Chapter 67: chapter twenty-nine-3

"So let's do the interview. The exclusive interview that no news station or other reporter is ever going to get. Putting you, Aniston Hale, on the map of journalism." A few days later, I looked down at the stacks of thin Madison Register papers on the table in the hallway, my picture on the front page. Aniston had told me she would use one, but I'd originally figured she'd meant my school picture. Instead it was a picture of Aniston's—one I hadn't even realized she had taken. It was black and white. I was in the cafeteria, my elbows perched on the edge of the table, and I was staring somewhere to the right, my gaze unfocused, with my short hair tucked behind my ears. My glasses were off, folded and beside one of my elbows. I was just looking out, my expression almost blank, as the sunlight filtered in through the windows behind me and cast a brightness over one half of my face. I wasn't really sure why she'd chosen that photo when she showed it to me last week—or why she'd taken it in the first place—but she told me it was supposed to be symbolic or some- thing. Me, without my glasses and revealing my eyes—green the only color on the whole page—was supposed to be a representation of me finally uncovering the truth. I wasn't completely sure I got it, but she seemed to be really into it. As I stepped away from the table and headed toward my locker, I felt the hesitant and slightly unnerved glances of the other students when I passed them, the pages of the article book-marked with their thumbs. They knew everything now, from the moment I'd caught a glimpse of Griffin Tomlin in the audience to the last moment I'd seen him, evading my tentative gaze the night before he was murdered by my sister. The trial for Griffin's murder is at the end of the year, I had been quoted. I've heard that since Emily has been officially charged with Elizabeth Monner's murder, the trials will be combined, since the prosecutors believe that Griffin was murdered because he knew Emily killed Elizabeth. There were texts on their phones, talking about it. Emily thought killing her would be impressive to Griffin, but he seemed freaked out by it. Eventually, he blocked her on their burner phones, but the night he died, she texted him using their real numbers and he agreed to meet her outside. They think he rejected her again and she killed him because of it. I was spinning the combination on my locker when I noticed Kolby standing near the corner of the hallway, one hand clutching the strap of his backpack and the other just barely in one of his jeans' pockets. Kolby had read the article. I knew he had, even though I couldn't spot any obvious reason to think so. I wondered if knowing the details of everything—what had happened once he'd taken his eyes off Griffin and me as we wandered up the stairs, the letters and texts, him waiting in my bedroom—had changed something for him. Altered the way he looked at me right now, his breaths slow and even. Despondency filled his eyes and contorted his features, and I didn't know if that was because of what I'd told him before or because of what he'd read in my interview. I wondered if he was thinking of saying something right now, maybe apologizing again, or if he would repeat what I had pushed to the back of my mind until this moment as I looked at him from across the school hallway. How minutes before I'd told him the truth about Griffin, when he'd found me outside of the hotel at the bus stop, he'd told me he loved me. I know I'm not him. But I love you, though. I love you. I caught his eyes darting away from mine and down to the ground after a minute had passed. He tightened his fingers around the strap of his backpack and turned around, slipping out of sight within a few steps. I looked down at the lock I still held in my hand, scratching my fingernail against the engraved numbers as I came to a conclusion. Kolby Rutledge was truly on his own. ~ The scent of fresh soft pretzels and melted butter topping found me as I approached the food court, glimpsing the bright purple stripes of the counter for the pretzel shop In Knots, sandwiched between a closed fast food restaurant and a pizza counter. I hesitated when I saw Kolby behind the counter, standing to the left of the cash register, in a bright purple T-shirt that matched the stripes and the chalkboard menus on the wall behind him. A black baseball hat obstructed half of his face from me as he wiped down the counter beside a display case of pretzels. My boots squeaked against the tiles as I neared the counter, a twenty dollar bill pinched between my fingertips. I stopped and waited. He didn't notice me at first, tossing the paper towel he was cleaning with to the other side of the register and moving the spray cleaner under the counter before he looked up. His lips parted as if he were already preparing to ask me what kind of pretzel I wanted before his expression shifted as he took me in. Instead of bored and prepared, a vulnerability crept into his eyes and uncertainty closed his lips. I held up the twenty dollar bill in my hand. "I have a twenty. Is that enough for one of your pretzels?" Kolby blinked without responding, as if he wasn't sure what to say to this. Then he let out a breath through his nose and gestured to the display case beside him, an assortment of soft pretzels lined up together on wax paper. "Yeah," he told me, reaching for a box of plastic gloves. "I think so. Any one in particular?" "Whatever you recommend," I told him. I watched as he pointed to a soft pretzel with peanut butter, chocolate sauce, and sprinkles of salt drizzled over the golden crust, and I nodded. "I'm actually not just here for your expensive pretzels," I admitted as he picked it up. "I wanted to tell you that I'm sorry. I wasn't understanding and I never really heard you out. I know it was hard for you too, and I should've given you time. So I'm sorry." He looked away from me as he dropped the soft pretzel into a bright purple bag. The muscles in his jaw were tensed as he set it down on the counter. "You were right, though," he whispered. "I shouldn't have just left." He cleared his throat, turning to the register and jabbing his finger at the buttons on the machine. When the total came to $6.48, I extended the twenty to him, but he ignored me as he pulled out his wallet and slid his card through the credit scanner. "I'm really sor—" He hesitated, his voice thick and tight, before he swallowed. "I'm really sorry I didn't do anything that night. I should've known something wasn't right and I should've—I should've done something instead of playing a game on my phone." "It wasn't just you, though. No one thought—I didn't think he could do something like that. You believed in your best friend, and there's nothing wrong with that." He shook his head. "He's a piece of—" "I know." And then I smiled at him. "But he was also your best friend, for years. And I know not everything you remember about him is going to be bad and that's okay. It's okay to not be sure how you feel about him. You knew a completely different Griffin, and it's okay to miss that person. You don't have to hate all versions of him." He looked away from me, unsure, and I shrugged one of my shoulders. "And if, you know, you're looking for a new best friend, then I think I'm available?" He let out a small laugh and shook his head once before meeting my gaze. "Yeah," he responded, and a familiar look filled his eyes, one I'd seen when he first asked me out to the movies and I told him I couldn't go. "Okay." I reached out for the pretzel on the counter, feeling the plastic of the bag crinkling beneath my fingers. "You told me you should've known about what happened with Griffin. But that's not really the way I see it. I see it as you letting me find you, coming to you on my own. You were the only one who wasn't searching for something. And that means something, Kolby. It means a lot, actually." He lifted his head, a slight smile forming on his lips that reached the corners of his eyes, the flecks of gold twinkling beneath the russet. "That's the nicest way anyone has ever told me I'm dumb before."