Blue Money | Nick Robinson

Chapter Eleven: The Fallout

The next day after my mop closet cry session, I track Dawn down after classes are done for the day. She's in her dorm room and we walk out to the garden together and I tell her everything that's going on, every detail, Savannah and Emma, Layla's blackmailing tendencies and how I don't know why, yet.

I leave out the part where I think Nick and Emma had dated. I hadn't said it out loud and I didn't want too but I knew that something had happened between them. I don't know if Savannah knew and she was still in bed, sleeping and having her homework brought to her by me or Eileen.

Dawn listens and she picks a flower and sticks it behind her messy hair. She's wearing a long sleeved dress that reaches her knees and it's a cloud white that match her fingernails. She's not wearing shoes and there's dirt on her toes. I wish I didn't care as much as she did. She never rolls her eyes when someone mumbles something about her unbrushed hair or smudged eye makeup.

After I'm done she takes the small pink flower from her hair and tucks it behind my ear, her fingers lingering underneath my chin as she starts talking.

"We will figure something out," Her hand falls into her lap and she tilts her head to look at me. "Are you okay?"

"Define okay," I take the flower out of my hair.

"Okay means okay."

"I'm okay because I have Nick," I can feel how unconvinced I sound. I pull a petal off, doubting that he's someone who's actually a constant in my life. "but I'm watching everything fall apart."

"People fall apart, Anna banana," She says, gently, trying to get me to look at her but i'm staring at the flower. "You just have to be there to help pick up the pieces."

"What if I can't? What if everything just keeps getting worse? What if I can't fix all this?" I rip the remaining pieces of the flower up.

"You have Nick and you have me," She places a hand over my shaking ones. "We'll have Miles back soon from under Layla's thumb and then we'll figure this out."

"I'm not sure if I actually have Nick anymore," I say, finally admitting it out loud.

"Well, go see him and we'll meet up later and think of ways to knock Layla down a peg without her spreading what she knows," Dawn pauses. "Shouldn't be too hard."

"Pretty sure that's what people say every time before they do something that's difficult," I say.

"If everything was easy life would get boring really fast, Anna."

I give her my best smile and I lean across the bench to hug her. She smells like flowers. I try to freeze the moment because I don't want to talk to Nick, not about Emma. His lie still rings in my head like answering a phone call and every time i pick it up i can hear his shaky voice telling me not well after i had asked how well he had known Emma.

Dawn gives me one last squeeze before standing and she holds her hand out. I take it and we walk back into the school but we separate moments later. She goes to the girl's dorms and I head to the boy's to go to Nick's room.

I had been to Nick's room only once before and it had been a short order. it had been last week to drop off his stack of homework and his roommate, Lucas, wasn't there, thank god. i was drunk the night i had met him so i barely remember it but he was pretty much like all the other kids here, a rich preppy douchebag with a stash of cocaine at every party there was.

I stand at the door and knock three times before he answers.

Nick is wearing no shirt, a towel draped over his shoulders that are still shimmering with water with his hair wet and falling into his brown eyes. He's got flannel pajama pants on that hang loosely off of his hips.