“It’s me,” I say. “I should’ve seen it. I should’ve just asked you, and I didn’t, because I was afraid of the answer. And you carried it alone because I made you think you had to.” I pause with my forehead against the wall. “I’m sorry I didn’t fix it.”
twenty-seven
ROWAN
Sloane never called back.
That’s my prevailing thought as I approach the athletics building and find it locked, the lot empty except for a groundskeeper’s truck and a campus security car under the far lights. I shouldn’t be surprised — it’s 7:16 on a Saturday morning — so I sit on the steps and wait.
My hand throbs as I grip my coffee cup, the first two knuckles purple-black and swollen enough that the skin looks shiny and wrong. I can move my fingers, so nothing is broken, but every time I think about the pain I see Mason’s lip splitting under my fist.
Not very mature, but very satisfying.
Headlights sweep across the lot at 7:41. Coach Franklin’s Tahoe pulls into his reserved spot, and he gets out carrying a travel mug and a laptop bag. When he sees me on the steps, he stops.
“Hale,” he says.
“Coach.”
His eyes go to my hand, then to my face.
“Inside,” he says, then keeps walking.
I follow him as he unlocks the building and walks to his office. It feels like the longest stroll through this part of the building in my whole career at Halden, and when he gestures for me to sit, I drop into the chair opposite his desk.
“Talk,” he says.
So I talk. I tell him about the post on the campus gossip account — all of it — and while I speak, his expression doesn’t shift. It stays still and focused, the way it does during a bad game when he’s taking in more than he’s giving back.
Then I tell him about the bar: Mason denying it, me pushing, and then the punch.
His hand stops halfway to his travel mug. “You punched him.”
“Yes, sir.”
“In a public bar.”
“Yes, sir.”
He looks at my hand. “I appreciate the accountability.”
“Yes, sir.”
He looks back to my face, and his expression softens. “When’s the last time you slept?”
“I’m okay,” I say.
“That wasn’t the question.” He watches me, then leans back and lets out a breath through his nose. “You look like hell. You need to get it sorted.”
I don’t answer.
Franklin rubs a hand across his jaw, then tells me to walk him through everything about Mason. So I do: what Mason admitted at Murphy’s, the kitchen, the photos he never had, the bluff that did the work, and the days of distance that make sense now.
And I tell him the last thing I said to Mason — that he’d be suspended by tomorrow.
He looks at me for a few long seconds, deciding, then pulls out his laptop and starts typing. It’s like that for a while, because he’s got that horrible Boomer habit of typing with both forefingers, and the whole time he doesn’t look at me.
“What Mason did is not a prank that got out of hand,” he says, not looking up from the computer. “He leaked a student’s private information and ignited a gossip fire that will cause real harm. That’s several student code violations, and depending on what conduct finds, it may not stop there. He’s suspended, effective now, pending the review.”
