Chapter 4
At the same time, a strong shove slammed into my shoulder, sending me into the table corner. Pain shot up my back.
"Jack..." Natalie held her cheek, eyes shimmering with tears.
"I came to take care of Evelyn," she said weakly, "but she said she wouldn't have gotten hurt if it weren't for me. She pulled my hair and demanded I apologize.
"I apologized, but she still refused to forgive me. She even dragged me to her mom's room and told me to kneel and apologize to her mom."
Jackson's fists tightened.
He turned to me with a deep frown. "I went to find her because I wanted to. I told you to go home, but you wouldn't. That's why you ran into those guys.
"This is on you. Why are you blaming Nattie?"
"Jackson, what guys? What are you talking about?" My mom looked at him in confusion.
I pressed my palms together, silently begging him to stop.
But he didn't even look at me.
He looked straight at my mom with a cold, flat voice. "You really don't know? Three days ago, after school, Evelyn didn't go home. She was messing around in an alley with a bunch of guys for over half an hour."
A stack of printed photos landed on the bed.
It looked like footage taken from a dashcam.
Every frame showed me surrounded by a group of guys.
Because it was just still images, it almost made everything look worse, like it invited people to imagine the rest.
"I left earlier to grab this," Jackson said. "I was going to hand it over to the police, but now..."
He looked right at me. "You really have no shame."
He pulled Natalie behind him and walked out.
I scrambled to the side of the bed. "Mom, I didn't do anything. I was fighting them off the whole time. I was just hurt. I—"
The monitor beeped sharply, loud and fast.
Doctors and nurses rushed in and pushed me out of the room.
That night, I sank onto the floor of the hospital hallway.
I stayed there until sunrise, when the doctor finally stepped out of the emergency room.
As soon as I lifted my head, the tears fell on their own.
*****
On the day SAT scores were released, I was dragged to school for the ceremony.
Everyone was crowded together, clicking into their pages and screaming as they saw their scores.
I sat alone on the edge of the room, head down, saying nothing.
Jackson didn't join the excitement either.
He kept glancing at me, his expression unreadable.
He only perked up when it was Natalie's turn.
Someone asked, "Natalie, how'd you do?"
Natalie didn't answer, pretending to be shy, but the pride in her eyes was impossible to miss.
"Oh my god!" a classmate shouted. "Nattie, did you get the top score?"
Natalie covered her mouth and nodded, acting like she couldn't believe it herself.
Her friends screamed and hugged her tight.
"Nattie! Don't forget us when you get rich and famous!"
"I can die happy now that I went to school with the top scorer!"
"Let's go out to eat! My treat!"
"Wait." I stood up.
Everyone turned and frowned at me.
"We're celebrating our top scorer," someone said. "Why are you interrupting?"
I said, "My score isn't checked yet."
"No need to check." Jackson grabbed my wrist. "I told you, I'll help pay for your tuition."
One classmate sneered, "Look at that. Evelyn really lucked out having Jackson as her childhood buddy."
Another one echoed, "Seriously. Everyone knows her grades have been dropping. Does she really need to embarrass herself in public before she gets it?"
I didn't respond. I walked past them, typed in my SAT ID and password, and waited.
But the screen stayed blank.
"Why isn't it loading?"
"Maybe she actually got a zero. Come look at this!"
Natalie rushed over.
The moment she saw the page, her lips curled.
There was nothing to check.
She'd turned in a blank exam.
That meant I should've gotten a zero too.