“So, where’s Coach Granger headed to now that he’s retired?” my mom asks with a mouth full of food.
“Florida, I think.”
I never told anyone about what I overheard Coach and Jada talking about. I didn’t even tell them I had heard their accidental confessions of killing Malcolm. He helped me at times when no one else would. I figure I owe him my silence. Anyway, he’s a good man at heart. He’s about to leave here forever, and I don’t imagine he’ll ever commit another murder.
I can’t say the same for Jada who decided to stay here and take over for him, coaching the girls’ track team. That’s the thing about this place. It makes people do all sorts of things they would have never dreamed of or thought they’d be capable of doing. I don’t really care if she becomes some lone vigilante of WJ Prep though. If the Elites and everyone else here can play dirty, why rat out someone who stands a chance at giving them a taste of their own medicine?
Soon, it will all be behind me. And I have never been more ready to get out of this town.
A couple of months later, I have managed to cram all of my essential possessions into a few small boxes that are stacked up next to my door. Mom and Brendan assure me they’re eager to get out of Jameson too now that they know the truth about everything that’s happened here. Whatever I haven’t packed up is donated or sold. And before long the room is empty. Except for one remaining thing that I’m not quite sure what to do with.
Sitting in the middle of the empty room is Marissa’s diary. I smooth my hands across the cover, almost feeling tempted to open it up and start reading again. But I stop myself. I already know how the story ends. Marissa becomes one of them. Not by choice really, but as a means of survival.
I wish she could have seen other ways out. I wish it were just some novel where any number of other endings would be possible. But I know that’s not the story written across the remaining pages, and maybe that’s why Emmett never wanted to read it. Would it have been better for him to read firsthand of how his mother used to be before Thomas and his world changed her? No, probably not. Because that person is long gone, and what’s left was too sad of an ending for him to stomach. I don’t think I can handle it either.
I tuck the diary underneath a loose board in my closet. Maybe one day some scared and lost newbie to Jameson will stumble across it and see it as a warning. I don’t know that there is any right way to respond
to the wrath of the Elites, but these words could do something for them. Maybe one day someone will find a way to change things around here. It’s a nice thought. I say a little prayer over the book that it could be a catalyst for such a thing just before closing the loose board back down over top of it.
I take one last look at my room. For all that’s happened within these walls, I don’t feel attached to this place at all. It was a refuge in the hell of Jameson, but really, we only lived here for one year. I’ve learned to look beyond places or things for a sense of security, safety, and belonging. I have found those things deep within myself and in the arms of my parents.
“You ready?” Brendan asks from the doorway with a proud smile.
“More than ever.”
My mom comes up behind him and we each grab a box to carry down to my car. I may have thought the hardest part of all of this would be surviving, but as I hug my parents goodbye, I realize I was wrong. Leaving them behind here is the hardest thing I’ve ever been faced with. The reality of it causes me to break down crying.
“I hope those are happy tears,” my mom says as she smudges her thumbs across my wet cheeks.
“Promise me you’ll leave here as soon as you can,” I beg through my tears.
“We’re going to be fine,” she assures me. “Don’t you worry about us.”
I peel myself away and let out a deep sigh, but it’s harder than I expected to actually get in my car and drive away.
“You’ll call us when you get there?” she asks. I nod and start crying again. “Enough of that. Everything is okay now. And not only do you have your first day of classes to prepare for, you have that new job waiting for you.”
I was determined to make my way to the school in California, my top choice, without Theo’s help. Even though everyone kept saying it would be impossible, I scoured the city’s job boards relentlessly. Nothing feels impossible to me anymore. And my persistence paid off. I managed to find a part-time coaching gig at a community center. They had been wanting to expand their after school athletic programs and had never been able to offer track as an option before.
I completed a couple of phone interviews and a video chat, the whole time trying to hide my desperation for the job, so I didn’t scare them off. Without that job, my chances at making it through my first year in California would have seemed dire. So much so that I might have had to settle for a different school. Which is why it was such a relief when they finally agreed to hire me.
I try to focus on my excitement for everything to come, but I still find it hard to leave my parents. They finally shuffle me off into my car, giving me constant reassurance that they’ll be okay.
“This is crazy,” I laugh at them through my car window. “I have wanted nothing more than to get out of here, and now I can’t seem to leave.”
My mom smiles in a way that makes me believe that everything really will be okay. I know they’ll make it out of here soon. But if I don’t leave now, I might not. I’ve learned the hard way to never underestimate what this town could throw at you any given second, and I won’t feel safe or convinced that I really am finally free until I am several states away.
With one final push from them, I take off. Once I start driving, I don’t stop. I feel like a scared family fleeing a house full of poltergeists in the middle of the night. I don’t check my rearview mirrors, and I don’t stop for anything. For many miles, I am convinced that some part of Jameson is waiting in my backseat. The moment I glance back, it could jump out and kill me.
But that doesn’t happen. By sunset, I am zooming out of Massachusetts for good. I have already warned my parents that any visits will have to take place somewhere else, or they’ll have to come to me. I am never stepping foot back in that state again, and definitely never getting anywhere near Jameson ever again.
The next day, I am hit with a wall of survivor’s guilt. It haunts me with each passing mile. I wonder why I was the lucky one to make it out and not Lily. What if Malcolm would have decided to leave? Vivian seemed to become a normal, happy person when she made a new life for herself in New York. Would he have managed to do the same if he could have just made it out of Jameson? I have to accept that I’ll never know.
As I drive, it’s impossible not to think of Emmett. My heart breaks in a new way each time the memory of him washes over me. All first loves seem big, important, and magnificent. At least that’s what people say. But I feel certain that what we shared would be considered deep and meaningful by any standard, young or old.
Sometimes I worry that soulmates are real. Because if they are, I’m convinced he is mine and that I will never know that kind of love again. How else could I have loved him after everything that happened? No matter how I doubted him in the end, I continued trying to love him in every way I could well beyond what anyone else would have been capable of.
I can still see the look on his face. The way his eyes burned into me the last time I ever saw him. And I know that he loved me in all the same ways, even if I never put it to the test the same way he did with me. It was a selfless love that devoured and consumed, yet never lost its fuel. Even when I was certain I could not go on with him or was convinced that I hated him, there was still part of me that loved him endlessly. I tried my best to run from that part of myself, but it always caught up to me. And I’m glad.