Chapter 43 The Folder On The Table

Chapter 43 The Folder On The Table

Wren

I heard the doorbell from my room.

I was not planning to go down. I closed my notebook and listened and then heard Jade's voice through the floor and went very still. I sat on the edge of my bed for a moment and then got up and opened my door quietly and went to the top of the stairs.

I could see part of the living room from there if I stayed close to the wall on the left.

Jade was standing near the couch with a folder open in her hands and turning pages slowly like she had rehearsed the order. Cole was standing across from her with his arms crossed and his jaw set. He had not sat down. He was not going to sit down. I could tell that from the way he was standing.

Mia's bedroom door was closed down the hall behind me. Jake's too. Neither of them had come out when the doorbell rang, which meant they were either asleep or they had learned to stay in their rooms when the tone of the house shifted. Both were possible.

"Her mom is behind on three months of rent," Jade said. She turned a page. "She has been pulling money from this job and sending it straight home. Cole, she took this position because she needed access to someone with money. That is the whole story."

"That is not a story," Cole said. "That is a seventeen-year-old helping her mom pay bills."

"With your family's money."

"With the money my mom pays her for doing a job," Cole said. "That is how employment works."

Jade turned another page. "She applied to this position two days after your address was posted in a neighborhood group by your mom. She knew exactly whose house this was."

"My mom posted a babysitting ad," Cole said. "That is public information. Anyone could have applied."

"But she did," Jade said. "And now she lives here and goes to our school and you sat next to her in the cafeteria in front of everyone."

"I did," Cole said.

"Cole."

"Jade." His voice was flat and steady. "What do you want me to do with this folder."

"I want you to see it for what it is," she said.

"I see a printed rental record and a job application," he said. "I see someone who works hard and sends money home. That is what I see."

Jade closed the folder. She looked at him for a long moment. "Do you hear yourself right now."

"I hear myself clearly," Cole said.

"You're defending a girl you've known for two months over everything we have," she said. "Two years, Cole. I have been here for two years."

"I know how long it's been," he said.

"Then act like it matters."

"It matters," he said. "What you're doing right now also matters. You drove to my house tonight with a printed-out rental record to prove that my babysitter is poor. Do you hear how that sounds."

Jade's jaw tightened. "That is not what this is."

"Then tell me what it is," Cole said.

Jade looked at the papers on the table. She looked back at Cole. "She is using you. That is what it is. She is poor and she is smart and she found a way into your house and now everyone at school thinks there is something between you and you are too close to it to see what is actually happening."

"I see what is happening," Cole said. "Someone is doing a job she was hired for. Someone is being harassed at school. Someone is being targeted with a folder of printed rental statements by a girl who has more money than she will ever have." He paused. "I see it clearly."

Jade was quiet for a moment. When she spoke again her voice was lower. "I was there first, Cole. Before the scouts, before any of this, I was the one who showed up. Does that count for nothing."

"It counts," Cole said. "This is not about that."

"Then what is it about."

"It is about the fact that you drove to my house with evidence of someone's poverty like that was supposed to change my mind," he said. "It is about the food on her book and the photo of the address and all of it. You have been running this since the game and I am done pretending I don't see it."

Jade picked up her bag from the floor. She set the folder on the coffee table and looked at it and then looked at him. "I am giving you time to think," she said. "But this is not over."

She walked out. The front door closed behind her.

I stayed at the top of the stairs for a moment longer than I should have.

I had expected Cole to say something like she applied because she needed money and that was convenient. Something that kept distance in it. He had not done that. He had said she works hard and sends money home and he had said it like it was obvious and not worth arguing over.

I went back to my room and sat on my bed.

I was not sure what I was feeling. Something was sitting in the middle of my chest that was not quite relief and not quite anything with a name.

After a few minutes I heard Jade's car start outside and pull away. Then the house was quiet.

I sat there for a while and then I got up and went to the laundry room at the end of the hall because I had left a load in the machine that morning and I had forgotten about it all day.

I pulled the door open and moved everything into the dryer. I stood there with the dryer running, the room warm and small around me. I thought about Cole saying it is not what you think it is and I felt my eyes go hot and I pressed the heels of my hands against them because I was not going to do this.

I was still standing there when footsteps came down the hall and stopped outside the door.

I opened it.

Cole was standing in the doorway with both hands in his pockets. His face was doing the thing it did when he had something to say and was working out how to start.

I saw the movement before it finished. The small shift in his weight as he reached out to put his hand on my shoulder.

I stepped back hard, both feet, without deciding to.

Cole's hand stopped in the air between us.

Neither of us said anything.