how to catch feelings

46

"How bad was it?" Jared asked, meeting me a few doors down.

I rolled my eyes. "A bird could've given me better answers."

"Oof."

"The biggest."

We walked back toward the staircase.

"So what got you interested in journalism?" he asked.

I glanced over at him with a grin. "You wanna know something?"

"Sure?"

"I hate journalism."

"Then why...?"

"I like to write. And I like editing. Journalism, I absolutely loathe."

"Hm."

"What about you and baseball?"

"As you'd expect. T-ball. My parents encouraged me to stick with it through school. They said it would look good to universities. And it did. Lucked out and got a scholarship here, and that's more than most can say."

"Yeah. But do you like it?"

He shrugged. "Like I said, I lucked out."

My heart sank in my chest, but another thought popped into my head. "He said he had to step in because Dax was going to get kicked off the team because of his grades."

"Harding?"

"Yeah. Do you have any idea what that means?"

Jared shook his head but looked pensive.

We reached the ground floor again and turned back toward the main entrance.

Past the fieldhouse, past the badminton courts, past the locker rooms.

We were getting closer and closer to parting ways, and he still hadn't spoken.

I didn't know if that was good or bad.

Probably the latter. It was the usually the latter.

I had just about resigned myself to accepting the conversation as over when Jared said, "Okay, actually, I may have an idea of what he was talking about."

"What's that?"

He glanced around. "Let's go outside."

Oh boy, something he didn't want anyone else to hear.

We went outside, crossed the street to the sidewalk that meandered past the back of the library.

"This is completely off the record because I have no proof, but..." He hesitated. "I don't make this accusation lightly. But I think Harding may have, you know, convinced Dax's professors to pass him. I don't know how or who or even if, but... you know, you heard things, you see things. People talk. Rumors spread. You connect the dots."

I chewed on the inside of my lip, the gears in my mind spinning away at the question of how to get proof.

I couldn't get at his emails, I couldn't get at other professors' emails, I definitely couldn't get at Dax's emails or grades.

No, we'd have to settle for a FOIA request for now, and hope that it turned something up.

"I'm gonna try and dig something up on him," I said.

"What kind of something?"

"Not sure yet. But something."

***

"Got all your ads placed?" Damaris asked.

I turned around, confused, but then remembered. "Oh. Not quite. Some of them are being boogers."

"Ah, sure."

"Yep." I checked my phone again. No texts, no reminders, no notifications. Just being twitchy.

She noticed. "Waiting for someone to text?"

"No."

"Who?"

"No one."

"Jared?"

"Did he ever text you?" Meg asked, joining us in the kitchen.

Did I explain myself, or continue to dig myself a deeper and deeper hole?

"Okay, fine. Yes. He texted me Wednesday. We met in the café and talked about Dax. I went to talk to the baseball coach today and he tagged along. Just following up on something. That's all."

I didn't like the expressions on their faces. I turned back to the stove to tend to my pasta.

"Dang, girl, you getting all the baseball boys," Meg said eventually.

"Not getting anyone. Not interested in getting anyone. Thank you and good night."

"It's only five."

"I'm well aware."

"Alright, home slice." They left me to my cooking.

*** ***