I hope I don’t regret this thought.
“You’re here about Lori.”
Cal’s smile had dimmed slightly, and his hand shook as he reached for his coffee cup.
“Yes, we are. We’re not here to upset you,” Kelly said. “That’s the last thing we want to do.”
"We’re just trying to fill in some gaps in the story,” Ben explained.
“Of course,” Cal said with a nod. “When I heard you’d started a true crime podcast, Kelly, I knew it would only be a matter of time. I knew you’d want to bring Lori’s killer to justice.”
“I’m glad that you agreed to talk to us,” Kelly said, her voice soft. “Lori was like a sister to me. I can’t just turn my back on this.”
Cal looked down at his hands, resting on the edge of the desk. His expression had turned somber and bleak. Ben could see the pain in the man’s eyes even all these years later.
"I think about her sometimes, you know. Lori. What happened to her was terrible. Nobody deserves that."
“No, no one does,” Kelly agreed, glancing at Ben. “Someone killed Lori, and we need to find them. We thought you might remember something that could help us. After all, you were one of the closest people to her.”
"I was an asshole back then," Cal said suddenly, with a self-deprecating laugh that held no humor. "I thought I knew it all, and I didn't know shit. Just a dumb teenager who thought the world belonged to me. I thought I had it all figured out."
Ben could hear Kelly’s shaky breath and see her fingers tighten on the arms of her chair.
"We were young," she said. “We probably all thought that way.”
Ben could only think about what an arrogant douchebag he’d probably been right out of high school, and heading off to this dream college. He’d had big dreams and big plans, and he’d made no secret that he couldn’t do any of it in his small hometown. He cringed at how much he had hurt his parents and others.
"Yeah, but I was especially full of myself. Football star, college scouts coming to games. I had my future all planned out."
"And Lori?" Ben prompted. “Was Lori’s future planned out with you?”
Cal's expression softened as he shook his head.
"Lori was different. She didn't really know what she wanted. Or maybe she did, but not what everyone else wanted for her."
"What do you mean?" Ben asked.
"Kelly knows how it was for Lori. Her parents had her whole life mapped out," Cal said. "They were pushing her toward dental hygiene classes at the community college. Can you believe that? Lori hated the idea."
“What did Lori want?”
“She wanted to settle down,” Cal said with a loud sigh. “She wanted us to get married and start a family. She talked about how the campus had housing for married students. She talked about what we’d name our kids. She even knew what she wanted to name the dog.”
“And you didn’t want to get married?” Ben probed gently. “You wanted to wait.”
Groaning, Cal leaned back in his chair, rubbing at his chin.
“Wait? Hell, I didn’t want to get married. Period. I loved Lori and all, but…shit, I didn’t want to get married back then. And I sure as hell didn’t want to have a baby. I wanted to have fun and party. I wanted to?—”
Cal broke off, shaking his head again.
“Sow some wild oats?” Ben suggested.
“As many as possible,” Cal said with a chuckle. “I’d told Lori that, but she wasn’t listening. She didn’t want to hear it, even when I said that she needed to experience life, too, before getting married and having kids. You know how she was, Kelly. When Lori got an idea in her head, she wouldn’t shake it easily. It was getting harder and harder to shut down all the plans she was making about us after graduation, and she was doing it without any input from me. Eventually, she dropped the whole subject. We had a big fight the summer before our senior year, and she finally seemed to get it. She stopped talking about our wedding and what kind of honeymoon she wanted.”
Ben watched Kelly's face absorb every word. There was a subtle shift in her expression, although he couldn’t readily identify all of the emotions.
"I didn't know that," Kelly said quietly.
