how to catch feelings

66

The rest of the week was spent fighting the temptation to text Cole again.

I checked in again with Jared and Charlize on Friday, but neither of them had heard from Cole.

My lips were raw from constantly picking at them. Fritos burned like hell.

Jacqueline Marsh emailed back about my FOIA request and said they were taking the allowed ten extra days to consider my request. Go figure.

I rolled over to grab my phone charger.

Fuck it. I was going to text him.

"You don't have to tell me what's going on, but I just wanna make sure you're okay."

Sent.

Before I could swipe out of the app, his status switched to active and his face appeared next to my text.

Crap.

Okay, but what did you expect, Nat? God, maybe think about things before you pull the trigger.

Fuck, fuck, fuck, he wasn't responding.

What the hell had I done? Why was he upset with me?

Hey. Wait. He wasn't just upset with you, Nat. He wasn't talking to the team either. It ever occur to you that maybe this is a him problem, not a you problem?

That made sense, but when did anxiety listen to common sense?

Um, like never.

I double clicked the home button, ready to close Messenger, and then his text popped up on my screen.

Frickity frack.

"It's fine," was all he said.

My stomach sank.

I closed the app.

***

Damaris and Meg wanted to go to the football game Saturday afternoon. I didn't feel like sitting in the stands with a bunch of drunk people so I stayed home.

I sat on my bed with my laptop, wracking my brain for a new lead.

There didn't seem to be much I could do until the FOIAs came back for Harding and Maxwell Harper.

Wait.

Maxwell Harper.

I logged onto Facebook and typed his name into the search bar.

Bingo.

I opened Messenger and shot him a quick text saying I was EIC of The Valley Post and wanted to ask him a couple questions.

Time to go sing in the shower while I waited for a response.

To my pleasure, there was a text waiting for me when I returned to my room.

"I can try. What did you want to know?" Maxwell asked.

"This is probably a sensitive subject, but I wanted to ask you about how you left the baseball team."

"Hahaha. You can say kicked off the team."

"Okay. Well, do you mind talking about it?"

"Nah. Feel free to plaster this conversation everywhere. Harding can go to hell."

"So Harding was a part of it?"

"Oh hell yeah. I messed up, I'll admit that. Harding caught me smoking weed. I would've been in massive trouble with the university. I could've lost my scholarship or expelled. But Harding said if I did him a favor, he'd keep my secret."