Chapter 16 #4
All the around her, the campus has sprung alive.
Organizers stand under nylon tents holding campus maps and canvas swag bags.
Overachievers are out for their morning runs, clad in neon and leggings.
Couples, high school sweethearts, Cece suspects, walk hand in hand, bathing in one another’s contented smiles.
On the verdant quad, industrious robins dig for worms, and somewhere overhead in the trees, mourning doves coo.
All of this—the storied institution, the well-bred men and women, the happy, perfectly matched couples, the world an oyster of endless opportunity and prosperity—she’d wanted it.
And doesn’t she still? Isn’t this why she’s here?
Isn’t this why she’s come back to Jonathan?
Because he’s always been the only one who can provide what Cece needs? Security, stability, predictability.
The dorm staircase reeks of beer and piss.
Cece holds her breath and tries to gather her thoughts.
She needs a plan, a course of action, but all she can think about is Morgan.
How different his life might have turned out…
Cece feels complicit in it all. Just last night, she’d slept well, a dreamless sleep, unbothered by the story.
Before she’d known the kid was Morgan, she’d been more than willing to rationalize Jonathan’s behavior, to forgive him for some boyish antics.
It was ages ago! Who didn’t do things they regretted?
And now? Cece doesn’t know, her solitary footsteps ringing in the empty hall.
She should write it all down before she confronts Jonathan, but there’s no time.
Cece wants answers…answers to what, exactly?
She isn’t quite sure, but she needs to know Jonathan is remorseful; she needs to know he regrets what he did. And what then?
To her surprise, Jonathan is awake. Two Advil and a Pedialyte from Logan have done wonders. He’s showered and clean-shaven, a towel wrapped around his waist.
“Is everything okay?” he says, pulling out the desk chair and offering it to Cece. “I’m supposed to be the hungover one, remember?”
“I’m fine.”
“Is that blood? Jesus, what happened?”
“It’s nothing. A papercut. I wanted to talk to you about something.”
Jonathan still looks alarmed by the dried blood on Cece’s hand.
She doesn’t know where to start…how to broach the subject.
Jonathan offers her bottled water, which she drinks as slowly as possible.
Always have a plan, her father used to say when she was swimming.
Every stroke, every kick should be in service of a goal, a mission.
Anything else is a waste, or worse, a mistake.
But this isn’t swimming, and since she was fired, since the job at Rayburn, since Morgan, Cece hasn’t been one for plans and premeditation.
“I overheard you guys talking last night,” she blurts out.
“Oh,” Jonathan says, seemingly miffed. “You’re gonna have to be more specific. There were a lot of guys around last night, and I wasn’t exactly of sound mind.”
“Logan,” Cece stammers. “I overheard you and Logan talking about that kid you got expelled.”
Jonathan tugs a shirt over his head and pulls on boxer shorts under his towel. He’s never been one for nudity in front of Cece, which has always struck her as deeply funny, but she’d never said anything, even when he insisted they always turn off the lights before sex. “What were you doing out?”
“I couldn’t sleep, so I went for a walk. You guys weren’t exactly quiet.”
“No. I can’t imagine we were,” Jonathan says, tidying his hair in the mirror.
“Well?”
“Well, what?”
“Is it true? What Logan said? About that kid getting kicked out for drugs that weren’t his?”
“Logan’s an idiot. Half the things he says are lies and the other half are exaggerations.”
“It didn’t sound like a lie.”
“What do you want me to say?”
“Is it true?”
Jonathan grabs his Shinola watch and squints while he struggles with the glossy leather band. “It’s not one of my prouder moments.”
“You just let it happen?”
“It was a long time ago.”
“You could have said something. You could have stopped it.”
“The kid was a bad egg, Cece…I’m not saying he deserved it, but it was only a matter of time before he got expelled for something. He didn’t belong at Deerfield.”
“How do you know that?” Cece says, her voice rising, piercing and shrill. “How can you be so certain?” It catches her off guard, her anger and fury, like it’s always been inside her, like it never left since their first breakup.
Predictably, Jonathan remains calm, regarding her emotional outburst with a scientific curiosity, like she’s a new species he’s discovering for the first time.
“What’s gotten into you, Cece? One minute you’re doting on me, the next you’re on some righteous crusade against me and my friends. What’s this really about?”
“It’s about the truth!”
“I don’t think so. I think you’re having second thoughts, again,” Jonathan says and chuckles to himself.
“I must be the dumbest person alive to give this a second go. Everyone told me—my friends, my family—not to take you back. But I didn’t want to quit.
I’m not a quitter, Cece. But I have eyes, Cece.
Last night, I was watching you judging this place…
my high school buddies. You want it all so badly.
Why else would you be with me? Why else would you have come back?
But you won’t let yourself enjoy it. You’ve got to poke it and prod it, pick it over until you find something you don’t like about it, and then you do what you’re doing right now. ”
Jonathan’s friends…his family…It stings to know she is a topic of discussion, a blight on his otherwise wonderful life. “So then why did we get back together? If everyone keeps telling you how terrible I am.”
“Because I know the real Cece,” Jonathan says and takes her in his arms. “Remember her? The one who finished her CAS exams faster than anyone else at her company, the one who always knew what she wanted. The one who was never afraid of the future, because she’d already considered every possible outcome. ”
It’s easy for Cece to be seduced by this version of herself; it’s a version she’s cultivated over the years to ensure she never had to confront what she finds herself face-to-face with now: a future she no longer recognizes, a person she does not like.
She closes her eyes, grinds her molars. “A kid’s life was ruined because of you and your friends. ”
“I’m sure he turned out fine!” Jonathan says, exasperation seeping into his voice.
“But he didn’t!”
“What are you talking about?”
“Morgan. You met him the day you came to New London. When I showed you the cove. You saw him and you didn’t even recognize him. I didn’t understand why he was staring at you, but now I do. He’s in the class photograph in the yearbook for your junior year, but then he’s gone in twelfth grade.”
“That’s ridiculous. Do you hear yourself? You sound like a crazy person. A crazy person, Cece.”
“He knew you, Jonathan. He knew exactly who you were.”
“So you know the guy. I mean, it’s a hell of a coincidence, but I guess that’s what you get for slumming it in New London this summer. It was years ago, Cece. It’s not like I can go back and undo what Logan did. Why do you care so much? What does any of this have to do with us?”
“He’s my friend!”
Jonathan retreats to the bed and sits down.
His eyes are calm, his voice contemplative.
“I get it now. You like this guy. You don’t actually care about whether I’m a good person, or whether Logan ruined his life—you just want an out.
You’ve met someone else, and instead of being up front about it, instead of being honest with yourself, you’re starting a fight in the hopes that I’ll end things for us. ”
The veracity of Jonathan’s observation—an observational truth that was not evident to Cece herself until this very moment—leaves her speechless, her mouth agape, words caught somewhere in her throat.
Jonathan regards her with a kind of sagacious displeasure, like a college professor listening to an undergraduate pleading for an extension on their midterm paper.
He shakes his head and fishes his loafers out from under the bed.
“It’s my reunion weekend. All my friends are here.
I’d prefer if we didn’t have a big blowup…
I’m all tapped out. We’re just different, Cece.
There’s no shame in admitting it. I know that now. ”
Jonathan’s maturity is enraging, but Cece knows he’s right.
The fire’s gone out of her. Logan, Jonathan, the rest of his friends—they are of this place.
And why should she hold it against them?
It’s like faulting a fish for swimming, a wave for rolling.
Her pocket vibrates but she ignores it. He is right.
Of course, he is always right. Even now, she can’t vilify him—make it easier to leave, less risky.
She goes to her suitcase and zips it closed. “I’ll just get going.”
“You don’t have a ride.”
“I’ll figure it out.”
Jonathan throws up his hands as if to extricate himself from the situation entirely. “Do whatever you want.”
Cece pulls out her phone. It’s Richie. “I’m sorry about the way this all ended.”
“I’m not,” Jonathan says. “It’s brought me clarity, and now I don’t have to waste any more of my time.”
Cece feels the heat rise in her chest, the need to defend, to attack Jonathan for being so Jonathan in all things, but then it dies. She lets him have the last word (a sign of maturity, she hopes) and slips out into the hall, suitcase rolling behind her, and picks up the call.
“We’ve got a problem,” Richie says. It sounds like he’s calling from a high school cafeteria, voices echoing in the background.
According to Richie, he’s done nothing wrong. It was all just a big misunderstanding, but that isn’t how the police saw it, which is why he’s calling from the county jail.
“Assault?! What were you thinking?”
“All I did was yank a banner out of the guy’s hand. I was just going about my business. He was the one being aggressive.”
“They’re holding you just for that?”
“He might have taken a spill.”
Cece’s mind whirls. “What can I do?”
In an oddly steady voice, Richie tells her he needs two things. The first is that he’s using up his one call on her, so she’ll need to contact his lawyer. The second is that she’ll need to head back to New London as soon as possible.
“Why?”
“The town hall is tomorrow, remember? There’s no guarantee I make bail by then. You need to be prepared to give a statement, serve as a representative for the company.”
“What about Santiago?”
“Don’t kid yourself. He’s too rough around the edges. My time is up here. You’re the only one who can do it.”
Images flood her mind: Cece fumbling for words at the microphone, palms slick, tongue turgid, onlookers chuckling to one another at her frazzled gibberish. “I’m terrible at public speaking.”
“And you think I’m any good?”
“But I don’t know anything about the company. What am I supposed to say? This isn’t the plan.”
“You’ll figure something out,” Richie says.
“There’s got to be another—”
The line goes dead, and all Cece can do is stare at her trembling hands.