What Janie Saw Read Free

Assassins zoomed up next to her, tilting their heads, mocking the angle at which Janie held hers. Tears lay on her cheeks. Visionary Assassins drew fake wavy tear lines on their cheeks.
    The headlines in newspapers and the comments on talk shows after that court decree had screamed,
Wrenching Decisions! Heartbreaking Choices!
Online media let people vote—should Janie leave the family who brought her up or not? Was Janie sick and rotten because she wanted her “kidnap” parents? Were the “kidnap” parents twisted and depraved?
    Visionary Assassins changed their rhythm and softened the chords.
    Janie, Janie, torn in two,
    Claiming that you never knew,
    Here’s what we know about you.
    A torn heart doesn’t share.
    A torn heart can’t go anywhere.
    A torn heart doesn’t care.
    Doesn’t care!
It echoed itself.
Doesn’t care!
It mocked.
    She wanted to phone Visionary Assassins.
You stole me. You might as well have kidnapped me for that song. You’re as criminal as Hannah! You’re making millions while I’m just making tears. Listen to me! My heart always cared. Everybody in our nightmare did their best, and everybody got torn in twoanyway
.
    And if I could get hold of you, Visionary Assassins, I’d tear you in two
.
    Reeve Shields was one of tens of thousands of college students in Boston. Reeve was not a fine student. He was not even halfway to being a fine student. But he made friends as easily as most people make sandwiches.
    This coming weekend, he had an invitation. A girl he had known since freshman orientation had asked him to join her family at their cottage. Her dad was picking her up Friday at two.
    Brianna was beautiful, fun, smart and interesting. Reeve knew her parents and her younger brother. He even knew her dog. When her family drove into Boston for a visit, her collie danced and leaped and whined and licked in a steady rotating pattern like a weather front. The collie’s joy was infectious. People came out to watch.
    Reeve could hop into the car with Brianna and her terrific father and her happy collie. He’d help close up their summer cottage, and they’d fish in the lake, and have great food, and hike on trails at the edge of the mountains.
    Or he could drive down to Connecticut and deal with a girl who half loved him. Half let him near and half would never forgive him.
    He didn’t know what to do about loving Janie Johnson. It wasn’t a burden; it wasn’t a weight on his shoulders. But it was hopeless. He had screwed up big-time. Nothing he said would convince Janie that he had learned from hismistake.
    It was time to move on. Janie said so herself. And Brianna would not be halfway about taking Reeve into her life.
    But even though Janie had not mentioned the situation with Visionary Assassins, he wanted to be there for her.
    He was so proud of Janie right now. The song and the video were racing toward number one in the nation—and Janie hadn’t blinked.
    “She never even refers to it,” Sarah-Charlotte had told him last night. “Now, what did your sister Lizzie say about the whole thing? Can we sue them?”
    Reeve’s sister Lizzie was an attorney, the terrifying kind you would hire in a crunch. Reeve was always puzzled that he could be related to a woman like Lizzie. But he had gotten her legal opinion. “Lizzie explained that Janie Johnson became a public figure once the milk carton story got out,” he told Sarah-Charlotte. “Public figures are different. They don’t have the privacy rights the rest of us do. That footage of Janie and her families leaving the courtroom was shown nationally back when it happened, and as long as Visionary Assassins paid for the news clip and have permission from whoever took that footage, they’re legal. They don’t need Janie’s permission.”
    Sarah-Charlotte sighed. “That’s what my dad said. You know, I’m actually kind of hurt. I thought Janie would lean on me and need me, but she just strolls around school staring right back at the