The Kids Aren't Alright

Chapter 29: Ronan

James nods. "Okay. But you never answered my first question."

"Which was?"

"If you're rich or not."

"I was willing to bet fifty dollars on whether we'd win this game."

"I'll take that as a yes."

I look over at James. He's smiling ever so slightly at me. I cross my fingers and hope for incredibly amusing.

"James," I tell him, "In all honesty, I am really fucking loaded."

"Okay," he says. "That's cool."

"It's alright."

"Do you own a private jet?"

"I'm... not entirely sure."

James lets out a breathy laugh. "I really can't decide if I should hate you right now or not."

"Well, we're stuck at this camp for the next two months together, so you have plenty of time to figure it out."

"Ha. True. So, how did you get sent to Lightlake, if you're so rich? I thought rich people could get away with everything."

A bracing wind blows through the trees and rifles through my hair looking for spare change. It feels like Jack Frost is trying to give me a head massage. I grimace and say, "It's a common misconception that rich people can get away with anything— common because we do get away with most things. But what I did was inexcusable. My family is loaded, but even we couldn't pay off the trouble I stirred up."

"What kind of trouble?" James asks, his interest piqued.

"I killed a man."

"No, you didn't."

"Yes, I did. I put a gun against his head. Pulled my trigger, now he's dead."

Before I can stop myself, I start singing the entire song of "Bohemian Rhapsody". James just rolls his eyes at me at first, but once we get to the "easy come, easy go" part, he joins in, too. We perform the musical solo together with extravagant displays of air guitar that would make Jimi Hendrix himself jealous.

But James is not easily distracted, and as soon as the song is over he presses the topic of my inexcusable crime once again. "So, what did you really do?"

"Easy. I crashed my neighbor's car into a telephone pole."

James' face remains perfectly neutral for a while longer.

And then he starts to laugh.

"Why are you laughing? It's not funny."

"You are a terrible liar," James tells me, which has got to be the textbook definition of irony.

I just shake my head at him and grin.

"Fine. Keep your secrets." James pushes himself to his feet, brushing the dirt off the back of his jeans. "We should probably go help our team. Wouldn't want to get kitchen duty for the second time this month."

I clutch at my chest in mock pain. "Ouch. Am I really that bad at washing dishes?"

"What? No, I only meant—"

"It's fine, James. I'm just playing with you."

"Oh. Right." James smiles sheepishly at me. "You know, it was kinda fun spending time together, even if we were just scrubbing dishes. Better than spending the night with off-his-meds Daniel."

"I knew you couldn't get enough of me," I tease.

James throws a leaf at my face. It gets caught in the spikes of my hair, and I have to use my fingers to brush it out. "You have an ego the size of Alaska, Lockwood."