Page 57 of Your Fault

“I had a fight with Lion… I’ve never seen him like that before. He’s never yelled at me that way.” A tear streamed down her cheek. I couldn’t believe what she was telling me.

Lion was a sweetie pie. He could be an asshole sometimes, the same as Nick, but that didn’t change his nature. He treated Jenna like a queen. I couldn’t imagine what could have happened to make them argue.

“What was it about?” I asked, afraid it was because of the beating Nick took the other day and the trouble Lion had gotten into…or rather, that they both had gotten into. But I decided not to say anything.

Jenna wrapped her arms around her legs and rested her head on her knees. “I decided not to go to UC Berkeley,” she said.

I opened my eyes wide. Jenna had worked so hard to get into the same college as her father. And it wasn’t just the familyconnection—it was Berkeley! One of the best schools in the country.

“What? Why?”

Jenna huffed. “You’re looking at me just like Lion did, like I’ve committed a crime or something.” She let her hair down and pulled it back again, the way she always did when she was nervous or angry. “UCLA is a great school. You’re going there, Nick goes there…”

“Yeah, but Jenna, Berkeley is a huge deal. Even if you go there, you can still see Lion on the weekends. It’s not like the Bay Area is on the moon…”

“I’m not going!” she said desperately. “I don’t know what’s up with Lion lately, but he’s being weird as hell, and there’s no way I’m moving to another city unless I know he’s okay.”

I nodded. I understood her perfectly. “So what exactly did Lion say?”

“He completely lost his shit. He told me I was an idiot for changing schools just because of him. He said there was no way I could put my future at risk because of us…” Her voice cracked, and I could see she was about to lose it. “He threatened to leave me!”

I opened my eyes wide with surprise. What the…?

“He’s not going to leave you, Jenna, and you’re free to do what you want. He’s crazy about you. There’s no way he’ll stop seeing you over this.”

Jenna shook her head, wiping away tears with the back of her hand. “You don’t get it—he’s changed; he’s different. I don’t know what it is, but all he talks about is making money. The other day…” She choked back a sob. “You should have seen his face, Noah. I mean, not like Nicholas wasn’t worse for wear, too, but they could have killed him, and it was all the fault of…”

Her eyes met mine as she left the phrase hanging.

“The fault of what, Jenna?”

She looked away, stood, grabbed a pile of clothes, and dropped it into one of the open suitcases on the floor, making it seem as if she didn’t want to look at me.

“Nothing. I just don’t like Lion getting involved in stuff like that. Doing the things he and Nick were into last year…”

“They don’t, though, Jenna. They’ve changed. Nicholas has changed,” I said.

She turned to me and laughed, with an incredulous expression. “No they haven’t! Nicholas is still wrapped up in the same shit as always.”

I stood still, feeling a pressure in my chest that made me unable to breathe for a few seconds.

“What the hell are you talking about?” I asked, angry now, though I didn’t know why. I wasn’t going to let Jenna take her bad mood out on me, let alone Nick. She was telling me a bunch of lies.

She seemed to regret her words, but that didn’t stop her.

“Our boyfriends are fools. They’re still up to their necks in shit, and they’re just trying to make us believe they’ve cleaned up their act!”

“They have, Jenna! Nicholas doesn’t hang out with those people anymore. He’s changed!”

Again she laughed, but this time, it was cruel. I didn’t recognize her just then—I didn’t know who she was—she was trash-talking my boyfriend for no reason, not even making sense, as if it were his fault Lion couldn’t accept her decision about what school to go to.

“You’re more naive than I thought, Noah, honestly. You don’t know anything.”

Now she was trying my patience.

“What do I not know?”

“They’re talking about going back to the races,” she replied bitterly. “Both of them. Next week. I bet nobody told you that, did they?”

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