Chapter 18 - Jason's Ghosts

There was no question that Cecilia needed to talk to Jason about Heather Jones. However, that would not be until she had some time alone with him, which wouldn't be until after Thanksgiving dinner at the earliest. Thanksgiving dinner was the next hurdle everyone had to get past.

Cecilia prepared herself psychologically to face the upcoming ordeal. She no longer was concerned about another fight with Jason's father. She knew that at least it was possible to talk to him in a civilized manner, presumably as long as the topics of Mega-Town Associates and Vladim Dukov were kept out of the conversation. Instead, she would have to worry about Mrs. Schmidt, and possibly Cassie. Cecilia's nemesis during the dinner would not be Jason's father, but Jason's mother.

Having failed to get that nasty little Dominican expelled from the house, Mrs. Schmidt spent the day thinking about the various slights and embarrassing questions she could pose to make her unwelcome guest as uncomfortable as possible. She would show her, once and for all, that she was where she did not belong. Jason knew his mother well enough to know what was coming, and knew his girlfriend enough to know what was coming. He would be trapped, sitting helplessly at the table, while the two women went to war. Cecila also knew what was coming, but refused to let him talk about it.

"Jason, just try studyin'. We got next week to think about and we're both gonna be busy, so worry about that instead of some stupid turkey dinner."

Mr. Schmidt anticipated the dinner with glee. His cynicism and secret contempt for everyone in his life came out full force in his mind as he looked forward having a meal with a bunch of people whom he couldn't stand and watching them fight. This was going to be good, watching the two bitches go at it while the wimp sat and cringed. He encouraged Cassie to invite her boyfriend...might as well get those two losers in on the action as well. And the Old Lady...she always liked the wimp...well, maybe she'd feel a bit differently after dinner.

A few minutes later Cassie and her boyfriend returned to the house with Jason's grandmother. She seemed nice enough, quietly shaking Cecilia's hand while Jason introduced her. She made a couple of pleasant comments about how well Jason was doing in college and that she hoped Cecilia felt at home in the Schmidts' house. Cecilia realized the older woman was actually being sincere; apparently she was too na�ve to understand what was happening.

The two Salvadoran maids were ready to serve the dinner, which had been special-ordered by Mrs. Schmidt. The turkey, as expected, was impressive and perfectly cooked. Cecilia looked longingly at the meal and planned to eat to her heart's content. Jason sat quietly with sweat running down his face while his sister and her boyfriend glanced at Cecilia with blatant curiosity. Mr. Schmidt gave a brief prayer and then directed the two maids to cut up and serve the meal.

The opening salvo from Mrs. Schmidt came as soon as Cecilia's plate was set in front of her. In a tone of sweet sarcasm she asked:

"I suppose a nice turkey dinner is something new to you, so I hope you enjoy. Have you ever seen turkey before?"

"Yes Mrs. Schmidt. We used to go over to the YMCA and have turkey roll for Thanksgiving, along with all the homeless people. Mmm... I'll tell you, there ain't nothin' as good as hot turkey roll when you're starvin', 'cause, as you know, we don't have no Christmas dinners, 'cause we ain't got no supermarkets in New Jersey."

Mr. Schmidt smiled to himself while Cassie was trying to figure out if Cecilia was being serious. Cecilia stared right at Mrs. Schmidt, ready to fight. Her expression clearly stated: "There's a lot more where that came from, rich-bitch, so you wanna hear it?" Jason began sweating all that much more.

Mrs. Schmidt's eyes filled up with pure loathing. She glanced furiously at her husband, who just sat there with a smug look on his face. So that's it, she thought to herself, no support, huh? Fine, I'll take her on myself if you're not going to help me out. She stood up.

"Just who the hell do you think you are? You don't talk like that to me! This is my house and you'll start showing me some respect, young lady!"

"Then don't be sayin' stupid shit to piss me off, Mrs. Schmidt! Like I ain't seen turkey before..."

Mrs. Schmidt tightened her lips and slammed her fork down on the table. Suddenly Jason stood up.

"Mom! Let it go! Just let it go! Can't you say something, just once, without insulting someone?"

Mrs. Schmidt stared at Jason, shocked at his sudden display of temper. She calmed down slightly and reluctantly sat down, disconcerted by the fact Jason was willing to stand up to her over Cecilia. She still planned to attack her son's guest, but with no support from her husband and facing the defiance of her son, she would have to think much harder about what she wanted to say and how she wanted to say it.

Cecilia was grateful that Jason was willing to stand up to his mother, but at the same time felt guilty. This was not his fight, it was hers, and she really did not want him to confront his parents.

Mrs. Schmidt changed tactics, making some disparaging comments about the maids and then slipping a dig at Mr. Schmidt by criticizing men who slept with the hired help. Then there were some more digs at Cecilia, and finally additional questions about her family and background. The questions were not so much out of curiosity as intended to force the guest to discuss the more unsavory details of her life before college.

At that moment something rather strange happened inside Cecilia. A transformation took place within her as she faced her hostile audience. She had never wanted to talk about her past before, but suddenly the deep-seated fear she had about her prior life being exposed evaporated. This woman wants to know who I am. Fine, I'll let her know. I'll give her the facts, and then she's the one who'll have to deal with 'em.

Cecilia spent the rest of the dinner talking about her life. She left out very little, talking at length and in detail about the conditions at the housing project, her own struggles in school, her brothers' gang activities and arrests, her mother's boyfriends, her irresponsible cousin, and her neglected nephew. She talked about used needles and empty spray-paint cans littering the stairwells of her building, open drug dealing on the streets, and deadly turf fights between rival gang members who were not any older than Cassie.

She went on, describing the formidable struggle she endured to get her high school diploma and her naps in the public library just to be somewhere she didn't have to listen to her mother's television. Finally she described her escape and her personal indebtedness to Dr. Ruth Burnside. As she thought about all the barriers she had to overcome, she became rather proud of her accomplishments so far. She had absolutely nothing to be ashamed of. Nothing at all.

The dinner ended with Mrs. Schmidt not saying anything. She hated Cecilia more than ever, but that no longer mattered. As badly as she may have wanted to get rid of her, it simply wasn't going to happen. The girl had planted herself in her son's life, was quite capable of defending herself, and obviously wasn't going anywhere.

Mr. Schmidt did not like Cecilia either, but knew that he had to take her seriously and grudgingly respect her. The respect he had for her was conditional and somewhat hostile, similar to the respect he might have for a talented and successful business rival. However, considering the man's overall contempt for humanity in general and for women in particular, for him the opinion he had of Cecilia was comparatively positive.

Jason's grandmother finished the meal actually liking Cecilia. She had truly enjoyed watching the dinner guest match wits and temper against her son's odious, snobbish wife. Jason's girlfriend endured a battle she had not picked, but came out the winner. It was refreshing to see a girl with so much spunk and combativeness in her, one who was intelligent, worked hard, and could hold up in a good fight. Yes, she was just what Jason needed.

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Later that night the family dispersed, leaving the huge empty house to Jason and Cecilia. Mr. Schmidt took off in his BMW to get together and drink with some business partners, Mrs. Schmidt left to hang out with some of her friends and relay the horror of what happened at the table over Thanksgiving Dinner, and Cassie left with her boyfriend to take her grandmother back home.

With the family members gone, Jason decided to take advantage of their absence to go skinny-dipping in the family pool. He invited Cecilia to join him, which she did with some reservations. She barely knew how to swim and never had gone into a swimming pool without a swimsuit. It was strange to see the empty pool, its smooth clean water beckoning from under the cavernous tent. The pool itself was quite large, almost as big as the crowded public swimming pool she visited occasionally while growing up. It felt very weird to be alone in such a large pool, and even stranger not to be wearing a swimsuit.

Cecilia admired Jason's bare body as he stood on the diving board. Yes, he did indeed make a lovely sight, his athletic body strangely lit by the pool lights and reflected on the water. Cecilia thought that it was only proper that such a body always remain uncovered. It was really too bad Jason couldn't always be like this...

As her boyfriend gracefully dove into the deep end, Cecilia waded out into shallow end. She went in far enough to allow the water to come up to her shoulders. She began enjoying herself...yes it really did feel better not to have to wear a swimsuit. Now she was quite glad to have forgotten to bring the garment because it had forced her to step away from her inhibitions. She enjoyed the feeling of the smooth cool water flowing over her body as she waded around and lightly splashed her arms in the water.

Noticing her reluctance to take her feet off the bottom of the pool, Jason stepped out and got a training board Cassie had used years before when learning how to swim. He handed the board to Cecilia and gently coaxed her to take her feet off the floor. She followed his lead, learning how to kick as he guided her around the shallow end of the pool by pulling on the board. At first she splashed very clumsily, but within a few minutes she had the hang of it.

A very strange sensation swept over Cecilia as her boyfriend gave her the impromptu swimming lesson. She felt almost like a child, splashing naked in the water and dependent on him for guidance and safety. He continued to gently guide her around as she improved the control over her legs. Eventually she splashed somewhat less and was able to propel herself forward. The test of the evening came when Jason suggested she flutter-kick herself to the deep end and back again, holding onto the board. Cecilia was terrified at the thought of not having the bottom of the pool close to her feet, but she trusted Jason enough to follow his suggestion. He swam alongside her as she slowly and nervously propelled herself across the pool. She gained some confidence as she made her way back to the shallow end, knowing he was there to rescue her if anything went wrong.

Cecilia then sat on the edge of the pool resting, as she watched Jason dive a couple more times. From the diving board he admired her bare figure as she sat dipping her feet in the water. She really was quite pretty, he thought to himself. He swam up to her and began kissing the insides of her thighs. She reacted in her usual manner, the stimulation making her lie back and spread her legs, her uncovered vagina begging him to bring pleasure to it with his mouth.

At first the only thing Jason could taste was the chlorine, but as she became more excited the familiar salty flavor of her body filled his mouth. She climaxed, and then slid into the water to join him. For a very long time they embraced and kissed. He stiffened and she became aroused again. They were just about to...when she remembered:

"Jason, you don't have a condom on."

"No."

"And you don't have one with you either?"

He shook his head. She backed away.

"Cecilia, please..."

"I can't. I can't risk it."

"Please...it's almost the end of your month...Can't we...?

"I can't, Jason. I'm not gonna risk it. I'm not gonna go through that again..."

"Go through what again?"

Cecilia's eyes filled with apprehension, as though she had just told him a dark secret she had not wanted him to know. She hesitated, then pushed him to the edge of the pool.

"Get up. Sit up on the edge."

When he obeyed, she pushed his thighs apart and began licking his penis. She gently encircled him with her lips and fingers while stimulated the tip with her tongue. It felt very good, but Jason knew that she did not much care for performing oral sex on a guy. What she was doing was changing the subject and diverting his attention from his last question.

He quickly came, squirting semen into her mouth and onto the lower part of her face. She continued licking the tip of his penis, but he could tell she was disgusted by what she was doing. Still, it felt very good and relieved him tremendously. He could tell she was relieved as well, having safely disposed of his dangerous erection.

She dipped her face into the water to rinse off and pulled him back into the pool. For a very long time the couple held onto each other, silently standing under the quiet tent as the pool lights gently reflected the moving water off the canopy above their heads. Cecilia placed her head against his chest, hugged him hard, and said nothing more.

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The following day Mr. Schmidt broke the news that he would not be available to take Jason and Cecilia back to Chicago until Saturday at the earliest. He justified the delay by claiming he had critical projects to take care of at work.

That statement was only partially true. He did have work to take care of, but certainly nothing that couldn't wait until the following week. The truth was that he wanted to leave Cecilia in the house another day with the hope an open fight would break out between her and his wife. He wanted to give the two women every opportunity to make each other as miserable as possible.

He also loved the idea of forcing his wife to deal with a rival who was capable of matching her jibes and hidden insults with sarcasm and jibes of her own. Cecilia never directly insulted Mrs. Schmidt nor said anything that could be construed as a direct insult, but her sarcastic responses to the older woman's constant comments drove her into despair. By the third day Mrs. Schmidt's insults were becoming more open, but Cecilia kept her cool and calmly continued answering by mocking her rival's most outrageous statements with irony. Sometimes she delighted in telling a short story or antidote that sounded straightforward enough, until the very end when she added a sarcastic conclusion.

Another detail that drove Mrs. Schmidt to despair was the girl's bad grammar. Cecilia picked up on that and, whenever she was around Jason's mother, purposely spoke worse than normal. She even started highlighting her accent and inserting a few Spanish words into her speech, especially whenever the Tennis Queen made her disparaging comments about the maids or about Hispanics in general.

Friday morning Mrs. Schmidt simply gave up, fleeing to her country club to get away from the odious trespasser who had so thoroughly contaminated her house. She couldn't handle dealing with the girl's hostile sarcastic behavior, listening to her grating accent, and hearing her constant use of "ain't". She would have the place fumigated and cleaned as soon as that Sanchez girl was gone. Undoubtedly she was unclean and probably had brought disease into the house. Yes, the place needed a good cleaning once that horrible deviant was taken out.

As soon as Jason's mother left, Cecilia decided to spend the day finishing up a term paper and reviewing for finals, which were just three weeks away. Obviously Jason would have to study as well. However, there was a surprise coming to the young couple, a phone call from Jason's grandmother telling him that she had sent a friend to pick them up to have lunch with her.

Shortly afterwards a jovial man about 65 years old came by and rang the doorbell. He was driving an old Chevy, just like the one Cecilia's mother had but in much better condition. The car either had been restored or had been properly taken care of, and it was interesting to see what her own family's car would have looked like when it was new.

Jason invited his grandmother's friend to come in, but he refused. Instead, he said something Cecilia found very interesting.

"You really think I'd want to go in there? Come-on, now. Your grandma says I'm crazy, but I'm not that crazy. Now, let's get you two out of here."

A few minutes later they were speeding out of the neighborhood and onto a public road. Cecilia breathed a huge sigh of relief at the thought of getting out of that oppressive place for a few hours and seeing something normal. Jason, too, for the first time in his life, also felt relieved to be getting out of his parents' house. He felt quite upbeat, but at first couldn't understand why.

The trip took them through a couple of small rural towns to a condominium development. It was 20 minutes and a world away from the area they had left, condos occupied by older and middle-aged residents. The units were nice and kept up, but there was nothing ostentatious about them.

As soon as they entered her condominium, the reason for the invitation from Jason's grandmother became clear. She was interested in getting to know Cecilia better and that interest was genuine. She was fascinated by the young woman who had matched wits with her obnoxious daughter-in-law the day before. Cecilia knew right away that, with Jason's grandmother, she could let down her guard and enjoy a normal conversation.

Two generations separated the two couples at the table, but they were able to converse freely and casually. There was talk about how their university had changed over the years, some talk about cars, and finally some talk about the Schmidts' neighborhood. Jason and his grandmother's friend then decided to watch part of a college football game while the two women continued talking in the kitchen. With the two males now out of the room, the topic of conversation shifted to Jason's parents and the unpleasant experience at their dinner table the day before. What her hostess had to say about Jason's mother surprised Cecilia.

"You know, she wasn't always like that. She was a really nice girl when I first met her, and even when they got married. I liked her a lot. What you're seeing now, that didn't happen until later. I hate to say this, but the truth is, it was my son who ruined her."

Noting Cecilia's surprised expression, Jason's grandmother continued.

"My son...I just don't know about him. I never really figured him out, 'cause he was always so different from me and Bob (that's my late husband). I guess he's always had this...'gotta win' personality. For him it's all about competing and winning. There isn't anything else. He can't be happy unless he's on top, and it's been that way ever since he was little. He's always had to be Mr. Big Shot...you know...never happy unless he was stomping on someone else. Everyone's afraid of him, and that's what he likes, everybody to be afraid of him. And my daughter-in-law became that way too. I guess she had to, if she wanted to keep her sanity around him. That part I can understand, but still, it was kind of sad to see it happen. She's become so obnoxious, she's now worse than he is. I honestly can't put up with being around her anymore."

The conversation turned to Cecilia's life and interests. She talked at length about her research and preparing for the upcoming visit of the Danubian Prime Minister Vladim Dukov, and finally mentioned her correspondence with Kimberly Lee of "Socrates' Mistresses".

"I love that group! But I haven't seen their music for nearly a year. So they're still around?"

Cecilia explained about the breach of contract suit and the fact the band's music could only be purchased in Upper Danubia. Jason's grandmother responded by asking if Cecilia could get her a copy of the group's latest music.

"I 'spose so, Mrs. Schmidt. I'll see if I can get Kim Lee to send you the band's CD's. They're pretty good about helpin' out fans who can't get their music."

As the afternoon progressed, the two women found out they had a lot in common, in spite of their very different backgrounds. Jason's grandmother was deeply impressed by her guest and clearly signaled her approval of the relationship.

"You're a good kid, and it's pretty obvious you're going far. I can see that in you. And I want to thank you for all the help you've given Jason this semester. I don't know if you realize how much it's helped him, and I, for one, am very grateful for the time you've spent with him. It makes me really happy to see it, because, as you know, his father was convinced he'd flop in college. I'm glad to see my son proved wrong. It's nice to see Jason straightening himself up and putting his life back together."

The words "straightening himself up and putting his life back together" stuck in Cecilia's thoughts. She wondered if that comment had anything to do with Mr. Schmidt's "Heather Jones" remark from the day before. It became obvious there was something in his past that Jason had not wanted to tell her.

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Later that night Cecilia and Jason could feel the oppressive neighborhood close in on them as the older couple took them back. Jason's grandmother decided to accompany them back to her son's house, using the need to pick up a couple of dishes as justification for going. The truth was she felt it would be a good idea to go in with them and make sure everything was calm at least for the first few minutes they were settling in. She also wanted to signal her approval of Cecilia, and in doing so offset her daughter-in-law's vehement opposition.

Fortunately it was quite late and Jason's mother already had locked herself in the Master bedroom. Jason's father was watching a football game in the living room. Seeing his mother walk in with Cecilia silenced whatever comment he might have wanted to make to either of them. He didn't have that much to say to her, but got up to retrieve the dishes she wanted. As soon as the older couple was out the door, he announced that he was planning to take Jason and Cecilia back early the next morning, so he expected them to be packed up and ready to leave as soon as he was awake.

The next morning they left in the pre-dawn cold of a late fall morning. The reason for the early departure became evident as soon as Jason's father turned on the car radio, a big snowstorm was expected later that afternoon and it was very likely roads would start closing by sunset. Mr. Schmidt would drop off the two students at the university, and then head over to a studio apartment he rented near his downtown office and weather the storm there.

The detail of the apartment added another mystery to the relationship between Jason and his father. Mr. Schmidt had not only his job, but also a second residence, in downtown Chicago, less then 20 miles from the university. However, Jason never mentioned anything about that. Had he even seen his father's apartment? Had he ever gone over there to visit?

As she watched the fields of southern Wisconsin transform into the suburbs of northern Illinois, she tried to comprehend all that she had learned that weekend. She had some of her questions answered, but now there were others she needed to resolve. Something just was not right. Like separate pieces of a puzzle, Cecilia began to ponder how the clues she had picked up about Jason and his relationship with his parents fit together. There was the Heather Jones comment and Mr. Schmidt's insistence that Jason had no character. There was his grandmother's comment about Jason "straightening himself up and putting his life back together". There was the fact that Jason's father treated him with absolute contempt. He paid Jason's bills, but otherwise ignored him. And there was the fact that Jason did not have a car, never drove in Wisconsin, and made no mention to his parents of driving Mike's car during his first dates with Cecilia. She began to wonder if he wasn't supposed to drive.

Cecilia had thought about asking Jason about Heather Jones, but decided not to. Mr. Schmidt had told her to ask, but she felt she couldn't trust anything Jason's father had to say. She decided to avoid his advice and not ask directly, but instead see if she could find out anything on her own.

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When Mr. Schmidt dropped the two students off at the dorm, he brusquely said goodbye and sped off to his own refuge, that studio apartment downtown. He planned to spend the night with an employee of his firm's coffee shop. He needed to get both her and their dinner safely settled into the apartment before it started snowing. Sunday the city would be shut down and Monday traffic would be completely disrupted. Not that it mattered to Mr. Schmidt. His work was a five-minute walk from his apartment. He would be at his desk on time Monday morning, ready to issue reprimands to employees who came in late due to the traffic problems. As he always put it: "The company's not paying you to sit in traffic. We're paying you to be at work on time." The fact that his subordinates didn't have money for an apartment close to work wasn't his problem.

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Words could not describe how happy Cecilia was to be back safely in her dorm room. She fought back the urge to get on her knees and kiss the floor. Oh...she would sleep well tonight, in her own bed, in her own small space on the planet, her own tiny, quiet refuge. Maybe it wasn't much, but it was hers.

The first thing Cecilia did was get on the Internet. Four days of messages were waiting for her attention, including a couple of e-mails from Kimberly Lee. That reminded Cecilia to ask about CD's for Jason's grandmother. After she typed out her explanation about the need for the CD's, she decided to share her experience about the argument with Mr. Schmidt and his views about the Danubian Prime Minister. That led to an explanation of the complete difference between Mr. Schmidt and his mother and the entire dysfunctional nature of Jason's parents. She concluded with:

"I can't believe how much hatred there is in that family, and what's weird is that they hate each other for no reason. They don't have any of the problems my family had when I was growing up, but they're just as miserable, or maybe even more miserable. The members of my family in New Jersey all got on each other's nerves because we were jammed together in that small apartment. I don't think anyone in my family actually hated anyone else, at least not until I got ready to take off for Chicago. We just got on each other's nerves, and that wasn't the same as what's going on with the Schmidts."

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As soon as she sent the e-mail to Kimberly Lee, Cecilia decided to try to find out about Heather Jones. She began searching the name on the Internet by itself, but of course came up hundreds of responses. She began narrowing the search by typing the name with local county names and the names of the towns close to where Jason lived while in high school. Finally she found something, a news article from about a year before. She read:

Two teens charged after fatal crash

Carterville Daily Press - Dec 10 10:34 AM
The Carterville District Attorney's Office decided to press charges today against two teenagers involved in last week's fatal crash that resulted in the deaths of three local high school students. The teenagers, Matthew Fox, Heather Jones, and Kate Simpson were killed during a collision that local police believe was the result of drag racing. The two teenagers facing charges are William Davis and Jason Schmidt.

Carterville County Sheriff's Department Spokesman Raymond Wright announced that the charges would include manslaughter, reckless driving, and driving under the influence. He added that the investigation was ongoing and additional charges were pending. He concluded that the Sheriff's office hopes to prosecute the two teenagers as adults.

"There's a lot more to this than a simple drag racing incident. Those kids were driving under the influence, and it wasn't alcohol. We can't go into details right now because we're still investigating. We're going to be interviewing kids at the school next week, and we're asking parents to tell their children they need to cooperate with us. There's some serious stuff going on here, and we need everyone's cooperation and support."

Detective Wright reminded the press that last week's tragedy was the third such incident resulting in a fatality since the beginning of the school year. "Let this be a lesson to the community, you've just got to watch your kids. A teenager is not an adult and..."

The rest of the article did not directly talk about Jason, so Cecilia quit reading. She highlighted the text to copy into a blank word processing document and saved it. She was not particularly surprised or shocked, because she had known that something terrible must have happened to her boyfriend last year. So this was it, reckless driving that resulted in a fatal crash. It explained a lot, but not everything.

Manslaughter, reckless driving, and driving under the influence. Pretty serious charges, and yet Jason was not sitting in jail. Just how did he get out of it? That was the next question she wanted to answer. She continued searching

Within a few minutes she found a couple of articles about the wreck itself. Cecilia knew enough about life to realize the accident was the predictable result of rich kids with too much time on their hands and too little supervision. There was a group of teenagers who had taken over a back road to drag race, do wheelies in a nearby field, and play "chicken". The weather was relatively warm for that time of the year, so a group of about 20 students gathered to waste a Thursday night in the countryside. The teenagers did not have any alcohol, because they did not need it. Instead, they were using ecstasy.

By midnight the group had expanded to about 40 students and already had wrecked one car. From that rollover there were no injuries, oddly enough considering the damage done to the car. But the dares were getting more outrageous. At about 1:30 Jason Schmidt and William Davis, at the urging of their respective girlfriends, decided to race. Both cars had sunroofs, so the two girls decided stand up through the openings, lit two flares, and held them up during the competition. So, two teenagers, high on ecstasy, with their two girlfriends, also high on ecstasy, barreled down the road. It was Matthew Fox who added the final touch to the impending disaster. He was coming down off his own high and had decided to head home after fighting with his girlfriend. He was unaware of the race as he incoherently turned out onto the road.

The disaster happened in an instant. The two racing vehicles rammed Matthew Fox's car on the driver's side, killing him instantly. Heather Jones and Kate Simpson were thrown from their respective cars, their bodies tumbling across the pavement as Fox's vehicle burst into flames. The airbags in the two racing cars deployed, saving Jason and William from serious injury. In fact, Jason was not injured at all, because he was wearing his seatbelt.

Acting on nothing but instinct, the two dazed racers stumbled out of their cars and away from the fire, which was fortunate. Moments later the two colliding cars burst into flames as well. The combined fire lit up the entire area with ominous orange light as the combined smell of burning gasoline, burning rubber, and Matthew's burning flesh permeated the air.

There was nothing that could be done for either Heather or Kate. They were as dead as could be; their prostrate bodies lying horribly twisted and disfigured on the cold pavement. The girls' two flares continued to burn further down the road, having rolled a very long way from the crash-site.

How fast it all had happened! There was nothing left to do except call Emergency Services. Many of the spectators panicked and fled, some of them nearly colliding with incoming fire trucks and ambulances. Jason and William, their minds addled with ecstasy, simply stood on the road watching the firemen douse the flames, wondering if this was real or just a bad trip. Shortly afterwards they were at the Carterville Community Hospital Emergency Room, being examined for injuries pending a trip to the police station.

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Cecilia calmly copied the text from the articles and saved it into separate documents. There were some pictures as well, including yearbook photos and mugshots of Jason and William Davis, as well as a couple of police photos of the crash site taken the next day. She tried to disassociate herself from the horror Jason must have endured as a result of his stupidity. Right now she was collecting information. The reaction would set in later, once she had all the facts. She continued looking, trying to find out why Jason had not gone to jail. Finally she came across the following:

Drag racing teen indicted for drug dealing

Carterville Daily Press - Jan 29 11:57 AM
The Carterville District Attorney's Office announced indictments today against former Carterville Central High School student William Davis, 17 and his brother Mark Davis, 20, for their role in distributing ecstasy among students in two Carterville-area high schools.

The District Attorney's Office announced that the charge of possession of ecstasy with intent to distribute against William Davis would be added to the charges of manslaughter, reckless driving, and driving under the influence, stemming from the crash last December that resulted in the deaths of three local teens. The DA's office also announced that Davis will be tried as an adult and prosecuted "to the fullest extent of the law."

Davis' co-defendant, Jason Schmidt, pled guilty to reckless driving and driving under the influence. In exchange for the plea and his testimony, the District Attorney agreed to drop the other charges pending against him, which included manslaughter. Schmidt will lose all driving privileges until he is 21, perform 200 hours of community service, and receive counseling until he graduates from high school.

When asked about the difference between the treatment of the two defendants the DA responded. "I'm convinced the Schmidt kid was duped. He's basically a nice kid that just fell in with the wrong group, but he is going to need to think about where he's going with his life and get some counseling to get over this.

"As for Davis, that's a different story because the group was getting the ecstasy from him and his brother. We got him with 130 doses of ecstasy and 8 ounces of marijuana, and he was on probation for a prior. The brother who got him the stuff was out on parole, so we're going to nail them both.

"What gets to us in the DA's office is that these all kids are from good families. They're not a bunch of bums. But, you give 'em too much down time and throw in some drugs, and, well, you end up with a tragedy like what we had out on Miller Road..."

Once again the article diverged into a moralistic lecture to the county's parents. Apparently the local officials liked to do that, preach to the community, but unfortunately they were right. Indeed, what was Jason doing out on a country road at 1:30 on a Thursday night? Of course, Cecilia knew the answer, because she had met his parents.

Oddly enough, what angered Cecilia the most was not what happened, nor even the fact that Jason had kept it from her, but instead the detail about his driving. Throughout the semester he had placed both of them at risk by driving to their downtown dinner dates in Mike's car. The driving most definitely would stop, Cecilia would see to that. If it meant no more fancy dinners in downtown Chicago, well, that's the way it would have to be. Jason had no right to place them at risk like that, driving with no license, even if his goal simply was to make her happy.

She pondered what to do with the information. She now knew Jason's secret. Yes, it was a pretty bad secret, but she no longer was sure she wanted to confront him over it. She badly wanted him to come clean and confess to her. She knew it would be extremely important that he work up the courage to do it on his own, instead of her having to drag it out of him. She knew that would be vital for their future as a couple, he absolutely had to face up to what he did and admit it to her.

Cecilia Sanchez thoughts moved to her own dark secret, a horrid memory that came back to her when she was discussing her life with the Schmidts. There was one detail she left out, an incident that, more than anything else in her squalid life as a teenager, defined who she was and what she wanted from life. Her own secret was the second reason she was reluctant to confront Jason about the wreck. How could she attack Jason about trying to deceive her about his past, when she was doing the exact same thing to him?

She turned out the light and stared out the window while she waited for him to call. As she watched the snow build up on the ground outside she thought to herself:

I guess it's only fair that me and Jason end up together. Both of us got blood on our hands.