The Charlotte Chronicles (Jackson Boys 1)

With a finger hovering over the call button, I contemplate the time difference. She might be up. Or I might wake her up. Before I can dial, though, the phone is plucked from my fingers. Greta holds it behind her.

“What the fuck?” As I reach over her body to grab it, she leans backward and I collapse on top of her, somehow falling between her open legs. Her thighs grip my hips, and she rubs against me as I try to get my phone back. A flash of light followed by a shutter sound goes off. I turn toward the offending noise, and it’s that S girl. Fuck. I can’t remember her name again.

“Need some help?” Nick’s there and plucks the phone from Greta’s hand. Shoving off her body, I catch the phone that Nick tosses me because even drunk my hand eye coordination is sharp. Muscle memory.

Greta is remains on the sofa, her legs slightly sprawled, looking up at me beneath her eyelashes. She probably thinks she looks sexy, but instead it looks a bit grotesque. “You should cover yourself. This desperate look isn’t going to get you anything but a disease.”

I pocket my phone. To Nick I say, “Let’s get out of here.”

He nods but before we leave, he turns back to Greta. “You’ve got issues, girl. Better work them out, or these parties will be closed to you.”

He high fives Milhawk as we exit.

“No worries about that chick,” Milhawk says. “She’s off the list.”

“Whatever,” I say. I’m more interested in talking to Charlotte than talking about one messed up girl from North Prep.

“She’s trouble,” Nick mutters as we walk toward the car. “Don’t underestimate her.”

“What could she possibly do?” I scoff.

19

Charlotte

I hate it here. I hate living in this hotel in this beautiful country surrounded by these beautiful people. When I look out my rented bedroom window I can see the Alps and clear lakes fed by melting glaciers. It’s a postcard-worthy scene. And all the unadulterated, breath-stealing beauty sours my disposition even more. I should like it, but I don’t.

I want to be home, gazing onto the fog-covered skyscrapers of the city and off into the horizon of the stormy waters of Lake Michigan. I want concrete and smog and biting cold wind, not the pastoral setting of northern Switzerland.

Everyone here seems happy, even the other sick kids. And there are kids worse off than I am. Terminal cases here for last ditch experimental therapy. Young kids whose intensive radiation and chemotherapy could stunt their growth and their brain development. What a sucky trade off.

I feel the base of my skull, the soft spot high up on the neck where the head and neck meet. There’s the round plastic of my shunt. A foreign object will live inside me for as long as I have a beating heart. It’s a permanent reminder that at one point, a big old grapefruit pressed against the base of my skull and screwed me up inside.

Breathing deeply, I try to count my blessings. My test results are good, and I’m only going to have to be here for six months. They don’t think the radiation and chemo will need to be as aggressive, and since my brain and body have stopped developing, they don’t think it will be a big problem to catch back up with everyone else and transition back into high school in the fall.

So, decent health.

My family is here. Mom’s here this week and the next, and then Dad will be here. The Jacksons are going to come in May for my birthday. I’ll spend the hot summer months in a cool climate.

Good weather. My family. My boys are coming.

My boys. There it is. The source of my real discontent. I flip my phone over. Seela Carr, a junior who I hardly know, had texted me a picture that appeared on my phone first thing this morning, which would have been last night Chicago time. Seela’s a popular girl. Glee Club and yearbook staff, she’s almost never without some recording device. Ostensibly she’s always capturing North Prep’s best moments, but her always present camera has also recorded painful moments. Breakups. Fights. Cheaters.

The picture she sent me of Nate collapsed between the legs of Greta in Jason Milhawk’s basement causes me actual pain whenever I see it. Nate’s clearly drunk, probably from doing shots with Milhawk. He has a glassy-eyed surprised look on his face in the picture.

Seela is only trying to stir up trouble, but I’m not sure what Greta’s doing. Probably just talking to Nathan. I know, deep down, that he would never humiliate me in front of anyone else. Family is number one in his mind, and no one has ever been allowed to tease me or Nick without retribution from Nathan. But still, the image of him in someone else’s arms hurts me, literally.