how to catch feelings

59

The fun didn't end there.

I still had a couple FOIA requests to draft – one for Harding's personnel file and complaints made about him, and one for emails and documents pertaining to the removal of Maxwell Harper from the baseball team. They needed to be specific enough to actually target the information I wanted but also vague enough to capture as much as possible.

Ah, the joys of FOIA.

I did a little fidgeting around with old requests until I was reasonably satisfied with them.

I sent them to our advisor for review and then shut off my laptop and went downstairs to lay on the couch and destress with some Friends reruns.

God bless TBS.

The girls came back from their classes closer to six, at which point I was watching The Office on my phone.

"Whatcha been up to today?" Damaris asked, sitting on the arm of the couch.

"Went to class. Skipped the other class."

"Why?" Meg asked.

"Marcus Rowland wanted to talk to me and I didn't want to go to class."

"What did he want to talk about?"

"Five guesses."

"No thanks."

"Fine." I sat up. "The baseball coach complained about me harassing him and the rest of the team. So Marcus had to chew me out and tell me to stop investigating Dax's death."

"Sorry, pal."

I shrugged. "It's not gonna stop me. He made it sound like the newspaper couldn't be doing the investigating. He never really said anything about me investigating on my own time for my own purposes."

Meg and Damaris shared a look but didn't say anything.

They thought I was crazy, but I thought the same of them so it was fine.

"I'm hungry."

"Same. We were actually talking on the walk back about maybe going to the store tonight. You want to come?"

"Hell yeah. When we going?"

"I mean, after we change clothes, we can go."

"Awesome." I flopped back on the couch with the intention of watching the last three minutes of the episode while I waited for them to get ready to leave.

That show was truly God's gift to humankind.

***

I wasn't entirely sure what her course load looked like, so I wasn't expecting an immediate response when I shot Kat a "how's grad school going?"

Her little green dot popped up, and the typing bubble appeared at the bottom of the screen. "Meh."

"I feel."

"How are your classes?"

"Also meh."

"Fun. How's the paper?"

"Papery, as usual."

"Ah. I see you haven't been posting about that murder."

"Ha. Yeah, no."

"Spill the tea."

I rolled over and smacked my elbow on my desk. Ouch. "The usual. The uni doesn't like us getting involved. Marcus actually called me to his office today."

"Oh boy."

"Yeah. That was fun."

"Let me guess, someone ratted you out."

"Yup. The baseball coach."

"What a little bitch."

"Fr."

"You still gonna keep digging?"

"Of course."

"#proud."

"LOL. I have a couple FOIA requests to send tomorrow morning."

"Ooh. What for?"

"The coach's personnel file and documents referencing this kid who got kicked off the team a couple years ago. I'm friends with someone on the team and he thinks drugs are involved."

"Both that kid and the murder?"

"Yeah."

"Damn. I hope they give you something. That's a story, man."

"Tell me about it."

"Well, you know what to do if they keep giving you sh*t."

"..."

"Murder is the anecdote."

"Ah, right. Thank you."

"Mmhmmmm. You can also just tell them to fuck off."

"Yes, yes, of course. That is exactly what I will do."

"Good. Tell them."

"I will. JK. I won't."

"You should."

"Okay."

"It's past my beddity-bye time. Goodbye." Her status switched to inactive.

I swiped out of Messenger and stared absentmindedly at my home screen for a moment.

A Tik Tok notification popped up.

I clicked on it, let it do its thing.

And then, seeing it was just a video from Meg, I sighed, left my phone on the floor, and got up to go get ready for bed.

***

I woke up to half a dozen Tik Tok notifications. I went through my other social media apps first, but then opened Tik Tok to see what was waiting in my inbox.

Five messages from Meg, and, perhaps even more exciting, one from Cole.

I looked at Meg's first.

All relevant to politics and recent events.

I sent back a "hell yeah" and then switched to Cole's message.

The video made absolutely no sense to me. All I was left with was a vague feeling of discomfort.

"Why?" I asked.

He responded right away. "Why not?"

"Fair point."

"Exactly."

That warranted a laughing emoji, if only because I didn't know what else to say.

"Have you heard anything yet?"

"No. I haven't sent the FOIA requests in yet. I was planning on doing that today after class."

"Starbucks?"

What was that supposed to mean?

I sent a question mark.

"It's Wednesday," he said.

"So it is."

"You said sometimes you get Starbucks on Wednesdays if it's a crappy week. Sounds like a crappy week."

"You aren't wrong."

"So. Starbucks?"

"Prolly."

"Okay."

"Sure." I clicked back to the For You page to do a little scrolling before I got up.

*** ***