Chapter 5: On the Record

Lucas

Noah wanted a breakfast sandwich. His mom wanted to know how somebody ended up in an emergency department when he'd told her he was going out for one drink. I stood at the foot of his bed with a paper bag in one hand while he tried to answer both of us.

"I did have one drink," he said. "I can't really control what everybody else does after that."

"No," his mom said. "You can't."

She took the bag from me, checked what I'd brought, and set it where he could reach it. Then she went out to ask about his discharge paperwork. Noah waited until the door shut before he opened the sandwich.

"She called my dad," he said.

"Is he coming?"

He picked at the paper around the bottom. "He said he was working. He always says he's working when he's with her."

I'd heard enough about his dad to know who her meant. I sat in the chair his mom had left. She'd folded her sweater over the back and put her bag underneath it like she was planning to be there all day.

"You tell your mom that?" I asked.

"I've told her she should leave him. She says it's more complicated than that." He took a bite. "Maybe it is. I'd still leave."

I thought about my own mom and the things I'd wanted to say to her after a fight with my dad. I'd usually gotten as far as asking whether she wanted me to take the trash out. It was hard to tell somebody what they should do when you still wanted them both to be there in the morning.

"You want me to stay until you get out?" I asked.

"Yeah." Noah chewed. "Also, you've got to stop looking at my leg like you're the one who pushed me."

I looked up.

"I mean it," he said. "Bring me food if you feel bad. This is great."

I handed him the napkins. My phone buzzed while he was wiping sauce off his thumb.

It was Owen, sending me a screenshot from a campus confession account. The post said I'd abandoned a pregnant ex. It included the name of my team and enough detail about the bar that anybody who knew us would know who it meant. Half the comments had moved on to arguing about whether Oliver had come to get me because we were secretly together.

I read the first part twice. I'd known Brianna would tell people something. I'd still expected her to leave it alone after the police took statements.

"What's wrong?" Noah asked.

I showed him. His thumb stopped halfway down the screen.

"You want me to tell people what happened?"

"You've got enough to do."

"I can type lying down."

I sent him the post. Then I opened the recording I'd made at the bar and put one earbud in. Hearing my own voice was worse than I'd expected. I'd sounded so sure I could keep things from getting out of hand if I said everything clearly enough.

I stopped the playback after Brianna asked me to say I was the father. I'd kept it in case I needed to show what she'd asked. I hadn't thought about how it would feel to let strangers listen to her say she was pregnant. The post had already put that part out there. I could answer what she'd said about me without putting the whole conversation in a group chat.

I sent the unedited recording to the officer who'd given us his contact information. Then I put up a short response with the part where she asked me to claim the baby and I told her we'd never slept together. I wrote that Noah had been hurt and asked people to leave him alone. I deleted the sentence I'd started about Oliver. His name didn't belong in my answer just because other people wanted to put it there.

By the time Noah's mom came back, the confession account had taken the post down. Owen sent me three more screenshots anyway. I muted him until we got Noah into his mom's car.

Oliver was at the kitchen table when I got home. He had a cutting board in front of him and a bowl of strawberries he'd already washed. My right knee had felt cold on the bus. There was a towel and an ice pack beside his chair.

"How's Noah?" he asked.

"Going home. His mom's got him." I pulled out the chair opposite him. "Did you see the post?"

"Yeah."

"Did you read the comments?"

"Some."

I wanted to ask which ones. Instead I watched him take the tops off the strawberries. He cut off the pointed end of each one and slid it onto a plate. The pieces that were pale near the stem went into the bowl in front of him.

"You know you can eat the good part," I said.

He slid the plate across to me. "You can leave it if you don't want it."

I ate one. Then another. The third was sweet all the way through.

"Someone said you picked me up because we're dating."

"Someone also said we got thrown out for making out in the bathroom."

I looked at him too fast. He was still cutting strawberries. The knife went through one with a soft click against the board.

"At Julian's," he said.

"I knew what you meant."

"Okay."

I ate another strawberry. He'd left the best one on my side, the big one he'd cut into quarters because it would've been awkward to eat in one bite. I wondered how long he'd been doing that. Long enough for me to know which piece he'd give me before he moved it.

"You doing anything tomorrow?" I asked.

"Depends. Are you asking me to pick you up somewhere?"

"I'm asking if you want to go to Salem."

I'd spent part of the bus ride looking up things I'd have laughed at two days ago. One shop ran a little weekend event where you could write down what you wanted to get rid of. I hadn't found a single plausible explanation for what was happening to me. It would've been nice to find one ridiculous solution that worked.

"Why Salem?" he asked.

"I want to check out a shop."

"What shop?"

I took the last piece of strawberry. "I'll tell you in the car."