You Complete Me - 23. Chapter 23 - Court is Now in Session

Nic was in the parking lot of his old home without any recollection of getting there.

Wait, that wasn’t true, Nic told himself as he shook off the amnesia. He wasn’t dissociating, or whatever it was called, because things weren’t that bad. The details of the drive over were fuzzy, but not completely gone. He’d left the bathroom at school, red-eyed and sniffling, and he had decided right then and there that school wasn’t the place to be right now. He just didn’t know why the old, dingy family apartment was a better alternative, he just knew that he wanted a shower and showers didn’t exist anywhere else to him at the time.

Now that part of that mystery had been solved, he probably shouldn’t waste gas in this current economy. Nic got out of the car and jogged up the steps as if he were returning home from school on any other day. Running mostly on autopilot, he fished out his key and let himself in.

Nic wasn’t surprised to find the place dim and empty at this time of the day, but it gave him a strange sense of peace. It was too quiet at his cousin’s cabin because he associated it with loneliness, but quiet here simply meant there wasn’t any screaming. And nothing looked out of place, which meant that Kathy was probably okay. Once those two criteria had been met, this place was home.

His legs led him down the hallway, past the bathroom that he’d been aiming for, until he found himself facing the closed door of his parents’ room. This was a rare opportunity to snoop, but Nic didn’t dare enter it, afraid of what he’d might find and bitter if he did. Nic doubted that a few hypothetical ounces of coke would change Kathy’s mind about Amos if the temporary loss of her sons didn’t. With a huff of disgust, he turned to Joey’s room and peered around the open doorway.

The boy’s room was cleaner than it had ever been, which was eerie to Nic. Kathy must have tidied it up while they'd been away, as if she was readying it for Joey’s return. Why? Joey wasn’t coming back here if Nic had anything to say about it. Upon more investigating, Nic discovered that his own room had been untouched, down to the hole he’d left in the wall. So much for getting the deposit back. Unsure of what else to make of it, he moved on.

Nic walked stiffly into the bathroom and shed his clothes, leaving them in a pile on the floor. He set the temperature to as hot as he could stand, then stepped under the beaded curtain of water with a long, relieved sigh. His humiliation, the memories associated with them, and the ghost of Jake’s touch – along with his pity – could wash down the drain where it belonged.

He spent several minutes just taking calming breaths under the water and had just moved to start lathering up when he heard a noise from another room that made him freeze in place. Before he could make a move, a voice called out.

“Amos? Is that you?”

Kathy. Nic turned the faucet off and scrambled out of the tub, slipping on the tile a little in his haste. He moved instinctively, unsure if he was in a hurry to talk to her or make a quick escape out of a second-story bathroom window. Kathy had never explicitly told him that he couldn’t come back, but since the last time they’d seen each other, he’d been literally dragged out of the apartment kicking and screaming, and she had barely spoken to him since...Nic could only assume she wouldn’t be happy to see him unexpectedly.

Clad in only a towel and still soaking wet, Nic stepped back out into the hallway. He turned and saw his mother standing by the front door that she’d just walked through. “Mom?” he called out, uncertainly.

“Nic,” Kathy stated. Her tone was hard to read, but her appearance told a story that was crystal clear. She looked disheveled, and in one hand, she held a child-size baseball bat that Nic recognized as Joey’s, but it hung harmlessly at her side. He couldn’t determine how she felt about him being there because her face was puffy – no, swollen – with fresh bruises.

Nic from yesterday – maybe even this morning – would have been furious. He would have demanded to know what happened, where Amos was, and vow to inflict whatever version of justice he was physically capable of. But this Nic, the one that had just given someone his darkest secret, was feeling too fragile, too emotionally exhausted for the anger that typically cloaked him like a blanket. There was only room for immense sadness and guilt that he only knew one way to express.

Without a word, Nic went to his mother and embraced her for the first time in years, and as if he hadn’t seen her in just as long. It was desperate, relieved, and comforting all in one, where he buried his face in her blouse and dampened her shoulder with, admittedly, more than just water from the shower. It took a few seconds to recover from her shock, but, hesitantly, Kathy’s arms wrapped around him too, stroking his back and whispering calming things like he was the one that needed to be reassured.

Perhaps he did. It wasn’t until he had failed her that he realized how much they needed each other.

*** 

Luke murmured a swear next to him, but Jake had barely any reaction at all to hearing his own name over the intercom. He turned to his friend, shrugged and gave him an ironic smile that must have looked as hollow as it felt. “Guess I’m up to the plate,” he whispered.

“Stick to the story,” Luke hissed, keeping his eyes forward. Everyone in the rows in front of them were looking back at them, wide-eyed.

What story? Jake wondered sardonically as he nodded and re-packed the few school supplies he had taken out. He hoisted his backpack over his shoulder, and, ignoring the collective stare of the classroom, made his way down the aisle. Just before he closed the door behind him, he heard the room burst into chatter, which Dr. Martin swiftly silenced.

Instead of it being like a death march, Jake was too numb to feel much of anything about the long walk to the principal’s office. He knew he should be panicking about the imminent doom waiting for him, or at least thinking of some way to prevent or delay it, but the only thing on his mind was white noise and Nic. He was stuck on the way he had left things with Nic. Or rather, how Nic had left things with him, with an air of finality that Jake found concerning.

Jake paused just outside the open office to redirect his own thoughts. His objective was to avoid being suspended in his senior year, not worrying about his pseudo-relationship with a certain artist. Cranking up the charm to eleven, he rounded the corner and waved at the attendant sitting at the front desk.

“Hi, Rhonda!” he said to her, a touch too brightly.

Rhonda, a young woman that always seemed stressed and irritable, jumped at the sound of his voice. She gave him a tight smile in greeting and pointed a rigid thumb at Dr. Martin’s room behind her without comment. Yikes. Trying not to think too hard about that, he followed the direction she had pointed and knocked meekly on the door.

He could hear voices behind it, a sonorous one rising above the others: “Come in.”

Inside, Greendale’s principal, Dr. Martin, sat behind his enormous desk, his demeanor so reminiscent of Jake’s father that he had to suppress a shudder. In two chairs in front of him sat Meg and Mr. Watts, only one of whom twisted around to face him. Meg wouldn’t look at him, so it was her dad’s ice blue eyes that kept Jake pinned to the doorway.

Getting a quick read of the room, Jake could tell that Mr. Watts was predictably livid – his face was still red from whatever he had been talking about with Dr. Martin. Meg kept her head lowered, and Dr. Martin, normally an annoyingly enthusiastic kind of guy, looked tired. Interrogating random students all day under the Watts’ orders must be exhausting work. “You called for me, Dr. Martin?”

Cleary expecting a different question, Mr. Watts jumped at the chance to tell him off. “You know exactly what—”

“Please, Mr. Watts,” Martin sighed, as if he were speaking to a wayward student. He motioned towards an empty chair in front of his desk, next to Meg. “Have a seat, Jake.”

Jake reluctantly obeyed, making a point to drag the chair a few inches away from Meg before sitting on it. It might have been childish, but well worth the scandalized expression on her face. “What’s this about? Um, sir.”

Martin opened his mouth, but it was Mr. Watts that spoke. Again. “This is about you manipulating my daughter to obtain salacious photoshopped images – ”

“Photoshopped?” Jake queried, unable to resist.

“ – and distributing them all around the school, which I hope you’re aware is a federal crime, young man – ”

“Mr. Watts,” Martin tried, but Watts was in full swing.

“ – and trying to ruin her reputation and chances of getting into Harvard. I’m sure you know nothing about that, being who you are, but rest assured, I will – ”

“Dad!” Meg suddenly yelled, which, surprisingly, shut him up. “Just…let’s get this over with. Jeez.”

Her outburst resulted in an abrupt silence, so it took a moment for Martin to realize he was finally allowed to speak. “Um – okay. Jake, I’m sure you’re aware of what happened this morning regarding some…unflattering – doctored – images of Megan.”

“The whole school saw it,” Jake said coolly. He hazarded a quick look at the Watts, not meeting either of them in the eye. “And I’m sorry that happened to you, Meg, but I have no idea what that’s got to do with me.”

Mr. Watts snorted loudly at his answer: he wanted Jake to be guilty. Meg, like everyone else that knew him well, could detect a bold-faced lie from him a mile away. That left Jake in the precarious of position of trying to convince Dr. Martin, whose opinion was the only one that mattered, but the man seemed dubious.

“I see. Where were you last night, Jake?”

The question came at him rapid fire, but it was the one thing Jake was prepared to be asked. “At my friend, Luke Ensing’s, house,” he answered confidently.

“So if I contacted Luke’s parents, would they be able to verify that you were there?”

Shit.

Jake’s silence, however brief, said it all. Martin waited patiently as he mentally scrambled for something, and the smug chuckle from Mr. Watts’ side of the room didn’t help things. “No, they wouldn’t,” Jake admitted reluctantly. “But – ”

“I think that’s all we need to know,” Watts interrupted again. “The proper authorities should be involved.”

“But,” Jake repeated, louder. Watts was finally starting to get to him, and that made him hate the man even more. “I can explain. I was at a party and my dad wasn’t supposed to know. He’s uptight about me going out, so I told him I was at Luke’s. You can call him and ask where he thought I was that night and that’s what he’d tell you.” The words flowed easily this time, and that was because the majority of it was true. He looked down at his lap, trying to appear contrite even as he felt a drop of sweat run down the middle of his back.

Dr. Martin rubbed his face tiredly, then pressed the button on a conference device that was sitting on his desk. It beeped, and he said “Rhonda?” into the speaker.

Rhonda, her voice clipped and impatient over the static, answered immediately. “Yes, Dr. Martin?”

“Can you contact Jacob Ferguson’s father and ask him to come to the school?”

“Certainly.”

More static, then Jake faintly heard Rhonda aggressively dialing a number on the office phone in the next room. Her annoyance might have been funny if he wasn’t so stressed about his father coming. Samwell was still enjoying a few more days off until he went back into the office – another form of continual absence – so he’d definitely make the time to come by if prompted. Jake needed some air and a place to think this through.

“Mind if I run to the restroom?” he asked Dr. Martin.

Martin gave him a long look that said he was at the end of his rope. “Any longer than five minutes, and I’ll have Rhonda hunt you down. You won’t like that.”

Jake winced. Before he even got a chance to stand, Mr. Watts had something to say about it. “You’re just going to let him run off and tell his father so they can get their story straight?” he demanded of Martin.

“You’re being annoying, Dad,” Megan groaned. “Just let him pee, for God’s sake.”

Jake stood up, pulled out his phone, and held it up for the room at large to see. “How about this? I’ll leave it here. You want to frisk me, too?” He set his phone on Martin’ desk with a dramatic flourish and scooped up his backpack before making a swift exit. As he hoped, no one objected, and he didn’t dare look at Rhonda on his way back to the hallway.

Jake practically sprinted to the nearest bathroom, which was luckily empty. Perched on a toilet in a closed stall, he pulled his laptop from his bag and did more or less what Mr. Watts suspected he was going to do with his phone the moment he was alone: warn people. First was Luke, who would relay it to Jazzy. He couldn’t even afford to type full sentences: Change of plans. Wasn’t with you. At a party that night. Dad’s coming.

What he could afford to do was agonize on whether or not to contact Nic…and what he’d say if he did. No one had any reason to suspect Nic was involved, so he was probably safe, but Jake couldn’t resist sending him a message anyway: Are you okay? With his five minutes dwindling away, Jake didn’t wait to see if his concern was appreciated or scorned.

Racing back to the office, Jake nearly ran headlong into Meg as she was coming out of it. He scurried as far away from her as he could, guilty positioning his backpack out of view. “What are you doing?” he demanded.

Meg placed her hands on her hips and struck a defiant pose. “Going to the ‘bathroom,’ obviously.”

Shaking his head, Jake stepped around her, giving her a wide berth.

“I can call him off, you know.”

Jake stopped in his tracks, then turned slowly. Meg was still standing where he left her, her hands in her pockets. She didn’t seem hostile, but he knew better than to trust her. “Why?” he asked, shrugging. “I’ve got nothing to hide.”

Meg rolled her eyes. “This is why I left you. You’re such a stubborn, terrible liar.”

“Oh, that’s why you tried to ruin my life? If you just ‘left me,’ neither of us would be here right now. You took it there, Meg.” Jake realized he was getting dangerously close to incriminating himself, so he tried to quell his anger and chose his next words carefully. “You're still just trying to blame me for your problems. Like you always have.”

Meg marched right up to him, eyes aflame. Jake prepared himself to be slapped, but he held his ground as she got up in his face. He thought he saw her reeling back, but instead she Meg gasped and recoiled as if she’d been stung by something. “You smell like sex!” she hissed accusingly.

Jake just gaped at her, thinking she was joking, but her genuine distress convinced him that she wasn’t. He let out a bark of uncontrolled laughter once he realized this, which only made Meg visibly more offended, but he didn’t care. After everything that had happened between them, she was still concerned about his sex life?

“I moved on,” he told her, after he had sobered. “Try it sometime.” With that, he turned his back on her stunned face and returned to an extremely dour Dr. Martin and Mr. Watts.

Jake reclaimed his seat and prepared himself for a long wait. Mr. Watts was typing furiously to his own phone, probably to a lawyer, but Jake had a feeling that the no-phone rule still applied to himself. It left him feeling antsy, and he didn’t know what to do with his hands. He crossed his arms to contain them and absently bounced his leg.

Immediately, Mr. Watts stopped texting. Without giving Jake the courtesy of even turning his head, he growled to his phone, “Can you not do that?”

Jake looked to Dr. Martin, who was ignoring them, so he was no help. Channeling some of Nic’s pain-in-the-ass charm, he blinked innocently at Mr. Watts. “What am I doing?”

“Twitching…guiltily.”

Trying not to smile, Jake implored Dr. Martin: “My dad signs an agreement every year so that teachers can’t get on me for fidgeting during class. So why can he? That’s like…ableism or something, right?”

Jake would have loved to hear Dr. Martin’ response to that, since he looked completely flabbergasted, but they were interrupted by the crackling static of the intercom system. “The sister’s here,” Rhonda informed them, sounding bored.

“Sister?” Jake and Mr. Watts queried at the same time.

Martin looked to the ceiling and closed his eyes for a moment before responding. “I asked for the father.”

“He was unavailable. The sister’s name is also on his release forms, so she came instead.” In the background, Jake heard a quiet “It’s Ellie” just before the speaker cut out again.

Though Samwell was often “too busy” when it came to his children, Jake was surprised. He wasn’t often in serious trouble at school. A detention here or there, sure, but being called to the school was a great ammunition to harp on for weeks to come – one of his father’s favorite past times. Jake didn’t know if he should be worried or relieved when he saw Ellie traipse into the room.

With one look, he knew that worried was probably the more appropriate emotion. She looked normal, but a sort of hectic energy was coming off of her, an air that Jake vaguely recognized, but not with Ellie. Meg followed closely behind Ellie, looking very subdued, which made him suspect there had been some sort of interaction between the two outside the office. She quietly sat next to him without sparing him a glance.

“What are you doing?” he mouthed at Ellie as he stood up to offer her a seat.

“Saving your skin,” Ellie said in a loud whisper, waving at him to sit back down. She stood next to his chair, facing Martin, her arms tightly crossed and her shoulders back as if she was trying to appear taller. “Afternoon, Dr. Martin. 2019 class valedictorian, Elliana Sofía Alvarez-Ferguson. Remember me?”

Martin raised an eyebrow at her. “Vividly, Ms. Ferguson.”

“Then you’d recall that in my graduation speech, I always wanted to be a lawyer. I was – am – enrolled in pre-law at West University – a very prestigious school, I might add, and all I want to do is represent disadvantaged people of color.”

Now everyone was staring at Ellie with rapt attention and a fair amount of confusion. Except Mr. Watts, for whom distaste was evident. “Is there a point to this spiel?” he grumbled.

Ellie turned her whole body to pin him with a sharp glare. “My point, Mr. Watts, is that the most important disadvantaged person of color in my life is my brother. I intend to be a zealous advocate for him, so I hope you have a very good reason for trying to blame him for your daughter’s poor decisions.”

Meg visibly cringed, and her father turned tomato-red. “Is that a threat?”

“No, it’s a disclaimer.” Ellie turned back to Dr. Martin. “Now, since I’d rather hear it from you: why, exactly, is my brother being accused of jeopardizing his college career for a childish prank?”

Jake waited for a snide, “What college career?” from Watts, but the man seemed properly chastised for now. Martin seemed to expect it, too, since he looked at him before answering Ellie. “Well, shortly before you arrived, I asked where Jake was that night, and he could not provide a sufficient answer – ”

“I was at a party, I told you that,” Jake blurted out. It earned him a glare from most of the people in the room, but he had to make sure he and Ellie were on the same age. She put her hand on his shoulder as if to silence him, but he also noticed a tiny nod when he looked up at her.  

“Jake said he was with his friend Luke that night, but I wouldn’t put it past him to go somewhere else instead without telling anyone. He’s almost eighteen. Is that a crime?”

“No, but it is a problem when we need to know where he was – ”

“And why do you need to know?” Ellie demanded.

No one answered immediately, so Jake took a moment to study Ellie with narrowed eyes. She was being pushy and argumentative, which wasn’t unusual for her, but it was dialed up times a million. It definitely wasn’t Drunk Ellie, but something was off.

Shuffling his feet, Watts grumbled to Martin, “This is why we should be speaking to Samwell. He’d want to know where his son was in the middle of the night.”

Ellie ignored him. She turned her attention to Meg, who had been as quiet as a mouse this entire time. “Well?” Ellie urged her. “I want to know why Jake is being looked at, and I think you know.”

“Excuse me?” Watts sprung to his feet, puffing out his chest as he squared off with Ellie. She didn’t react, but Jake got a flashback of Crystal and had to clutch the handles of his chair to keep himself from leaping into action. “You don’t know anything about my daughter or what she’s been through with your brother!”

Ellie laughed sardonically. “Oh, that’s rich. She’s a perfect angel that cyberbullies boys for dumping her.”

Protests rang from everyone over that, including Jake. “Ellie, don’t,” he warned her, but it was drowned out by Watts’ loud demands to have Ellie removed from the school and Dr. Martin’s equally loud demands for order. Even Meg found her voice – a shrill one that made Jake’s ears hurt, screaming that Ellie had no right to make such assumptions.

Jake just bowed his head and waited for Martin to eventually get the Watts back under control. Ellie was still standing next to him, and his eyes were level with her legs; her hands were in her pockets, jingling her keys with nervous energy. She didn’t usually fidget, which Jake took as a bad sign. The others were cowed by her vigor at first, but now she seemed to be just making everything worse.

He never thought he’d admit this, but Jake wished their dad was here.

After it had calmed down, Ellie handed Dr. Martin her phone. “If I remember correctly, Greendale has a zero-tolerance policy when it comes to online harassment.” As Dr. Martin scrolled through them, Ellie paced next to his desk, still talking at a rapid-fire pace. “Last month, Miss Watts here decided to post a slanderous tweet about Jake, leading to literally hundreds of harassing replies. I couldn’t screenshot all of them, but those few should paint a good picture.”

Jake doubted that Martin wasn’t aware of that incident on some level, but he still burned with shame at it even being brought up, especially as the man’s brows became more furrowed by the second. Watts stormed over to the principal’s desk to look over this shoulder, muttering, “What’s this about?”

When he said that, Jake whipped around to stare at Meg, who had gone white. Her dad didn’t know about her social media warfare? This entire time, Jake had assumed her family didn’t care at the very least, or even outright supported it. Mr. Watts was just a louder version of his daughter, anyway.

As the two men silently read, Ellie was practically vibrating with excitement. “That tweet is provably false,” she interjected.

“This is just high school gossip,” Mr. Watts said, though he sounded uncertain. “How do we know Meg was intentionally lying about all of this? She can’t control how the rest of the school responds.”

“Look at the tweet from the Brookman girl, admitting she was paid by Meg to cooperate.”

No answer from Watts for a long time. He turned away from the phone suddenly, as if it had disgusted him, and went back to his chair, red-faced. “I don’t see how this changes anything,” he said slowly, as if he was forming an argument even as he spoke. “Clearly, this just proves that the Ferguson boy had an axe to grind with her.” He motioned at Meg without looking at her.

As true as it was, Jake couldn’t believe that he was still refusing to let this go. “Are you serious?”

Ellie was just as incredulous. “What he said. The only thing that’s clear is that Megan here has been tormenting ‘the Ferguson boy’ for weeks and this is just yet another wild accusation to keep him engaged with her. She’s obsessed.”

Jake knew that nothing pissed Meg off more than insinuating that someone didn’t want anything to do with her, and she didn’t disappoint. She glared at Ellie with such hatred that Jake squirmed on his sister’s behalf. “I didn’t even want them to call him here,” she snarled. “Dad insisted, but I wanted this to end. I just want Jake to leave me alone.”

Ellie knew Jake well enough to put a calming hand on his shoulder again. “Yet here we are,” she said snippily.

Dr. Martin was silent. He had his hands steepled together in a classic thinking pose, his eyes closed. “This does change things,” he said carefully, speaking directly to his desk. “Miss Ferguson is correct in that we have no way to prove Jake was the one responsible for the flyers…”

“Who else could it have been?” Mr. Watts sighed, exasperated.

“…But another major school rule was violated, which we do have proof of,” Martin continued, as if Watts hadn’t spoken.

“So…” Jake said, piecing together what was said. “Am I off the hook?”

“For now,” Watts told him. “We’ll continue investigating the flyers, but you’re free to go for now. Miss Ferguson, please send me as many screenshots tied to Miss Watts’ post as you can.”

“Will do,” Ellie chirped.

Watts stared at Martin, his mouth agape. “You can’t be serious. A simple tweet is more of a concern to you than vandalism?”

“A malicious tweet,” Martin corrected. “We’ll discuss once the Fergusons have left.” He gave the family in question a pointed look.

Jake scrambled to his feet, grabbing his things before anyone changed their minds. “Thanks, I think.”

Ellie lightly shoved him towards the exit, which was completely unnecessary because he was hanging by the doorway as she lingered. “I appreciate your cooperation. I’ll try to convince my father not to lodge a formal complaint to the school board about Greendale’s lack of response to the bullying.”

“Ellie,” Jake hissed. They’d already won as far as he was concerned, and he didn’t want to test Martin’s patience even further.

Dr. Martin gave her a fake smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “I apologize for that, but thank you for making me aware. I’m sure you’ll do great in law school, Miss Ferguson.” His tight tone suggested that it wasn’t a compliment.

Ellie beamed at him and looked like she was about say something else, so Jake grabbed her by the wrist and dragged her out of the office before she managed to get him expelled.

Jake didn’t release Ellie or even speak to her until they were back in the school hallway and a safe distance from Rhonda’s desk. He let her go, but whipped around and used his body to block her from going any further. “What the fuck were you doing?” he demanded.

She blinked at him a few times. “Uh, getting you out of trouble? I expected a little more gratitude, jeez.”

Jake put his hands on his hips. “Save it. Show me you can walk in a straight line.”

Ellie laughed meanly at him. “No. If I was drunk, do you really think I’d be cognizant enough to get you out of that mess? You think I would have been able to grab Dad’s phone and convince Rhonda to let me come instead? Because of me, Dad doesn’t know anything about the shit you obviously pulled last night.”

It was as if he had flicked a switch. She was so fired up that Jake had to take a step back. “I’m just trying to – ”

“No,” Ellie snapped again. “Unlike you, I don’t need to be on something just to function. Speaking of.” She reached into her handbag and held up a pill bottle for him to see. “Dad had me pick this up for you. Take them sometime, they actually help. If you were, you wouldn’t have been doing dumb shit to get back at your cunty ex.”

Ellie shoved the bottle into Jake’s hands and stormed off in a huff. Jake felt bad, knowing he’d probably have to make amends to her later, since Ellie’s silent treatment was almost as suffocating at their father’s. She wasn’t drunk, clearly, but the longer he stared at the pill bottle in his hand, the more uneasy he felt.