Taking Matt Whitteker Down

The beginning II

"What's Nick like?" Katrina mused. "Some difficult questions you've got miss Melrose. Why do you ask such unanswerable/irrelevant questions?" She searched her head for the detective's name. It surely started with an M but what was the rest of it? Timothy, from drama had always bragged about his detective cousin, the genius who cracks murder cases. Let's see her crack this one.

"Let me rephrase that for you," the elder lady interjected exasperated, the vein in her forehead pulsating by now.
Mila perhaps?

"how long have you known Nick Hammond?"

"All my life really." Katrina saw the investigator's attempts at redirecting the conversation to where it should be.

"How close were you two?"

Even applauded her for it, but she needed the story to roll out on her own pace. No prompting or leading required. She couldn't be a Mila she then thought. The name is too sweet for her.

"Never that close. Back in Middle school he was friends with the school's clowns, they were seniors, Jeff Lucile and Steve M? I never liked those two. Nor him now that I recall. He was such a jerk back then. So freaking rude yet people were still falling under his feet." Katrina continued on with her blabber, her chipped-manicure fingers waving about. Something about detective Melrose irked her. And she felt like the feeling should be mutual.

"Not all people though! There were always those smart ones. When we got into high school?  I became friends with two of them. Annette and Ray Johnson. Ray was dating this guy from summer camp, Luke "a bloody varsity". Annette, she was in a band called Smart Mouth with Joshua, " also a footballer" he was the lead singer and they had Lisa drumming. It was pretty cool I guess, I don't know I'm not really into indie. So our Lisa later on got into the cheering team and by senior year was the head of the squad. The band was broken off along time ago and all of us had stayed friends.

See, the reason I'm telling you all this is because the dynamic of our school has always been shifting. Each year with kids graduating some shoes are left to be filled. Some roles had to be acted upon. And why I was even in that group? Ummm, let's just say that back when Rose was a senior herself, she was the head of everything. The class president, softball captain, the debate team. Hell, she got into the chess club. In our house. If you haven't heard Rose was the shiny jewel!

So... how close were Nick and I?

Never close. Up until this year I had only known that he liked red apples, football and you know, how big was his indoor pool because we'd gone swimming there sometimes." She threw her hand, depicting the whatever motion so habitually.

"Really, back then I was busy with my own drama. After Rose got into rehab our house became a little calmer. Everyone tried to get on with life the way it used to." Strange how her priorities had shifted, earlier this month she wouldn't talk about this to any soul, no matter how close. Now, she was opening up to a complete stranger. Whether looking for sympathy or understanding, Katrina saw how easy it was, to just talk it out. This big blackness that nestled within her. She needed to sift through it.

"I couldn't tho..
I didn't understand what happened.
I wanted answers" During the time Rose was missing, Katrina mostly blamed herself.

"Rose wouldn't speak a word about what happened. " Rose put her in such a hard spot.

"It sort of left me in a weird spot...." she exhaled. Stressing on her words.

"So.... As the years rolled down school got me busy. Rose was getting better. And that cute guy she talked about? never crossed my mind again.

Well, not until some Saturday morning. When I went to the grocery store to get milk because dad forgot to buy some.

There I saw Jeff Lucile by the cold drinks fridge. Thinking he wouldn't recognize me I moved past him to get my carton of milk.