Chapter 40 It was In My Bag

Chapter 40 It was In My Bag
Cole

I found it in my backpack the next morning.I was pulling out my history textbook before first period when my hand hit something that didn't belong there, a soft-covered spiral notebook, the kind you get at a dollar store. I pulled it out and I knew immediately whose it was.

I had seen it on the kitchen table, in her hands, on her desk through her open door enough times to recognize the cover without a name on it. There was a small drawing of a window in the bottom corner, done carefully in pen. She had drawn it herself, I was almost certain. I set it on the desk.

I should have put it straight into my bag to give back to her. I knew that. I sat there looking at the cover for a moment instead and then I opened it to a page somewhere in the middle.

I read four lines before I understood what I was looking at.It was a story. A girl living in a house that wasn't hers, learning the shape of the rooms and the sound of the front door and the way a boy moved through the same space without ever quite looking at her directly.

She wrote that he confused her. That she couldn't work out if he was actually kind or just tired of being cruel, and that those were different things, and she wasn't sure he understood that himself.

I read one more line. The girl wrote that she kept crossing things out because she didn't want to admit how much she noticed him.

I closed the notebook. I put it in my bag and looked at my textbook and the same paragraph sat in front of me for the next twenty minutes.

I didn't take in a single word.Before second period I slipped the notebook under her door. No note. I didn't know what I would have written anyway.

At lunch I found Tyler before he found me.

"My backpack," I said, sitting across from him. "Her notebook was in it this morning."Tyler looked at me over his tray. "I don't know what you're talking about." "Yes you do."

"Maybe she grabbed the wrong bag by mistake."

"Her bag is pink," I said. "Mine is black. She didn't grab the wrong bag." I kept my voice level. "You went into her room.""I didn't go into her room."

"Then explain how it ended up in my bag.

"Tyler put his fork down.

"I'm going to tell you something and I need you to hear it properly this time. Jade knows things about your family. Your dad leaving. Your mom working nights. Why the babysitting money actually matters to you.

If you keep going the way you're going she's going to start talking, and it's going to be loud and it's going to be everywhere.""Are you threatening me," I said."I'm telling you how it is," he said.

"There's a difference.""Is there," I said."Cole." He dropped his fork.

"I have known you since second grade. I have had your back every time something went sideways. I'm not your enemy. I'm the only one at this table being honest with you."

"Then be honest about the notebook," I said.

"I was not in her room," he said. "I don't know how it got in your bag. That is the truth." He picked his fork back up. "What I also know is that you opened it.

And you're sitting here right now not eating because you can't stop thinking about what it said."I didn't answer that."Four lines," I said.

"Right," Tyler said.

"Four lines and you're this gone. Imagine if you'd read the whole thing."

"Tyler." I kept my voice flat. "Did you go into her room."He met my eyes. "I did not go into her room. I swear on that. I don't know how it got in your bag." He leaned back. "What I do know is that reading it was a mistake and you know it too."

"It tells me someone put her notebook in my bag on purpose," I said. "Which is what I'm here about."Tyler picked his fork back up and ate for a moment without saying anything.

Then he looked up. "Whatever you think I did or didn't do, the point stands. Jade is watching every move you make and she has the means to make things bad.

The address post last night was her first move. Not her last."

I looked at him. "You knew about that post before it went up."Tyler said nothing.

"That's a yes," I said. "Cole." He set his fork down again and looked at me straight. "I am telling you, as someone who has known you since second grade, that you are standing at the edge of something that is going to cost you more than you think. Scouts. Scholarship. Your mom. Mia and Jake. Weigh it."

"I've weighed it," I said."Then you weighed it wrong," he said.

I picked up my bag and left. I stood outside the cafeteria for a moment in the empty hallway.

A janitor pushed a cart past the far end and nodded at me and I nodded back and he kept going. The hall was quiet and the noise from inside the cafeteria was muffled and I stood there thinking about five lines in a notebook and what it meant that I couldn't stop.

She had written that she kept crossing things out because she didn't want to admit how much she noticed him.I was the him.I knew that and I had known it from the second I read it and I had been pretending all morning that I hadn't made that connection and that was probably the least convincing thing I had done all week.

I went to my next class. I went through the last two periods and kept the bag on my lap and told myself I was not thinking about those five lines.

I was not very successful at that. A girl in my history class asked me something about the homework and I answered her and then immediately forgot what she had asked.

My lab partner in bio said my name twice before I heard him. After school I was walking to the parking lot when my phone went once, then twice, then five times in thirty seconds.

I opened the first notification. It was a screenshot of an anonymous story posted to a page that most of the school followed. The story had a photo of the outside of my house, close enough that the street number on the front was clearly visible.

The caption underneath said something about charity cases getting comfortable in places they didn't belong.The location tag read Hensley Residence.