In My Dreams I Hold A Knife

Two days before Heather’s murder, Mint sees news that his father’s real estate company has gone bankrupt in the housing crash. He blames his father for being a coward and feels everyone will see him as a failure. He has lost his money and now will likely lose his friends. Another Phi Delt, Trevor Daly, tells Mint about Dr. Garvey’s secret dalliances with female students, including Jessica. Trevor implies that Mint should be “embarrassed” that his girlfriend cheated on him with an old professor.

Having chosen Jessica because she worshiped him and was grateful to him for choosing her, Mint fills with ire. He asks Jessica what she did on the Friday Trevor said she was with Garvey. She lies, telling him she was with Caro. Later, Mint asks Caro about her Friday night with Jessica, and Caro denies having been with her. Mint is convinced Jessica is having an affair with Garvey.

Mint plans to confront and humiliate Jessica publicly at the Sweetheart party. Mint gets a phone call from his mother, who tells him that she and another board member have taken over the company from his father, who attempted to die by suicide the previous night, trying to take “the coward’s way out” (271). Completely crushed, Mint lets rage and anger fill him. Heading back into the Phi Delt house, he punches Trevor repeatedly.

Caro’s face falls as she begins to understand Coop and Jessica’s feelings for one another. Mint lunges toward Jessica. Frankie tries to stop him, but he breaks free. He asks Jessica who else she was “fucking” and calls her a “whore.” As Mint moves closer to her, she senses that he is dangerous. Coop and Frankie tell Mint to calm down, but Mint continues, explaining that he knew about Garvey and that the Phi Delt brothers laughed at him. Jessica understands that Mint is equating what happened with them to what happened in his parents’ marriage. She apologizes, but Mint says he wanted to break her neck back then. Eric asks Mint if he accidentally killed Heather meaning to kill Jessica. Mint yells to Jessica, “I thought I was hurting you!” (275).

Mint waits for Jessica at the Sweetheart party, yearning to humiliate her. No one has yet mentioned they know about the collapse of his family’s company, but he knows it’s only a matter of time. Frankie approaches, telling him that Jack has called an officer’s meeting for the fraternity and might report the assault on Trevor to the police. Mint promises he’ll “make amends” and pulls out a baggie of pills, telling Frankie that, with no more drug tests, they can finally get wasted together.

When Frankie walks away, Trevor’s friend Charles asks Mint if he feels “like a big man?” (280). He wonders aloud what might happen if Mint lost all his money, and Mint realizes that Charles knows about the demise of his family’s company. Before Mint can punch Charles, Caro walks up, breaking up the argument, then wants to talk about Jessica. She mentions that things have been troubling her since Christmas. Caro is referring to Jessica’s father’s death, but Mint thinks she’s talking about Garvey. He assumes Jessica has been cheating on him with Garvey for months. Needing to get out of the claustrophobic environment and filling with more rage, Mint leaves to find Jessica. Arriving in Jessica’s dorm room, he sees it’s in shambles as if people have been roughhousing—or, he thinks, having wild sex. He sees a sleeping figure in Jessica’s bed, not knowing that it is a passed-out Heather.

As Mint yells at who he thinks is Jessica, Heather groggily tells Mint she hates him, perhaps thinking Mint is Frankie or Jack. Mint explodes and begins to hit her head against the headboard, so filled with hate that he cannot see straight. He grabs the scissors Jessica left on the desk and stabs Heather repeatedly. When he sees a patch of blonde hair, he realizes he has killed Heather rather than Jessica. He knows he has to act fast if he is going to get out of this. He takes a shower, washing off the blood. He plans to slip back into the party, but before doing so, he plants the murder weapon under Jack’s bed in retribution for Jack’s desire to go to the police about Mint’s assault on Trevor.

Hearing Mint’s story, Jessica has a thought: she won. Heather died because of her. But then, as the shock of Mint’s confession sinks in, she vomits. Mint grabs a shard of glass and waves it at Jessica, wanting to know where she was that night. Courtney passes out. After Eric explains the ways that Mint tried to cover up his crime, Jessica realizes that after Heather’s death, Mint was contrite, wanting to reaffirm their relationship and recommit to one another. Mint tells Jessica he will “do it right this time” (294), moving toward her with the broken glass. Coop lunges toward Mint, and Mint slashes him with the shard, cutting his chest. Mint then takes a lighter from his pocket and starts a fire between himself and Jessica and the others, so they can’t get to her. Looking into his crazed face, she realizes she’s seen glimpses of this Mint but pushed them away because he was “the prince of Duquette” (295). Mint chokes Jessica and plunges the glass into her side. Frankie and Coop land on Mint as the fire rages. Mint escapes and moves toward the window, then apologizes to everyone. Eric comes from behind a wall of fire and pushes Mint through the window. Outside, the parade crowd has gathered on the lawn below.

Jessica then tells everyone that she will take the blame for pushing Mint out the window because—being stabbed—she can claim self-defense. Otherwise, Eric might go to jail for murder. Jessica makes everyone promise they will go along with her story. She stands at the window so the crowd below can see her. From her perch, she sees someone in the crowd below.

During movie night with Caro and Heather, Jessica is happy. Caro has fallen asleep. Jessica rests her head on Heather’s shoulder. Heather asks her to come to Cleveland with her for the summer. Jessica says she has to study for the graduate records examinations (GRE), even though she is only a sophomore. She mentions her dream of having the career her father didn’t, going to graduate school, then ending up in Washington, DC. Heather responds, “Perfect, perfect, perfect…You’re obsessed with that word. You know no one is actually perfect, right?” (302). They then imagine their lives in 10 years. Heather thinks she will be famous. She tells Jessica she’s the “wildcard” and will surprise them all.

The cops move Jessica roughly through the crowd despite her injury. The campus is chaotic: ambulances, running and shouting, sirens. People stare at Jessica accusingly and with horror. Jack is the man she saw in the crowd, and he catches up to her. He tells her that he and Eric had planned this weekend, hoping to find out who killed Heather. As she’s taken to the ambulance, he says her he couldn’t tell her because he thought she might have been the killer. She laughs, telling him, “You have good instincts” (309).

On Jessica’s 14th birthday, her father calls her princess. He’s excited about her upcoming high school career and tells her if she works hard enough, she will be “the best” student at the high school. Disturbed, her mother says, “Stop it,” sensing that his zeal is unrealistic and stifling. But Jessica responds happily, promising she will be the best. As her father hugs her, Jessica wants to remember her father as this person rather than the man she saw abusing Oxycontin.

Jessica wakes in the hospital knowing the truth of what happened to Heather that night. Jack, Coop, Frankie, Caro, and Eric stand by her bed. She finds out she will not be charged with murder because the police feel she acted in self-defense. She looks closely at their faces, wondering if they know her secret. The friends promise never to tell anyone what happened in Blackwell Tower. After swearing to let Jessica “take all the blame” for Mint’s death, Caro leaves, telling everyone she hopes never to see them again, including Coop, who leaves after her. Jack tells Jessica everyone thinks she’s a hero for avenging her friend’s death. After spending a decade searching for his sister’s killer, Eric will quit his job and reassess his life. Frankie has been invited to the Today show to discuss being a gay football player. His father has been supportive, surprising everyone. Jack is proud of Frankie for finally coming out. Jessica tells Jack that she loved Heather, despite all the things she hated her for. Jack understands and tells her that Coop is staying in town until all charges have been dropped against her. As Jack leaves, Jessica promises herself that she’ll never tell anyone the last piece of the puzzle from that night.

The next day, a police officer lets her free from her shackles and tells her she’s free to leave the hospital. Outside, the media awaits, but Coop pulls up on a motorcycle, and Jessica gets on. Coop pulls over in a copse of trees a few miles out of town. Coop calls her a narcissist, “vain and petty and ego-driven” (326). Despite these faults, however, he admits to loving her. He wants to be with her, and this time, unlike when she was in college, she accepts. Getting back on the bike with him, she remembers the night Heather died.

Jessica returned to her dorm room to get rid of the cut-up photos and go to sleep. But someone was in her bed. It was Heather, and she said, “Please…Jess. Help me” (329). Jessica ran to find the building administrator on the first floor. But as the elevator went down floor by floor, she remembered the sex tape and the test paper that fell. Doing nothing had benefited her. By the time the elevator reached the ground floor, she decide to do nothing.

Back in the present, on the back of Coop’s motorcycle, Jessica confronts her guilt. She left Heather to die. She had been “cowardly and selfish, intoxicated and in shock” (330). She believes that Heather was beyond help but also knows that she failed her friend in the worst way possible. She accepts herself for both the good and bad, and she has someone who loves her for the good and bad, even though she’ll never tell Coop this secret. She finally feels Duquette's “old magic” and promise in the future.