Page 73 of For Your Own Good

Another Ward-ism, and it’s true. No matter how much Zach offers Kay, the jail guard isn’t willing to let Zach see Courtney again. Too many people paying attention, she says. The day has been crazy with news and media and a stream of lawyers coming in to see Courtney. Yes, she needs the money, but she also needs her job.

He has to try another way. There’s always a way.

Another Ward-ism:Even cement walls have cracks.

“A phone call,” he says to Kay. “What if I call you, and you give Courtney the phone?”

They’re in the parking lot of a bank, now closed for the day. Both are still in their vehicles, like they’re undercover police. Kay’s car looks like it’s from the eighties. Zach’s looks and smells like it belongs to an ostentatious prick.

An ostentatious prick with cash.

“I’ll give you the same amount.” He holds up a fresh stack of bills straight from the ATM. “For just a phone call.”

Kay is quiet. The radio is on in her car, turned down low, playing a country song. Zach almost breaks the silence to say how much he likes that song, which is true, but then she speaks.

“I’ll call you at one o’clock in the morning. Hank will be on his break.”

“Perfect.”

Zach stays awake, afraid to miss the call, and keeps himself busy with homework, the news, and social media. The #HomicideHigh messages have multiplied again, and now everyone thinks Courtney is innocent.

Imagine that.

But it makes him wonder what he would think if he didn’t know Courtney. Maybe he would’ve believed she was guilty before deciding she was innocent. Yes, most likely he would’ve, and that disappoints him. Something to talk about with the school therapist, if he feels like it. Or think about when he’s high.

At exactly one in the morning, his phone buzzes.

“Hello?”

“You have eight minutes,” Kay says.

Zach starts to answer, but she’s already gone.

“Hey,” Courtney says. She sounds half-asleep.

“Hey, how are you?”

“I can’t believe Mrs.B is dead.”

Right. Zach forgot he hasn’t talked to her since that happened. Thesadness comes back when he remembers. “I know. It sucks.” He keeps his eye on the clock. Seven minutes. “You’ve heard what’s happening in the news?”

“My lawyer told me today. He thinks they have to let me go.”

“They better.”

“But I kind of liked being a poster child,” she says. “Now I’ll just be normal again.”

Zach smiles. Now she sounds like Courtney. “Then you have to be the poster child of something else.”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know. You should be the poster child of high school newspapers.” Four minutes. “I took over editing the paper while you’ve been out, and that’s a horrible job.”

“You screwed it up, didn’t you?” she says. “You screwed up my paper.”

“Probably.”

“Loser.”