“I can help, Jade,” Letha says, which pretty much sets off every last one of Jade’s alarms.
“No, it’s me who can help you,” she says. “I’ve been watching these movies since, since junior high—”
“Textbook,” Letha says. “It makes perfect sense.”
“And it’s definitely you,” Jade insists, trying to push through Letha’s supportive tone. “Anybody who’s seen any of them, even the bad ones, they can tell right off what you are— who you are.”
“A friend,” Letha says, pouring her earnestness across, the palm of her hand warm on Jade’s forearm now. There’s something so Sunday school about it that Jade can almost feel the black paint on her fingernails steaming away.
“Sure, yeah,” Jade says, halfway trying to take her arm back but not making a show of it, “friends later, fine. We can—you and me, we’ll come to the ten-year reunion for the sequel, how’s that sound? That’s when Ezekiel will finally be coming up from the lake. We’ll stand back-to-back in the middle of the gym floor, crepe paper floating down all around us in slow motion, and—and you’ll have the sword from the trophy case, and I’ll have ripped the blade off the paper cutter in the main office, and we’ll, we’ll—”
“Don’t hate me,” Letha says, her eyes flicking up and to her right.
Jade can’t help but follow them over to the sudden grille of Hardy’s Bronco, maybe six feet from the bench. Its tires had to have announced it crunching in, but Jade must not have been checked in to her surroundings. Real good, horror girl. Shit.
As if on cue, like this has all been rehearsed, Hardy steps heavily down from the driver’s seat, the night’s lack of sleep weighing on him, it looks like. He peels out of his chrome aviators, blinks against the new brightness, then fixes his eyes on Jade, studying her for the first time all over again, it feels like.
“What is this?” Jade says to Letha, fight-or-flight kicking in.
Letha’s non-answer is answer enough. That and Mr.
Holmes, climbing down from the passenger side of the Bronco.
Jade stands, looks back and forth between them, then to Letha.
“You, you—？” she manages to get out.
“I had to report it, Jade,” Letha says, pushing her lower lip up like explaining how this is for the best, really.
Jade turns to run but one of her boots is already back to its natural state, so the dragging laces tie her feet up right when she’s trying to find that hyperspace button. She faceplants, the heels of her hands instantly raw and dented from the gravel around the bench.
Letha is there to hold her by the shoulders, make sure she’s okay.
“You showed it to them?” Jade says, hoping her voice isn’t shrieking like her head is.
“Them?” Letha says with concern, looking up, taking stock.
“Them,” Jade confirms.
Hardy is running the pad of his index finger along the top of the backrest of his daughter’s bench, looking at that instead of Jade’s current indignity, and Mr. Holmes is just standing there, the end of his brown tie flapping in the wind, his flinty eyes fixed where they always are: across the lake.
“No, no,” Letha assures Jade. “I just—I read it to him over the phone, the sheriff, to… to show. To prove. So he could help.”
“But the cops are always useless in cases like this!” Jade says, struggling to stand.
“I know it feels like that,” Letha says. “But you’ve lived alone with this for too long. How could I go out into the world knowing I’d walked away from—from someone asking for my help? Someone brave enough to ask for help?”
“It’s not me who’s gonna have to be brave!” Jade says, her voice panicking.
“This isn’t easy for any of us,” Hardy says, wading into this.
“Jennifer,” Mr. Holmes says in what sounds like the most reluctant, apologetic greeting.
“Jade,” Jade corrects, on automatic. It’s the call-and-response they’ve been flailing through since freshman year.
“Ms. Mondragon here was only doing what she thought best,” Hardy explains, his hat in his hands for some reason, even though he’s mostly bald and the sun’s shining.
“It’s just a—a personal letter and my old history papers,”
Jade says. “I don’t know what you think—”
“Jade,” Letha says in a way that Jade has to look back over to her.