The heaviness that settled in me was as if I'd aged a decade, when in truth only a couple of hours had gone by since we found out about what had happened. The nosy neighbor who always popped his head out to glare every time I knocked on the Logans' front door was the one who heard the screaming. It was so bad that he called the police.
But before they'd arrive, Jack Logan had vanished from the face of the Earth, leaving his broken son behind.
I had learned since that the neighbor's name was Phil. He was an old man whose defect of getting his face in other people's business might have saved someone's life. Phil knew Sawyer had no one else, so he'd got in the ambulance with Sawyer that took him to the ER and had gone as far as visit him when he had a chance to see if there was any progress. He'd been in the waiting area of the hospital when we arrived and recognized my papa before telling us everything.
A nurse told us that Sawyer was uninsured and an unaccompanied minor, which meant they were restricted in what they could do. He'd arrived to the hospital two days ago in the morning and ever since he'd been in a medically induced coma, waiting for help.
"I'll take care of it," papa told the nurse, surprising all of us.
Mama gasped, looking like she was going to lose her bearings as she said, "We can't afford it!"
"Maria Lucia," papa told her as he put his hands on her shoulders and looked deep into her eyes. "We also can't afford to turn our backs."
That was when my waterworks started anew. It was a long night of calling our insurance provider, a lawyer and a visit with the local authorities. I missed school the next day, a Friday, so I could be there when they finally took Sawyer into a second surgery that was supposed to better repair the damage. No one had given me details of what kind of damage it was, or whether he was going to make it out of this one. So I just stayed put that day, and the next, and the next.
"You stink," Toni told me as she sat next to me and handed me a sandwich. "Are you going to school tomorrow?"
I sank into the chair I'd claimed as mine in the middle of the waiting room, looking off at the hallway ahead of me and how the staff bustled with their activities. I'd been an inanimate object in the middle of all the action, inadequately equipped to deal with this.
"I don't know."
"You should," she said. "You need a change of pace."
"But-"
"With the way things are, he's not going anywhere any time soon." She patted my arm.
I looked at the sandwich in my hand. My stomach told me it could really use with food, but my soul just wanted to wither away. I was so bogged down by the circumstances and didn't know how to keep myself afloat right now, that the last thing I could think about was going to school and pretend that I was okay. That life hadn't just taken a cruel shift that altered my very essence.
My mind circled the situation like a vulture that had set sight on prey. Except that the vulture was trapped in a loop, never able to actually catch the prey. There was something I had to be able to do to help, I just didn't know what. But maybe Toni could help me understand myself once more.
"Toni," I started, and she shifted her full attention back to me, although her hands kept absentmindedly rubbing her round belly. "I have something to tell you, but I need you to promise it will stay between us."
Her eyes widened slightly but she nodded.
"Sawyer spent that night with me."
For a long while no reaction came from her, until, "What?"
I set aside the sandwich so I could wring my hands. "I was feeling really low about the whole admissions debacle, and he came over in the middle of the night while everybody was asleep."
"Did you..." she trailed off, but the question was as clear as if she'd finished it.
"No. Kind of, nothing serious," I said, taking a shaky breath. "It was wonderful. I told him he had to sneak out before everybody woke up and he left just shy of five in the morning."
Toni's expression shifted into something darker. "Then he went home, and that's when it happened?"
"It seems like it." I squeezed both of my knees, willing my lungs to grab onto the air. "If only I hadn't told him to leave so early, this wouldn't have happened."
"Stop," Toni commanded with a raised hand. "Don't even go there. This isn't your fault, Rory."
"I feel like it is, though," I said with a small voice.
She put her arm around me and brought me close. "If you'd let him stay longer and our parents caught you together, it'd have been mama who'd have done something we'd all be regretting."
"What if," my voice cracked and I cleared my throat. "What if Jack Logan did that to him because he was with me?"
"Get that out of your head." Toni pulled away from me and grabbed my chin the same way mama did when she was angry at us. Her eyes blazed just the same. "The fact is that Jack Logan is a domestic abuser who has just attempted to murder his son. You are not responsible in one bit for the madness that is in his mind and heart that led him to do something so horrible. Are we clear?"
I hung my head and nodded. Of course she was right, and yet the vulture of my anxiety kept circling. I was unable to shake the guilt. But as I sat next to the most supportive person in my life, it occurred to me that there was something I could do.
"I think I'll go to school tomorrow, after all."
"Good," she was pleased that she'd motivated me, except that she didn't know what for.
Monday arrived and I walked down the hallways, ready to make a scene.
Courtney and Lina flanked me. All I'd told them was that I needed them to have my back. Since they'd picked me up in the morning I'd told them the barebones of my plan and they both agreed that it was solid. It wasn't like I was going to be in severe trouble with the school, anyway.
We stopped on the way so I could knock on Mr. Davies' door. When he opened the door I greeted him with, "We need you to come with us."
His eyebrows went up. "No good morning or please?"
"It's important," was all I said.
Mr. Davies blinked a couple of times but turned around, locked his office door and followed after us. He started to ask questions when he realized we were approaching the Principal's office, but I remained mum. The Principal's assistant tried to block our way, but Mr. Davies told her it was fine, that we were with him. I did thank him for that.
We had to wait a couple of minutes until the Principal finished a phone call, but as soon as he did I said, "Sawyer Logan is innocent."
"Excuse me?"
I took a deep breath.
"The day before the trophy went missing it was still in the glass case, right? And it disappeared in the middle of the night?" I asked, after he nodded I continued. "Well, he couldn't have done it because he spent the whole night with me."
Everybody in the room gasped. Even my friends looked at me like I'd lost my mind.
So what if I was tossing my reputation to the trash? I didn't care. I was the only person who could prove Sawyer's innocence, and ultimately it didn't matter what these two men might think of me. I wouldn't be able to live with myself if I did nothing, just to spare myself the embarrassment.
"Yeah, you heard me. Sawyer Logan spent the entire night with me."
Courtney lifted her chin. "We can testify to it."
"Yes," Lina added, lifting her cellphone. "We have text messages back and forth that night with timestamps."
The Principal, though caught off guard as he seemed, recovered enough to say, "That's circumstantial evidence at best."
I gritted my teeth.
"How about this," I said through them, folding my arms to prevent my hands from wrapping around his neck. "Sawyer went home just before five in the morning. After he made it there his father beat him up so bad that the reason Sawyer's been missing in action since last week isn't because he's on the run from a crime he didn't commit. It's because he's in the ICU fighting for his life. Meanwhile his father is legitimately on the run, but it's the son who is getting framed for a petty crime? How is that just and fair?"
The silence that followed was all consuming.
I scrunched up my face as I tried to not bursting into a fountain of salty tears again.
I said, voice shaking with effort, "Here's what's going to happen now, you'll inform the student body of what's happened, clear his name and launch an actual investigation. And after that, you'll help me promote a fundraising campaign to help with Sawyer's medical expenses."
He spluttered.
"Um, Rory," Mr. Davies started. "I understand that you feel strongly about this, but please be respectful."
I turned to him. "Pardon me for being an emotional wreck right now, but someone I care about has been wronged by everybody who should have protected him. I'm finding it really hard to be cool with it."
Color rose up the Principal's neck. "Young lady-"
Mr. Davies raised a hand and cut in, "Girls, go back to class. I'll handle it from here."
"Gladly," Lina said. Between her and Courtney they hauled me out of the office, but I did catch Mr. Davies giving me a thumb up.
The adrenaline left my body after that and even though I had a lot of things to do from there, I felt way better. The girls and her boyfriends helped me set up the fundraising campaign. It was already the last week of the semester before winter break, so we had to hurry up and raise awareness of the situation to the entire school if we really wanted to get traction. I went home that night and pulled one of my old sketches of Sawyer, from the ones I'd done while I'd been low key denying the attraction from him. I added some extra touches and took it to the school next day, where I made copies and handed them to everybody in sight.
Mr. Davies convinced the Principal to do the right thing and he made a public announcement that followed through with my suggestion to a T. All of this helped us get some traction on social media, and by the middle of the week we'd gone viral on Twitter. But I suspected it had something to do with the fact that some of our more famous alumni retweeted the news as well. Ellen Young took special interest on it and thanks to her taking it to actual media outlets we started to see the numbers climb even higher.
It was on Thursday while I was still handing out pamphlets in the cafeteria, that the people I expected the least came over to me with the last piece of the puzzle. Taylor Banks and the young cheerleading girl I'd talked with once approached me. I looked from one to the other, because it was weird that they were just standing there not saying anything.
"Um, can I do anything for you guys?"
The girl cleared her throat and elbowed the older boy. "C'mon, tell her."
When all Taylor did was run his hands through his hair, I asked, "What?"
He cleared his throat, looked around and finally said, "Listen, I didn't know what was going on in Logan's house and with everything that's cropped up I feel really guilty."
I narrowed my eyes.
The girl sighed. "Start from the beginning, you idiot."
"Lexie told me we'd get back together if I did something for her."
My blood turned to ice. "Did you-"
"I helped," he said. "Remember when Logan and I got into that fight at the start of the school year?"
"How could I forget," I said.
"Well, while we were in detention I got to chatting with the janitor. I don't even remember half of the conversation, but he said that the camera in the main hallway stopped working and he couldn't get it fixed..."
I sucked in a sharp breath.
Taylor cringed. "Listen, I didn't steal the trophy. When Lexie asked me for help I refused her. Much as I wanted to get her back I'm not a total idiot. Getting expelled in the middle of senior year would suck."
"She stole it," the other girl said, her eyes shining. "This idiot just gave her the hint she needed. Lexie Cooper stole the trophy and hid it in Sawyer's locker for revenge."
It took me a second to understand what she meant by revenge, but the whole episode I started in the cafeteria weeks ago came to mind. Although she'd humiliated Sawyer in public, to the point that he'd been sure that would be the end of things, it looked like it hadn't been enough.
I grabbed his arm with the strength I remembered he'd once grabbed mine. "You need to tell the Principal."
He tried to get away. "I just told you because I feel really bad, but I don't want to get in any trouble-"
"Well, if you don't tell him I will," I said with a shrug. "At least if you do you control the narrative."
That convinced him. For the second time that week I marched into the Principal's office, this time with two different witnesses.
Later Mr. Davies told me he was very proud of me, and I took the compliment with grim acceptance. As the announcement came on Friday that the school had decided to expel Lexie Cooper for her terrible conduct, Sawyer was still unconscious and severely injured in a hospital bed and we had no news on his recovery prospects.
The best Christmas gift we got was that his fundraising campaign had doubled our goal, which meant that at least we were finally going to be able to give him the best care and I was happy that I was fulfilling my promise to fight for him while he fought for himself.
i did say this book was going to hurt...
also, if any of you are actual experts in medicine and want to jump at me with facts for the next few chapters, all i'll say is that this is a work of fiction and i kindly ask you to please suspend your disbelief. please and thank you 🖤