A familiar figure crossing the quad at a distance. Grant Sterling walking beside Wade Holloway. Both of them laughing at something. Neither of them so much as glancing in her direction. That itself told her something.
Guilty men rarely look away that easily. Only men who have already convinced themselves they will never be caught can afford not to look. I think I know why, Joe said quietly. I just don't have proof yet. What do we do?
We wait, Joe said, echoing Coach Marsh, though the word tasted different in her own mouth. Heavier. And we watch. Paige nodded, though her eyes were still wet, still frightened in a way that had nothing to do with fitness evaluations or locker rooms. She had grown close to Joe faster than she had grown close to almost anyone else at Asheford.
And watching her friend get dragged through campus gossip for something she clearly had not done left a helpless, angry feeling in her chest that she did not know what to do with. she would find out sooner than she wanted to exactly what that helplessness could turn into if left unchecked. That night, back in the quiet of her own room, Joe took out the small dollar store notebook and sat cross-legged on her bed, the lamp casting a warm circle of light across the blank page. She wrote the date at the top, then the time, then a short factual account of everything Coach Marsh had told her that afternoon. She did not editorialize. She did not write down how frightened or angry she felt underneath it all.
Her father had taught her that too a long time ago, watching over her shoulder as a much younger version of her practiced the same habit at their kitchen table. Facts hold up, he used to say. Feelings fade and twist with time. Write down the facts and let the feelings live somewhere else. She closed the notebook, set it back inside her bag beside that sealed envelope she still had not found the courage to open, and turned off the lamp.
Though sleep did not come easily that night. 3 days later on a gray Thursday afternoon, Paige left the library later than usual alone. Cutting through a narrow breezeway between two academic buildings that most students used as a shortcut back toward the dorms. Wade Holloway was waiting there. Not by accident, he stepped into her path, blocking the narrow walkway.
Cole Ashby a few steps behind him, hanging back the way he always hung back, letting Wade do the talking. You're friends with the new girl. Wade said. It was not a question. Paige's heart began to pound, though she tried to keep her voice steady.