He’s confused now. Like I was when I thought he was gone. Once all this bullshit is past, and the world is quiet, Jasper is going to realize what I already know: that he is better off without me.

“It’s not just that they are my friends or something,” I say, steering this conversation hard back to the point, and away from us. Jasper will thank me later. “I had an actual chance to tell all of them about being Outliers. And I didn’t. Partly because I was worried for them. But partly because I was worried for me. I have to stay and warn them, then I will go.”

Jasper stares down. Finally, he nods. Before he can say anything else, there is a noise in the hall.

“You should go before somebody finds you in here.”

“Okay,” Jasper says. But not like he thinks it’s okay at all. He just seems sad. And that feels like proof somehow that I’m right. That he will be better off if we keep things between us clear and simple. That I will be too.

“Can you do something for me, though?” I ask.

“Anything.”

“Stop by my house and check for my dad? It seems like he should have been here by now.”

“Sure, yeah, of course,” Jasper says, glad to have something to do.

There’s another noise in the hall, like a door opening and closing. Jasper stands.

“Can you take this, too?” I hand him Kelsey’s copy of 1984. “Hold on to it.”

He looks down at it skeptically. “Really?”

“It has some notes in it that are important.” Kelsey might be mad that I gave it away. But it is for safekeeping.

“Okay, but on one condition,” he says.

“What?” I ask, reminded of that last phone call Jasper and I had before the bridge.

“That you promise me you’ll be okay.”

“Definitely.” I smile. Whatever I say won’t be any more true than what Jasper said to me. Right now, the truth is out of both of our hands.

“And get out soon,” Jasper says. “Because I’ll be waiting.”

14

I WAKE TO LOUD VOICES IN THE HALLWAY. JASPER CAUGHT? MY HEART IS RACING as I lurch out of bed and throw open the door. But outside it’s only Becca and Ramona laughing loudly right across the hall from my door.

“Wylie, you have got to hear this shit,” Becca says, striding over to me and waving for Ramona to follow. I catch the time on the hallway clock: seven thirty. Morning. I feel relieved to have survived the night. Becca looks up and down the hall like she wants to be sure no one is listening, leans in close. “That asshole guard said he would let me go if I had sex with him.”

“What kind of idiot says that outright?” Ramona chimes in. Once, then twice she plucks at her bracelet.