“Allison…” I say.
“No,” Allison snaps. “I can’t believe… What the hell, Kyle? How can you talk so casually about killing someone?”
I feel Grant sidling away. I wince.
“I don’t…” I start.
“Stop,” Allison snaps, putting her hand up. She looks betrayed. “I thought…” She shakes her head. “I think I seriously misjudged you, Kyle. You’re not the person I thought you were.” She looks at me, her eyes shining. “Would you really be willing to…?”
Lie to her, my mind whispers.
But I can’t. I haven’t lied to Allison yet, I’m not about to start now. I look at her helplessly, and she reads the answer in my eyes. She takes a step back.
“I didn’t realize that that was the sort of person you were,” she says quietly. “But I should have known. Go back to your gang, Kyle. I don’t want to see you around here again.”
She’s gone before I can say anything more. She leaves behind the bag she dropped. It’s full of chips and packs of popcorn, everything we would have needed for a movie night. She must have been on her way home when I messaged her, and she stopped at the store to grab some snacks for us. Slowly, I pick up the bag.
“Fuck,” I groan.
“Sorry,” Grant says quietly.
“Not your fault,” I say, drawing in a deep breath. “It’s mine. I should have been more careful.” I pause. “I should have told her more about me before now.”
Grant claps a hand on my shoulder. “Do you still want us to look for Jesse?”
“Yeah,” I say, staring at the ground. “Tell them…don’t approach him. Let me know where he is first. I’ll…figure something out.”
Grant nods. He hesitates, as though he wants to say something, and then he turns and leaves, clapping me on the back once before he goes. I stare at the bag in my hands.
It’ll be okay. I’m not surprised Allison is mad but…I can fix this. I think. Or maybe not… The look in her eyes is going to be hard to forget. She really looked at me, in that moment, like I was scum.
I close my eyes. I’ll fix this. Somehow.
Chapter Eighteen
Allison
I’m not surprised when there’s a knock on my door barely ten minutes later. Of course Kyle followed me home. I consider not answering it, but then I grit my teeth and stalk over to the door, throwing it open.
“What?” I snap.
Silently, he holds out my bag of groceries.
“You dropped this,” he says quietly.
Stiffly, I take it. I don’t really want it anymore. Then again, there’s some good quality snacks in there. I can stuff myself with them tonight in order to forget all about Kyle and the ease with which he could talk about making Jesse go “missing”.
“Look, Allison, I’m sorry,” he says.
“Are you?” I ask frostily.
“What?” he asks.
“Are you sorry?” I repeat. “Are you sorry you said it, or are you sorry that I overheard you?”
He winces. I know that’s my answers.
“What if I hadn’t overheard you?” I demand. “I would keep looking over my shoulder for Jesse, and all the while you’ve casually arranged for him to meet some sort of accident to remove him from my life. Do you think that would make me happy?” I can hear my voice raising. Mrs. Phillips would probably come and bang on my door later. “This is exactly the sort of thing I’ll be trying to get convicted in court!”