“It was!” Another memory of Coop’s smile popped into his mind like the catchiest jingle.
“Even though there was a screen between us, I saw how he cared about you. I saw how he made you glow. He’s not that good of an actor,” she said with dead-eyed seriousness.
“I’m supposed to forgive him?”
“I think that sometimes, good people can grow out of bad deeds.”
Matty’s textbook stared at him from the floor. No ripped pages. No coffee stains. “I can’t think about this. I have to spend the rest of the quarter salvaging my GPA and what’s left of my future.”
It was good that Coop was out of his life. He was too distracting. Matty had to figure out how to save his career before it even began.
* * *
Matty worea baseball cap around campus. The last time he wore one was during the only game of little league in his life. It only took half an inning to realize how much he hated sports. He imagined himself as a target trying not to be spotted.
He found refuge in his usual table at the library. It was his most loyal friend. He cracked open his textbook and dove into studying. Anytime he thought about the competition, or Coop, or anything that wouldn’t help get his grades back on track, he focused even harder on the words on the page. He used to have that laser-like focus. In just a few weeks, it had unraveled.
But what a few weeks…
Focus!
Professor Chertok, Tesla, Einstein, none of them let themselves get distracted and unglued. He had to get his eye back on the prize.
“Hey.” Coop approached his table.
Matty sat up straight. He wanted to hate Coop and make him burst into a ball of fire. Coop’s sparkling eyes, chiseled cheeks, and tight shirt were making that extra difficult.
“I wanted to see how you were doing.”
“I assume you saw the video.”
Coop didn’t have to answer. The truth was all over his face. Anybody with a smartphone and an Internet connection at Browerton saw that video.
“How did you know I would be here?”
“I had a feeling.”
“You know me well.” Matty dropped his pen. “Of course you know me well. That’s what you were paid for.”
“I deserve that,” Coop said. “It’s easier to push people away. I’m just as much an expert in that as you.”
“Don’t ever compare us. What you did…” Matty wanted to keep looking at Coop, which really frustrated him. Coop had become something of an addiction, an addiction forced on him. “Why are you even here? Are you trying to make sure I fail the class completely?”
“No. Matty, I’m not proud of what I did, but it brought me to you. It gave me the best weeks of my life and memories that I will never forget. I hate what happened, and I hate watching you stare me down right now, but I’m happy that I got to know and care for you.”
Matty’s best bully defenses struggled to stay up.
“I came here because I’m worried about you. I hate that out of everything I did, that I might have taken you away from this path that you are so passionate about.”
“My program was perfect, and it would’ve won without your friend interfering.”
“Kelvin?”
“I can’t prove it, but I know he did something.” He was close to broken after the living hell his life had become recently. But he wouldn’t break here. Not in front of him. “I need to study.”
Coop got the not-so-obvious hint. He gave Matty a half-nod, one that seemed filled with much of the same sadness that Matty felt. Or so he hoped.
Matty used this time by himself in silence to study and to try to get back to his old self, the only self he could trust. But as he got there, he realized that it wasn’t the same. It wasn’t comforting.
