middle wearing shirts bearing either Elijah’s or Grant’s name. Someone hung a giant banner in the back of the food court, displaying our headshots from the photo shoot—Elijah’s smiling face on one side of me, and Grant’s on the other. And below each of their names is a neat row of chalk checkmarks, predicting the winner.
Nicole warned me the betting pool had reached almost $6,000, with Elijah as the favorite to win. If they only knew the actual prize had already gone to Jordan over a week ago.
Ever since the disastrous dinner party, Elijah and Grant have been sticking to me like toilet paper on the bottom of my shoe. In another place or time, I might have a hard time choosing between them. But in the here and now, I have to resort to extreme measures to find any peace.
Because no matter what I do, I can’t get Jordan out of my head.
“Hey, Kennedy.” Wearing matching khakis and white button-downs with little red bow ties, the Ken twins flank me as I cut through the dining hall to avoid my shadows.
“Hi.” I whip my gaze back and forth between them. Their unusually wind-swept blond heads conjure visions of Thing One and Thing Two from The Cat in the Hat. “What’s up?”
“We’ve come to talk some sense into you.” Ken 1 loops his arm through mine.
Ken 2 does the same on my other side. “Yes, we think you’ve made a horrible mistake in picking those two.” He eyes the huge banner hanging in the back of the food court.
My heart skips into overdrive, my ears suddenly ringing. “You do?”
“Definitely,” they chime together.
“Why?” I hold my breath.
“Isn’t it obvious?” they say in unison.
“You know who you should’ve chosen.” Ken 1 emphasizes the words with conviction.
Jordan’s face flashes before my eyes, and I reluctantly cling to the Kens to keep from swooning on my feet. Tempting fate, I ask the question, “Who?”
If even the Kens think I should’ve picked Jordan over a scholarship, all they need to do is say so, and I’ll end this whole thing now.
“Us!” Ken 2 says.
Ken 1 nods in agreement.
With a rough exhale, I laugh and yank my arms free, but inside, I’m trembling. “Nice try, guys.”
They shrug in sync like a pair of robots and amble toward the food line.
They don’t get far before Ken 1 looks back over his shoulder. “We kind of thought you’d pick Keller, but after seeing the shit they’re posting about him online, we get why you didn’t.”
He turns and walks away again.
“Wait!” I chase after him. “What are you talking about? Who’s posting what?”
“You know.” He shrugs. “The whole controversy about his parents dying in the Middle East. Conspiracy theory or cover-up? Only Keller knows for sure, I guess.”
He shuffles off with his cousin, leaving me shaken to my core.
After falling down the rabbit hole, devouring every tabloid account I can dig up about Jordan and his parents, I spend the next several days creeping around campus like a zombie. Guilt eats at me, picking my bones clean like a vulture.
As angry as I am that he posted the list, how he lied to my face every time the subject came up, when I think back to the vile things Nicole wrote about him, I can almost understand why he did it. If I’d only known. No wonder he wouldn’t open up about what happened to his parents. A fist tightens around my heart. With the secrecy surrounding their deaths, I wonder if even Jordan knows the whole truth.
The official statement is vague at best—his dad was a defense contractor on loan to a private security firm in Istanbul, and he and Jordan’s mom died somewhere in the Middle East. After that, the details get fuzzy. Their deaths are still under investigation, and their business in that region is classified.
In the absence of facts, irresponsible journalists made up some of their own. The conspiracy theories range from basic political intrigue, things like his dad running shady torture sites for the CIA, to more damning scenarios, like gun running and drug smuggling. A few stories even name Jordan as a mule for his parents’ alleged illegal activities, since he was evacuated mere days before they died.
Regardless of what the gossip rags print, I know Jordan. And I don’t believe a single fictitious word. If I knew where to find him, I’d tell him to his face. He clearly has some sort of early warning system, letting him know when I’m nearby so he can avoid me.
After my last class Thursday, Jordan’s radar fails, and I finally catch my first glimpse of him. Like the stalker I am, I follow him through the quad, all the way to the east parking lot where he swaps out a few books and shoves a looseleaf notebook into his backpack. I’d give almost anything to have him tell me off, or scare me like he used to. Even his anger would be better than nothing.
