how to catch feelings

8

"That's BS."

The girls looked over at me. "What's BS?"

"The uni is claiming they don't know anything. Like hell they don't know anything."

"Did they email you?"

"Yeah, but only because I emailed them first."

Meg and Damaris exchanged a glance. This was far from being the first time I blew my top about not being kept in the loop.

As I expected, neither of them had anything more to offer.

I shut my laptop and set it aside so I could switch to my phone.

Might as well spend the rest of the morning on Tik Tok.

Of course the first video to pop up was Cole. I debated scrolling, but let's face it, that was only for half a second.

If he was chasing clout, I could do my part.

That's what friends are for, right?

I double-tapped to like the video and then kept scrolling.

***

My phone buzzed halfway through story assignments. I figured I'd sneak a peek at it, considering our A&E editor was running the show for the moment. I guess it's hardly sneaking, though, when your phone's sitting on the table and everyone can see you looking at it.

Oh well.

I looked.

A text from Amber.

Odd.

"Can we meet up?" she asked.

An extremely strange request, given we haven't spoken in nearly two years.

Responding would be a problem for later.

We went through the assignments a second time, letting the reporters fight for the stories. You know, if two people raising their hands at the same time and then saying, "Oh, no, you can have it," "No, really, you can take it," "I already have a story, you can have it," qualifies as a fight.

Not gonna lie, I was really hoping it would be one of those nights where everyone clears out pretty quickly, but unfortunately our previous editor-in-chief cursed us with a new tradition of actually wanting to hang out with each other outside of meeting time.

Something about a "tight-knit work culture."

Thanks a lot, Kat. I hope grad school is kicking your butt.

(JK. I hope you crush it.)

So, sadly for me, everyone seemed to want to stick around to exchange campus gossip.

And, of course, Dax came up.

"Have you heard anything, Natalie?" Trent asked.

The others got quiet.

Lovely. Just lovely.

"No, not yet," I said carefully.

"I heard that the cops are talking to students," said Jess. She leaned back in her chair. "You know, people who knew Dax."

"So they must think it was another student."

"Not necessarily. Maybe they think someone saw something."

And just like that, the room dissolved back into half a dozen conversations.

For Pete's sake, I just wanted to go back to my dorm.

Screw it.

"Can y'all erase the board and lock up when you're done here?" I asked the other editors.

As soon as I had one nod, I was ducking out of the conference room and back into the office to grab my water bottle and my lanyard.

Netflix time, baby.

"Hey!"

Whyyy did I have to know so many people on this campus?

Ope.

Scratch that.

It was Cole, jogging out of the on-campus convenience store with a Coke and a bag of potato chips.

"Hey," I said.

"Newspaper?"

"Yup."

"Fun."

"Yup."

Okay, was there a book I could read? Some WikiHow articles? A YouTube tutorial? I had to get better at the talking thing. Had to.

"The cops are talking to the team tomorrow," he said. He held the door at the first set; I held the door at the second set.

"About Dax?"

"Yeah."

I took a gulp of water –classic social prop. If you thought I was carrying around a water bottle purely to stay hydrated, you thought wrong.

"You saw my latest Tik Tok?"

"Yup."

"Cool."

Wow, thank goodness we were just about at the split in the sidewalk. I didn't know if I could take another minute of whatever the hell that was.

Alright, alright, that was standard Nat.

Socially awkward.

Hence the water bottle.

I took another gulp. "I guess I'll see you around," I said.

"Sure. See you around."

I wanted to punch myself in the face as he walked away.

Seriously, could I knock it off with the awkward? Why did it have to be so awkward all of a sudden? We weren't this awkward last year, were we? No, definitely not.

So one thing was for certain – something about this year was different.

*** ***