how to catch feelings

88

"Okay. Yeah. You're right," Cole said. "I'm not going to fucking prison over this. That'll be Harding. I hope he rots in hell."

"He will. We just... have to figure out how to go at this. Carefully. Legally." I sat back in my chair but then decided that wasn't going to work. I stood up, started to pace around the room.

I'd tried running at the situation from a journalism standpoint. I'd tried FOIA. I'd talked to the police. Baseball players.

Harding was just too careful.

"I'm going to fail my math class."

Surprised, I walked right into the corner of the couch. Aw, frick, my toe. "If you had asked me, I would've—"

"No. I mean I'm passing right now. But I'm going to fail it. On purpose. Harding will get pissed when he hears I'm on the edge of losing my eligibility. If I mope about it, he'll step in. Like he did with the others. And we'll take him down."

"You'll get kicked off the team for being involved."

"I know."

"You'll lose your scholarship."

"I know."

I blinked. It's not like we'd really talked finances in depth, but I knew he was only able to attend university because he got a generous athletics scholarship. Without the scholarship, he wouldn't be able to afford to stay.

"But you want to be a teacher," I said.

He shrugged. "My uncle is a mechanic. I can just go work for him."

Could I let him do this? Sacrifice everything?

Not in good conscience.

"I don't think this is a good idea."

"Well, do you have a better one?" He ducked his head. "Sorry. I just meant... I don't see another way. Dax and Jared are both dead because of Harding."

"And you're about to put yourself in the same situation."

"I know. But it's not going to end like that. I know what I'm getting myself into. I'm just gonna get in, make sure Harding looks real bad, and then you're gonna blast my story across the front page of the newspaper."

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah." He looked up at me, and my heart twisted yet again. "I just want Harding to pay. I don't care what happens to me."

I bit my lip. Did I dare say it?

"I do. I care."

Apparently I did dare.

Cole didn't respond.

Okay, good job, Nat.

At least I was saved the struggle of trying to break the silence; Damaris and Meg returned with Panda takeout.

Whatever they'd been talking about, they shut up as soon as they saw me and Cole.

"Are we interrupting?" Damaris asked. She started to smirk but seemed to think better of it.

Guess the tension had leeched into the air.

"No. You're fine. Just talking."

As if to back me up, Cole waved halfheartedly at the roomies.

"Alright..." Damaris dropped her bag by the shoes and came out to the living room. She set her food on the table.

Meg followed more warily, choosing the couch over the table.

Cole stood up. "I should probably get going."

"Okay. But can we talk about this again before making any kind of decision?"

"Yeah. Gotta wait until closer to midterms anyway."

I nodded.

"Alright. See ya."

"See ya." I trailed behind him as he walked to the door.

Probably against my better judgment (as if that's any surprise to ANY of us at this point), I went so far as to step outside on the sidewalk in my socks.

"Starbucks Wednesday?" I asked.

He turned to respond. "Sure. Starbucks Wednesday."

"Okay. Cool. See ya then."

"Yup." He offered me his standard hat tip and then was on his way.

I watched him go, melted-snow water seeping into my socks.

***

"What was that all about?" Damaris asked when I stepped back inside.

I pulled my wet socks off. "Nothing much."

"Oh, sure. Just a coinky-dink that he left when we got here?"

"Yup."

"Right."

"He'd been here a while. It's not like you drove him out or something. We were just talking about Jared, if you absolutely have to know."

"Oh." Damaris looked down. "I forgot about that. Oops."

"That's really awful," Meg said. "What happened, I mean. Are you doing okay?"

"I'm fine. I think I am, anyway. I dunno. I wrote the news brief, so... Yeah. I don't know. I'm handling it better than Cole, that's for sure."

"Damn. That's gotta be rough."

"Yeah." I set one of my socks on Meg's head.

She looked up at it, nose scrunched with displeasure.

"I dunno," I said. "It's not like I really knew Jared. But yeah. Real rough."

"How's Cole taking it?"

I shrugged. "About how you'd expect. Blaming himself. Blaming others. He's sad. Angry. Wants to blame someone. You know how it goes."

"Yeah..." Meg handed me back my sock.

"Okay, well, I'm gonna go upstairs and... do some homework."

"You have homework?"

"Ha. Yeah. I do. Should be a hoot and a half."

*** ***