Page 91 of I'm Gonna Get You Back
He’s looking everywhere but at me. “Sorry,” he mumbles. “I didn’tthink it would be that bad. I obviously didn’t know you’d be disqualified. Then I knew it wouldn’t make a difference to say anything after it was already decided.”
“It would’ve made a difference to me.”
There is more to ask him, more I should get out of this as a documentarian. But the camera is starting to shake the more furious I become. The footage will be useless if I don’t calm down.
For as angry as I am, I refuse to do what the Legacy Lore account is doing. If I’m going to feature him in the story, it should be the whole picture. I manage to ask him a few more questions about the assembly, about becoming valedictorian, about what Legacy means to him. We’re wrapping up when there’s a long pause and he mutters, “I really am sorry.”
“I don’t want your apology,” I spit out. “I want to know who took the video. Who sabotaged me.”
“Why does it matter?” he asks over a sigh.
“Because I deserve to know who ruined my life,” I say. “Whoever is making these posts is threatening to do the same thing to all of you. Don’t you want to know the truth?”
When some of the color drains from his face, it seems to finally hit him that he’s one rumor away from sharing my fate. His gaze is unwavering when he says, “I swear, Clara. I don’t know who did it.”
Shit. I believe him.
But I need to be thorough. “Your dad never got any leads?”
He scoffs. “You’re smarter than that, Clare-bear. He never even looked into it.”
I’m disappointed in myself for being surprised. I’ve known for a while that the Legacy Program isn’t this motivating track to get us tostrive for more. Maybe that’s how it started, but it’s become a biased, unfair competition that pushed all of us to the point of obsession. That favors the shiniest players.
But now I know for certain that I didn’t fail it. It failedme.
Josh visibly winces as a tear slips down my nose that I swat away quickly. I’m about to put my camera away when his expression turns conflicted as he looks over my shoulder again. It seems like he’s wrestling with whether to tell me something.
I wait him out. Whatever he sees on my face makes him decide to tell me what he’s been holding back.
“Did you know Rousseau tried to give up his Legacy spot?”
I frown. No. There’s no possible way…
Josh rolls his eyes like he thought it was a ridiculous thing to do and continues. “I overheard my dad talking on the phone about it right before graduation. He wanted to give his scholarship to you, but the committee wouldn’t let him.”
The hair on my arms stands up as a disbelieving, “What?” tumbles out of my mouth.
Even after I ended things, he still tried to do that?
“Why are you telling me this?” I choke out.
It’s not like Josh to be nice out of nowhere. Especially when it comes to me and Reid.
He shoves his hands in his pockets and shifts uncomfortably again. “I guess because if it were me… I’d want to know.”
Josh’s first experience with empathy is a strange sight to behold.
A few of the lights shut off as they finish cleaning the stage and amphitheater for the night. Stunned, I walk off and approach the blanket, my head and heart stirring.
Thankfully, Nicole’s gone. Mitchell and Kenji are deep in conversation, Reid beside them, looking half asleep. But he sits up when he sees me.
“That go okay?” he asks.
I nod, and he looks relieved. I can’t say more yet. Not in front of the other guys. Not with my heart beating out of my chest.
Just as we’re heading out, Delaney rushes over to us from backstage, an excited look on her face. Maybe she found out more than I did about the posts.
“Okay, I just caught Nicole and Amaya talking in the bathroom. I didn’t hear much except Amaya being mad about some sort of hookup and Nicole sounding all panicked saying, ‘What if she posts that? Hecan’tfind out.’”
