This Secret Thing, стр. 36

When the emergency responders arrived, they found that the girl was dead and had likely been dead since around the time the cops had appeared the night before. The news of the girl’s death quickly spread and, along with it, outrage. People said that Micah had waited to call on purpose. They said he’d known she was unconscious when the cops arrived but had been afraid to lead them to her, protecting himself and securing her fate at the same time. Worst of all, before she slipped into unconsciousness, she’d texted a few friends one ominous line: Micah did this. Everyone conjectured what her cryptic text had meant. Most agreed with the theory that he’d been complicit in getting her to drink enough to kill herself and that, before she’d lost consciousness, she realized it and texted her friends.

Just last year, this kid had been a high school hero, sporting his handsome good looks with the kind of swagger that comes from being the total package and knowing it. They’d called him Ice Berg in testament to his prowess as a hockey player. He’d eschewed the more traditional sports to pursue hockey with the kind of vigor usually reserved for lobbyists and addicts. He was good at it, built for it, with enough attitude to compensate for any lack he had. But the party and Olivia’s death had changed all that.

Now he spent most of his time alone, blamed by both his peers and their parents for Olivia’s young life cut short. Though charges had never been filed, rumors circulated that they still could be. The kid’s parents had gotten him a lawyer, and the DA was still sniffing around, looking to make an example of Micah Berg. In the meantime, the kid lived in a sort of self-imposed exile, waiting for the hammer to fall. Nico, for his part, didn’t know what to believe about the kid. But looking at him in the flesh, he didn’t look like a monster. He just looked like a boy who’d taken on more than he could handle. Nico knew the feeling.

“Nice to meet you, Micah,” said Polly, oblivious to his history. “This is Violet, but I’m sure you already know that. You two must go to the same school? And you’re neighbors, to boot!” Polly seemed to possess an unflappable cheeriness that her daughter, based on his many interviews with the now incarcerated Norah Ramsey, did not. Nico guessed that Polly would be a lot easier to crack than her daughter would be.

“We’re in different grades, Polly,” Violet said, sounding miserable. “I’m a sophomore. He’s a senior.” She looked at Micah. “Thanks,” she said to him. “For your help.”

She mumbled something about having to study and started walking back in the direction of her house. Nico couldn’t get a bead on whether she was just uneasy around this older boy, or if perhaps she, like the others, held him responsible for what had happened. Nico looked at the boy and wondered if the story he’d told—and stuck to—was true or not. He’d said that he had had no idea Olivia was there, only discovering her body when, hungover, he went to try to clean up the next morning. She’d been in the guest room, curled on a narrow strip of floor between the bed and the window. A cursory glance of the room would’ve revealed nothing. She was out of sight except to someone trying to walk every inch of the house and survey the extent of the damage, the amount of work ahead to clean it up.

He’d said that earlier that night, she’d told him she was leaving with someone else, that they’d fought, and she’d left angry. Micah claimed he never saw her again after that, that he’d gotten drunk and passed out, waking late the next morning to find the real nightmare beginning.

“I just wish I could take it all back,” he’d said. Some took that statement as an admission of guilt. But Nico, for his own reasons, understood how someone completely innocent of wrongdoing could still wish they could take words and actions back, could undo what had been done.

He stuck out his hand to the kid. “Thanks,” he said, and waited for Micah to reciprocate, waited for the moment he could look him squarely in the eye. Maybe if Micah would look him in the eye, he could somehow know whether the kid was guilty or not. Maybe Nico could get back the mojo he seemed to have lost—that sense of knowing the right thing, of trusting his gut. Had he ever had that? If not, he’d certainly thought he had. Nico missed the days when he’d had it all but, of course, hadn’t known it. And wasn’t that the human condition? Like this kid’s, his life had changed profoundly and irreversibly last spring. Like this kid, he was still trying to figure out what the hell had happened.

Micah Berg gripped Nico’s hand. Though the kid gave it a good, strong shake, he didn’t quite look him in the eye. Instead his gaze took in the expanse of Nico’s face with a sweeping glance before releasing his grip and reaching down to scratch his dog’s head. “Good boy,” the kid said to the dog. “You’re a good boy.”

Nico decided not to attach too much meaning to the exchange. He bid both Polly and Micah goodbye and trudged back to his car, feeling sadder than before he’d arrived. He wished he hadn’t dropped by in the first place, wished he’d never gotten involved with these people, or this place.