Cuts Run Deep Read Free Page B

had him in two of my classes. It’s so weird to see his desk empty.” She winced. “It makes me sick.”
    Jenny leaned forward, propping up her elbows and scouring the table. “I heard Piper’s in the hospital. Apparently she’s got a really bad concussion and she’s pretty banged up.” I wasn’t surprised that Jenny had more details than the rest of us. Her mom’s a nurse and worked in the ER.
    “Serves her right.” Tanya shook her head. “She was the one who killed him after all.”
    My face drained of color. “We don’t know that.” In fact, we didn’t know anything. We’d been told the barest of details.
    “We know she killed her ex-boyfriend before moving here,” Tanya countered.
    “No, she didn’t.” Zach sighed with exasperation, and I was a little surprised that he was defending her. There was no love lost between Zach and Piper.
    I glanced over my left shoulder at where Zach sat hunched over an untouched sandwich. I hadn’t eaten a bite of my lunch either. Looking around the table, I realized none of us had.
    “Okay. So she didn’t actually kill him, but she tried to kill him. Same diff.” Tanya rolled her eyes. “I tried to warn Jackson about that, but he wouldn’t listen.”
    “That isn’t what happened. You don’t know the whole story,” I snapped, irritated with Tanya for being such a know-it-all. It’s how she always behaved, but today it was too much. Even though I didn’t like Piper, I knew she didn’t kill her ex-boyfriend. Zach and I knew all too well what really happened with him. Not that we would readily share that story. Especially not now.
    “Do you?” She raised a brow.
    “N-no,” I sputtered, wishing I’d kept my damn mouth shut. Zach shot me a warning look. “But Jackson does…did…and he trusted her.”
    “Yeah, look where that got him.” Tanya flashed me a knowing glance, and my stomach twisted.
    “But why would she kill him?” Farrah asked. “What would be the reason?”
    “Perhaps Jackson wasn’t as in love with Piper as she thought.” Tanya’s lips curved slightly at the edges in a way that unnerved me. “We all have our secrets, right?” When her gaze met mine, I lowered my head, unable to look her directly in the eyes.
    She couldn’t know, could she?
    Staring at my hands, my heart beat erratically in my chest. No, it seemed she was alluding to something about herself. She wasn’t involved with Jackson, was she? Sure they went out before Piper moved to town, but he was head over heels for Piper. There’s no way he would cheat on her. Was there?
    “Anyway,” Tanya continued. “We’ll know soon enough. I’m sure the police will be interviewing us.”
    “Us?” My head snapped up. “Why? Why us?”
    Tanya frowned. “Because we’re his friends, silly.”
    “So?”
    “So?” Her eyes widened. “Haven’t you ever watched a crime drama on TV? They’re going to want to get information about Jackson from his friends.”
    Agitated, I clasped and unclasped my hands in my lap. I hadn’t thought about talking to the police. Lifting my head slowly, I looked at Zach. The fear in his eyes mirrored my own.
    I nodded my head subtly, and Zach nodded back. A silent agreement.
    We’d never let them find out what we’d done.

Piper
     
    I couldn’t stop puking. At first I thought it was because I was sick over Jackson’s death. But soon I realized that it was more serious than that. Apparently so did the nurses. That’s why they wheeled me down the hall for a CT scan.
    Now I was lying in a giant donut-like contraption. As the scan started, I wondered what they would find when they looked in my brain. Would they see all the poetry I knew by heart? Would Juliet’s lines, that I’d painstakingly memorized, fly across the screen? Would Jackson’s face fill the frame, his brown hair tousled, his dark eyes piercing, teasing and haunting all at the same time? Would they see the tender moments between us, the silly times, the many hours we