"Fucked what up?" How could he possibly have anything worse to tell me? What could be worse than what he'd already done to me?
Shaking his head, I could feel that whatever he was about to say... it was going to unravel something. This thing he had to tell me wasn't small. It was big. Huge perhaps.
"Tristan..." My voice faltered, torn between urgency and dread. "Please tell me. Ineedto know. Please."
At my final plea, something in his demeanor changed, and his expression turned resigned. "Okay. I'll tell you. I—after all this time, I'm not sure how to begin." He offered me a small smile, and I almost felt sorry for him.
I shrugged, no idea what to say since I couldn't even comprehend his struggle or what it could be about.
"So I have a confession about that awful day in high school, you know, the day that disgusting poster was plastered everywhere."
He hadn't needed to clarify—I certainly knew what day he was referencing—but I nodded so he would continue. "A confession?" I prodded.
Looking down, he nudged something on the concrete with the toe of his shoe. "Yeah, a confession."
"What kind of confession?"
Glancing back up at me, his wounded eyes met mine, so full of anguish it took my breath away.
"I didn't do it," he said.
And just like that, the ground beneath my feet shifted again.
He didn't do it? What? What did that even mean? Was he trying to say...?
Mouth agape, all I could do was stare at him, the words ringing in a relentless loop between us.
"I didn't do it," he repeated. "I only confessed in order to get expelled."
Wait, what? Hewantedto get expelled? Was that the right conclusion to come to?
His words made no sense to me whatsoever.
Was I having a stroke right now? Or was it all just that confusing?
"What do you mean?" I asked, my voice sounding like a stranger's.
"I mean, Preston and Sloane stuffed the extras in my locker, panicking and in a rush to get rid of them. They knew I never locked mine. And that big stack in there... that's why I was prime suspect number one."
"What? Are you—are you joking right now?"
"I've never been more serious in my life. This is not a joke, not a lie, only the absolute truth that I should have told you a long time ago. But I didn't think it'd matter. The harm was still the same, no matter who did it."
Still not quite comprehending, I finally was able to find my voice and wanted answers. "Why would you confess to something you didn't do then? Why on earth would youwantto get expelled?"
"It was a split second decision, obviously the wrong one, one that I've regretted deeply in the years since. But I was young and I was desperate... to get away from my home situation. And while I was sitting there, being accused, the stack of posters in the principal's hands, I remembered something my dad had said, that if I fucked up one more time, they'd send me offto boarding school. Well, boarding school sounded like fucking heaven compared to my actual home." He shrugged, like he hadn't just rocked my entire world view.
"So you lied and took the blame, just to get away from your parents?"
"That's right. I couldn't see a way out... until I was sitting there being accused of a crime I didn't commit."
"But... but you were friends with them. You were in on the planning of course." So he was complicit which was just as awful as the actual bullying in my opinion. "Right?" I added.
He stepped closer, his face even more serious somehow. "No. I had nothing to do with it. Nothing."
What? I couldn't believe that. How could he possibly expect me to believe that?
"But youknewabout it. At the least, you would have heard about it beforehand."
