Chapter 52: Grey field

The afternoon classes are very long and slow. I sit at my desk during history period and stare at the clock on the wall, watching the minute hand move. I do not write anything down in my notebook. On the other side of the classroom, Sarah sits by the window. She keeps her head down and looks at her textbook the entire time. She does not turn her head to look at me once. When the final bell rings at three o'clock, she packs her things quickly and walks out the door before I can even stand up.

I pull my backpack over my shoulders and walk out into the courtyard. The air is very cold now, and the sky is grey color. Scholarships students are running toward the buses and the parking lot, trying to get out of the wind. I walk toward the main gates, intending to go straight to the bus stop, when my phone vibrates in my coat pocket.

I pull it out and open the screen. There is a text message from Jackson.

Meet me behind the old sports equipment shed by the lower field. Please, Maya. Just give me five minutes.

I stand near the stone archway and look at the message. I know I should just ignore it and get on the bus. I know that spending more time with him right now will only cause more problems with my mother and Leo. But the tone of his text makes me hesitate. I turn around, walk away from the exit, and take the narrow dirt path that leads down to the lower athletic fields.

The lower field is empty today. The grass is long and damp from the morning frost. The old wooden equipment shed sits at the very edge of the property, hidden behind a row of tall pine trees.

Jackson is already standing there. He is leaning against the rough wood of the shed wall with his hands pushed deep into his jacket pockets. His school bag is sitting on the grass near his sneakers. He is still wearing his neat school uniform, but his posture is slumped. He looks very tired.

When he hears my shoes hitting the gravel path, he looks up. A brief look of relief crosses his face, but it disappears quickly.

"Thank you for coming," Jackson says. His voice sounds low and a bit rough. He takes his hands out of his pockets but he stays where he is, keeping a few feet of distance between us.

"I can only stay for a couple of minutes, Jackson," I tell him. I tighten my grip on the straps of my backpack. "If a teacher walks down here, we will get into trouble."

"I know," he says, nodding his head slowly. "I won't take up much of your time. I just... I haven't been able to think straight since lunch, Maya. I didn't go to afternoon hockey practice. I told the coach I had a headache and I just walked off the ice."

I look at him in surprise. Jackson never misses hockey practice. He cares about his position on the team more than anything else, because it is his only way to get away from his father's house. For him to skip a session means his mind is occupied with something else.

"Why did you leave practice?" I ask him.

Jackson looks away from me, staring out at the empty grass field. He lets out a long breath, and I can see his breath in the cold air. "I can't stop thinking about what Sarah said to me in the cafeteria. I've been sitting in my car for the last two hours, just repeating her words in my head over and over again."

"Sarah was just upset because her mother grounded her," I say, trying to make him feel better. "She was just venting her anger. She didn't mean it."

"No, she meant every word," Jackson says, turning his head back to look at me. His dark eyes are wide and serious. He takes one step closer to me. "She said my family is like a disease. She said every time a Thorne gets close to something, normal people end up getting hurt. She brought up Leo's legs, Maya. She brought up how hard your mother has to work every day just to pay for your apartment."

I step back an inch, the mention of my family making my chest feel tight. "Jackson, we already know about the history between our families. We knew it was going to cause problems for us."

"It is not just about our families history anymore," Jackson says, his voice shaking a little bit. He reaches out and takes hold of my wrists. His hands are very warm against my cold skin. He looks down at my face, his eyes searching mine. "I need you to tell me the truth right now, Maya. Do you look at me and see my father? Do you think the exact same thing about me?"

I hold my breath, looking up at him. "What do you mean by that?"

"Do you think I ruin everything I touch?" he asks me, his voice dropping into a quiet whisper. "Do you look at me and feel like your life is falling apart because I am in it?"

I look at the line of his jaw and the dark color of his eyes. On the outside, he looks just like Arthur Thorne. He has the same expensive clothes and the same powerful name. But on the inside, I know he is different. He is the person who stayed with me while I cried last night. He is the person who climbed down from my window in the dark just to make sure my mother did not catch him.

"No, Jackson," I say, and I feel a tear start to form in the corner of my eye. "I do not think that about you. You are not your father."

"Then why does it feel like I am destroying your life?" he asks. He lets go of my wrists and drops his hands down to his sides. He turns around and walks a few steps away, pacing back and forth on the grass. "Sarah is right about what is happening to you. You are skipping your classes. You are having fights with your mother. Your brother won't even look at your best friend anymore because of me. You are carrying all this stress every day, and the only reason you are doing it is to protect my hockey career. I am taking things from you, Maya, just like my father took things from Leo."

I watch him walk back and forth. He looks stressed, and his usual confident attitude is gone. He is trapped in his own thoughts, and the hardest part is that I cannot tell him the whole truth to make him stop worrying. I cannot tell him that the real reason my family is breaking apart is because I asked Sarah to change the digital files on Leo's computer.

"Jackson, stop walking," I say, stepping into his path so he has to look at me again. "You did not cause the fight with my mother. You did not do anything to Leo's legs. You are just a student here, just like I am."

"But I have his name," Jackson says, stopping his pacing. He looks down at me with empty expression. "And sometimes I wonder if I am exactly like him. What if I am just using you? What if my father is right, and I am just selfish?"

"You are not using me," I whisper, and the tear finally runs down my cheek.

"I don't know anymore," Jackson says quietly. He leans his shoulders back against the wooden wall of the shed. He looks exhausted. "All I know is that I love you, Maya. I love you so much it frightens me. But every time I look at you, I see how tired you are. I see the stress in your face. And I am starting to think that the best way I can protect you from my family... is to stay away from you."

The words make my stomach drop. The idea of him walking away, of losing the one person who makes me feel safe, makes me feel a sudden wave of panic.

I look at him standing there in the shadow of the trees. He is terrified of being the villain in my life. We stand there in the silence, and the distance between us feels bigger than it ever has before.