“Hope? Hope!”
The shout jars me back to the present. I get up from the army trunk, walk to the balcony railing, and peer down. I know it’s Chase even before I see him. I turn away and slink back to the war room. I don’t want to see him. I don’t want to see anybody.
But Chase must have spotted me. “Hope?” I hear his footsteps on the stairs. He barges into the past, my room, shattering the quiet here.
“Go away.”
“Hope, listen…”
I shake my head.
“What did you do to your face?” He touches my cheek.
It doesn’t hurt. I can’t feel it. Maybe I’ll never feel anything again. I brush away his finger.
He sits down beside me on the trunk. “Talk to me.”
“Go home, Chase. Leave me alone.” I stare at the floor, the wooden slats that let light peek through from below. Choirs used to sing here.
“What happened?”
I shake my head. “It’s over. I’m done.”
“You don’t mean that. What about Jeremy? He needs you. And now you’ve got Caroline Johnson coming to court and reasonable doubt and-”
“Wait. How did you know I was here?”
“Rita,” he answers.
“Rita?”
“She called me, Hope. How else did you think I knew to come looking for you? She’s worried about you. She was afraid you might do something stupid.”
This isn’t making sense. “Wait. Rita called you?”
He smiles and nods. “Surprised me too. I don’t think I was her first choice. But she is worried about you. So am I. You can’t give up. I think things are looking better for Jeremy than they ever have.”
“No. They’re not.” I shake my head and lower my voice. “Rita saw Jeremy that morning. Chase, he was trying to wash his bat.” I can see it in my head-Jeremy trying to get the bat into the sink, water and blood splashing, and that look, the wide-eyed look of being caught in the act. “Why would he do that if he hadn’t…?” But I can’t finish.
“First of all, whatever Rita saw, Jeremy washing the bat, might never come out in court.”
“If Rita has to testify, Keller will get it out of her.” My hand hurts, and I raise it to see why. My fingernails have left deep marks on my palm from the fist I must have been making.
“Rita might surprise you. She kept it from you this long. My money’s on her keeping what she saw out of court.”
Chase is right. Rita’s stronger than I am, a better match for the prosecutor. “Still… it doesn’t change what she saw.” I make the fist again. I want it to hurt.
“What did she see?” Chase asks. “Jeremy cleaning his bat? So what? Who knows why he was doing it? Even you don’t know how his mind works all the time. Maybe he loved his bat so much that he couldn’t stand to have it dirty. Or maybe he was trying to cover up for somebody, to protect somebody.”
“Like who? Caroline Johnson? They didn’t even like each other.”
Chase shrugs. “Okay. So maybe he wasn’t trying to cover up for anybody. Maybe he just couldn’t stand having Coach’s blood on his bat.”
That rings true to me. “Jeremy hates the sight of blood. Once when I got a nosebleed, I grabbed the nearest thing, a dish towel, to stop it. Jeremy made me throw it away, outside of our apartment.”
“See?” Chase says, like I’ve proved him right. “Maybe that was why he tried to wash the bat. Or not. We don’t know, Hope, and we probably never will know. But it doesn’t prove anything. That’s all I’m saying. What Rita told you hasn’t changed anything. We’ve still got reasonable doubt. Jeremy still doesn’t have a motive for killing Coach, and Caroline Johnson still does. After Bob’s testimony, the jury could even believe that he had a motive.”
“Bob? Why would he have a motive to kill Coach?” I can’t imagine Bob hurting anybody, not really.
“Who knows?” Chase takes off one running shoe and dumps out a tiny pebble. He’s not wearing socks, and his shoes aren’t tied. “But if your mother was having some kind of love triangle thing going with Coach and Bob, that would give Bob a motive. I’m not saying he did it, just that he has a motive.”
“And Jeremy doesn’t.” Relief, mixed with guilt, rushes over me. It’s hot, blazing hot, up in this loft. “Jeremy doesn’t have a motive.”
“And,” Chase continues, the lines of his face deep and intense, as if he’s willing me to believe, “juries don’t like to convict without a motive, no matter what the law says about not needing to prove one. My dad’s always told me that people on a jury have to understand why someone would kill. That’s just human nature, and jurors are human.”
I close my eyes. A picture comes to my mind of Jeremy about eight months ago, standing on top of a hill, ready to ride his sled. He’s the perfect image of innocence. It’s nighttime, and the stars are out in full force. I remember thinking that he looked close enough to heaven to touch it. And I thought about the song I’d heard in the car that day, a decade ago, the God song Jeremy “copied.” I’d give almost anything to hear that song now.
“Jeremy couldn’t have done it,” I say quietly. I feel grief, a deep sorrow at having even for a minute believed that my brother could have committed murder. “I was ready to quit on him,” I admit, too ashamed to look at Chase.
He wipes away whatever is on my cheek-blood, tears. “I doubt it.”
I frown up at him.
He shakes his head. “Not a chance. The Hope I know would never quit on Jeremy. I’ve seen the way you love your brother.”
“But-”
He puts his finger to my lips to stop words from coming out. Then he draws his fingertip across my bottom lip.
I still feel his touch on my mouth, even after his finger is gone. Slowly, he leans in and presses his lips to mine, moving softly across the spot where his finger was. The heaviness in my body lifts until I feel like I’m floating. Around us, army uniforms, guns, and helmets watch as decades melt into each other, bringing us into the timeless group of lovers.
“You up there! What’s going on?” Mrs. Gance, the owner, shouts, and stomps one foot, like we’re mice to be scared back into the walls.
Chase and I break apart. He walks to the railing and calls down, “Sorry, ma’am! We were kissing.”
“Chase!” I whisper, but it makes me grin.
“In my store?” Mrs. Gance sounds horrified. “Well, you two can just skedaddle, you hear me? No kissing in my store!”
“Sorry,” Chase says, running back to me and grabbing my hand to pull me up. “We must have missed that sign on the way in.”
We thunder down the stairs and out the door. The sun is setting, and a flock of geese aim for it, honking. We stand on the sidewalk, facing each other. I’m pretty sure Chase is about to kiss me again. And if he doesn’t make the move, I will. We kiss again. I’ve closed my eyes without thinking about it, and I don’t want them closed, so I open them.
T.J. is standing there. “What is this, some kind of joke?”
I shove Chase away, so hard he nearly bumps into T.J. “T.J.? Wh-what are you doing here?”
“Rita called me. She said you were going to do something crazy.” He glares at Chase, his brown eyes tiny dots filled with hate. “I guess she was right.” He turns his hate on me. “I just don’t understand why she had to bother me with it.”
“Let’s go sit somewhere and talk, okay? I was upset… about the case, and Jeremy, and something Rita said that-”
“I don’t care.” T.J. shakes his head.
“Come on, T.J.,” Chase says, his voice calm. “We need to talk about this.”
“Talk? I’m the one who made you help out Hope in the first place. You didn’t even want to.” He stabs the air at both of us. “I sure didn’t mean this! But I should have known. You are such a phony! You’re no better than all the rest of them. Your dad. Coach. Coach’s wife. And now Hope? Everybody treats you-and guys like you-like you’re kings. So what am I? Some cockroach? Just because I don’t have your money? Because I’m not cool?”
“T.J., what do you-?” Chase tries.
“I’ll bet you and Coach got a lot of laughs out of me and my family, didn’t you?”
“If this is about the cookies,” Chase begins, “I said I was sorry. I don’t know what else I can say. And as for Hope and me, I’m sorry you-”
“Right!” T.J. is screaming now. Two boys on bikes cross to the other side of the street, staring at us. “You’re sorry. So that fixes everything, then, doesn’t it? Do whatever you want, then say you’re sorry? Well, it doesn’t work that way! Some things you can’t take back! They’re done. Over. But they’re not, not really. And you can’t take them back!”
I glance at Chase, who looks stunned to silence.
“T.J., calm down,” I plead. “I’m sorry you’re hurt, but you’re scaring me. Can’t we talk?” I move toward him, but he steps backward.
“No! We can’t talk. Don’t expect me to do handstands for you anymore either. I’m done! I’m done with the whole trial. And I hope your brother-!” He stops, choking on his own words. Then he turns and runs away, dashing into the street without looking.
“T.J.!” I scream.
A car slams its brakes and swerves to miss him. T.J. barely glances at it. The driver honks his horn, then takes off, tires squealing.
I watch my friend disappear behind a row of houses.