He still can’t quite understand why he let Caleb come up that night. If he is to admit it to himself, he feels there was something inevitable, even, in a small way, a relief, about Caleb’s hitting him: all along, he had been waiting for some sort of punishment for his arrogance, for thinking he could have what everyone else has, and here—at last—it was. This is what you get, said the voice inside his head. This is what you get for pretending to be someone you know you’re not, for thinking you’re as good as other people. He remembers how JB had been so terrified of Jackson, and how he had
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