Page 9 of Don’t Let Me Go

“Well?” I ask when Jackson continues to stare at me in silence.

After reading about Jackson in the Tallahassee newspaper last night, I found five more articles about him and his football team, including one in the Orlando Sentinel. That’s where I must have seen his picture and why he seemed so familiar.

I considered forwarding the article to my friends—they should definitely know what kind of guy Jackson is. But I decided to

hold off until I confronted him. I want to hear with my own ears what he has to say for himself.

Jackson, though, doesn’t look like he’s in the mood to talk. He doesn’t look like he’s in the mood for anything. As he sits

on the edge of his bed, his whole body deflates in shame.

“You heard?” he finally manages to ask.

“Yeah. I heard.”

“Do the others know?”

“Uh?.?.?.?no,” I say, slightly taken aback that that’s his first concern. Jackson looks up at me, his eyes hopeful. Until I add, “Not yet .”

Nodding, he hangs his head in defeat. He looks so crushed—so miserable—that a part of me wants to rush to his side and give

him a hug. Then I remember the photo of Devon Sanderson in his hospital bed, and I remind myself that Jackson isn’t the victim

here.

“I’m really sorry about what happened to Devon,” he says, his voice almost a whisper.

“So why did you do it?” I snap.

Jackson shakes his head. “Does it matter?”

“It does to me.”

Jackson looks up in surprise. I’m surprised too. I don’t know where this burning need to hear his side of the story is coming

from. If Duy or Tala or Audrey had hurt someone, I’d give them every opportunity to explain themselves. But I’ve known Jackson

for less than twenty-four hours. I shouldn’t care why he did what he did or what excuses he might have. And yet I can’t help

myself—I need him to explain.

“Did you ever feel like you were living the wrong life?” Jackson asks. His question catches me off guard, and when I don’t

answer, he continues. “I’ve been playing football ever since I learned to walk. I don’t even remember deciding it was something

I wanted to do. My father played when he was in college. So did my grandfather. There was never any question that I’d play

too. Football was?.?.?.?in my blood.”

He says that last part like he’s discussing a congenital disorder instead of a family pastime. “You didn’t enjoy playing?”

I ask, wondering where this is leading.

Jackson shrugs. “I liked making my father proud. And I wasn’t particularly good at anything else, so it didn’t really matter

if I enjoyed playing or not. It’s what I did. I never really felt like I had a choice.”

I nod. Only last night, I was lamenting the fact that my life didn’t feel like my own and wondering if it ever would. I guess

I’m not the only one struggling under the weight of other people’s expectations.

Be that as it may, I’m still not any closer to understanding what happened to Devon.

“What does all this have to do with...”

“Right, sorry,” Jackson apologizes. “I’m getting to that. It’s just kind of hard to talk about.”

“Take your time,” I tell him, my voice coming out far kinder than I intend.

Jackson shoots me a grateful look. “Devon was a freshman. He joined the team in the fall and wasn’t the best player. That’s

not an excuse for what happened. But it—it made him a target.”

I nod, intimately aware of how bullying starts. And how it can end.

“You see, we were on a pretty hot winning streak last year,” Jackson continues. “We had a real chance of making it all the

way to the state final and taking home the trophy for the first time in something like twenty-five years. It was all anyone

at school talked about. Hell, it was all anyone in Tallahassee talked about. Even Devon.”

Jackson pauses and lets out a defeated sigh. “But Devon?.?.?.?he kept messing up. Little mistakes. Nothing major. But the

guys on the team began to get afraid that one of Devon’s ‘little mistakes’ was gonna cost us the championship. They started

hazing him, usually at parties after our games. I think some of the guys legitimately thought they were toughening him up,

you know? That they were helping him. Or teaching him a lesson. But the other half? The other half just wanted to punish him.”

“What did they do?” I ask. The articles online had mentioned the hazing, but they hadn’t gone into specifics.

“They’d make him down a six-pack and then do push-ups until he puked. Or they’d get him so drunk that he passed out and then

they’d drive him out of town and dump him in some random farmer’s field in just his underwear. Devon never said anything.

He never complained. He was so desperate for the guys to like him that he went along with whatever they told him to do. He

wanted to prove he was one of us. He didn’t want to let down the team.”

The word team seems to stick in Jackson’s throat. He shakes his head in disgust.

“I should’ve stopped it,” he confesses, staring down at his hands as if he’d like to wring his own neck. “Whenever the guys started in on Devon, I’d always make some excuse and leave the room. I never participated. I swear .”

Much to my own surprise, I hear myself say, “I believe you.”

Jackson looks relieved. But his relief doesn’t last long. He turns inward again, his face clouding over in self-recrimination.

“I still knew it was happening. I knew it was wrong. Devon was getting hurt, and I didn’t say a thing. I did nothing.”

“And then Devon ended up in the hospital,” I finish for him.

Jackson nods and shuts his eyes like he’s shutting out the world.

“Yeah. One night in December, right after we’d made the finals, the team was celebrating at Kris Kaplan’s house. His parents

were out of town, so we had the place to ourselves. I was upstairs in one of the bedrooms with my girlfriend, Micaela. We

were just hanging out when we heard all this shouting coming from downstairs. We went to the living room to see what was happening,

and when we got there, there was a crowd of people standing around Devon. He was on the floor. Not breathing.

“People were freaking out. No one knew what to do, so I called 911. An ambulance came, and the paramedics got Devon breathing

again and then took him to the hospital. We found out later that he had alcohol poisoning. Apparently, the guys on the team

had made him drink so much, it almost shut down his heart.”

I didn’t know Jackson had been the one to call 911. None of the articles had mentioned that. Just like none of them had mentioned

that Jackson was the one person on the team who hadn’t bullied Devon. They’d said the whole team had been involved.

“Is that why you moved to Orlando?” I ask. “Because of what happened to Devon?”

To my surprise, Jackson shakes his head no.

“After Devon was hospitalized, there was a police investigation. The guys on the team wanted to cover their asses, so they told the police that Devon had a drinking problem, that he had a history of getting wasted. They claimed no one else at the party had been drinking. That Devon had shown up drunk and no one had given him any alcohol.”

I stare at Jackson incredulously. “And the police believed them?”

Jackson shrugs. “Nobody wanted to see the team that was one game away from bringing home the championship trophy get disqualified.

The police accepted the story. So did our coach. And the school. No one at the party got in any trouble. Except Devon. He

got kicked off the team and suspended from school for the rest of the semester.”

“Jesus Christ,” I growl.

“I know.”

“That is seriously fucked up.” Then I recall what I read last night and realize something in Jackson’s story doesn’t add up.

“Wait a second. The Orlando Sentinel said that your entire team got suspended for hazing Devon.”

Jackson nods. “We did.”

“But if your team lied about what happened, and the police believed them, how did the school find out the truth?”

“Because I went to the principal and told him.”

I stare at Jackson in surprise. That piece of information was definitely not in any of the articles.

“I had to,” he continues. “I couldn’t let Devon take the blame. Not after everything we did to him. I mean, we almost killed him, and he was the one being punished? It was bullshit. So a few days before we were supposed to play in the final, I told Coach Barnes

and Principal DeSoto what happened. They had no choice but to suspend everyone. Which meant we had to forfeit the championship.”

Jackson lets out a bitter scoff. “The guys were furious when they found out. They thought I was a traitor, and they weren’t the only ones.

Everyone—students, teachers, hell, even the lunch lady—they all looked at me like I’d betrayed my team.

And my school. And the whole fucking city.

Micaela was the only one who stood by me. But everyone else?”

Jackson’s face burns with anger.

“Even my parents acted like I’d betrayed them. My father was furious. He said I should’ve kept my mouth shut, played ball,

and protected my team. He told me I had deliberately sabotaged any chance of a career in the NFL. That I’d flushed my entire

future down the toilet over nothing. That’s what a kid in the hospital was to him. Nothing.”

Jackson releases an exhausted sigh that seems to come straight from his soul. “ That’s when I decided to move to Orlando.”

I hardly know what to say. It’s inconceivable to me that anyone—let alone Jackson’s parents—could hear everything that had

happened and still decide that Jackson was the villain of the story. And all because he was brave enough to tell the truth.

“I’m sorry you went through that,” I tell him, hoping he knows how sincerely I mean it. “I can’t imagine what it must have

been like to have to change schools and move across the state all because you did the right thing and everyone hated you for

it.”

Jackson waves away my apology. “I didn’t do the right thing. I let the guys torture Devon for months. I let them put him in the hospital. As far as I’m concerned,

whatever shit comes my way, I deserve it. I had so many chances to stick up for Devon and stop the bullying, and I didn’t.

Because it was easier to look in the other direction. Because I was a coward.”

I can’t believe how much I misjudged Jackson. I thought he was just another entitled jock, someone who smashed up people’s lives and didn’t care about the consequences. But seeing the regret on his face and hearing the ache in his voice, I know I was wrong.

“That’s not true,” I say, crossing to his bed and sitting down beside him. “You’re not a coward.”

“A kid almost died because of me.”

“But he didn’t. Because you called 911.”

“And if I’d stopped the bullying when it started, I wouldn’t have had to call 911 in the first place.”

I can’t disagree with that. Just like I can’t absolve Jackson of the guilt he feels. He’s going to have to live with that

for a long time. Even so, I can still be here for him.

“Do you know why I came over here this morning?” I ask. “I wanted to confront you. I wanted to learn every awful thing about

you so I could tell my friends exactly who you are and what you’re capable of. And do you know who you are?”

Jackson tenses. His entire body is on edge in preparation of the blow it’s anticipating.

“You’re a boy who made a mistake,” I tell him. “A mistake you’ll probably regret for the rest of your life. But also a mistake

you tried to make right when no one else would. Even though it cost you your friends and your family and your future in football.

That’s who Jackson Haines is. That’s what you’re capable of.”

I put my hand on his shoulder and give it a squeeze.

Jackson looks startled. For a second, I’m worried that he thinks I might be hitting on him. (Why are straight boys so fragile?)

Then the hard, exhausted lines of his face soften into gratitude, and he pulls me into a hug.