For You (The 'Burg #1)(10)
“Do you know what that is?” Colt asked.
“Yes,” she whispered then suddenly surged to her feet.
Her hand came out and grasped his shirt, her fist curling into it so tight he saw her knuckles were white, the skin mottled red all around. Her head was tipped down, looking at the note and her hand at his shirt was moving back and forth with force, taking his shirt with it as she beat his chest, not knowing she was doing it.
“Oh my God. Oh my God,” she chanted, the hand holding the note was now shaking.
“Give me the note, Feb.”
“Oh God.”
“Hand me the note.”
“Oh my God.”
He took the note from her at the same time his hand covered hers at his chest, stopping the movement, holding it tight against his body.
Her eyes were glued to the note in his other hand.
“Look at me, February,” she did as she was told, he saw her face was pale and he ordered carefully, “tell me about the note.”
“That note doesn’t exist.”
He lifted it and gave it a shake and didn’t want to say what he had to say but he had to say it. “It’s right here, Feb.”
“I mean, I threw it away, like, twenty-five years ago.”
Fucking shit, goddamn it all to hell.
That was what he was afraid she’d say.
“Tell me about the note,” Colt repeated.
She shook her head sharply side to side – in denial, trying to focus – he didn’t know. Her hand tightened further into his shirt, he felt it under his own hand and she leaned some of her weight against it, pressing her fist deeper into his flesh.
He waited, giving her time. She took it.
Then she told him, “We used to be good friends, you know that.”
“I do.”
“Angie used to come over, all the time.”
“I know.”
“She liked Kevin.”
He didn’t know that but he wasn’t surprised. Kevin was a good-looking guy; a lot of girls liked him. He was a year ahead of Colt, a senior when Feb and Angie were freshman, in their school, at that time, an impossible catch for Angie.
“He asked me out.”
Colt felt that weight shift heavily in his gut.
“She was furious, she liked him, as in really liked him,” Feb continued.
“You didn’t go out with him,” Colt stated this as fact, because he knew it was.
“Of course I didn’t,” Feb replied quickly.
And there it was. The web shot out and snared them both.
Of course she didn’t because, at that time, Feb was his. Colt knew it. Feb knew it. Fucking Kevin f**king Kercher knew it, the f**k. Everyone knew it.
Her words kept strumming in his skull.
Of course I didn’t. Of course I didn’t.
Quick. Fierce. A statement of fact, just like his. If they were anything else but what they were now, if they were what they should have been, it would have been terse, dismissive, and that was what it sounded like. The faithful partner stating her commitment when she shouldn’t have to. It was a given, fundamental, their relationship formed on bedrock which would never budge, no matter what the temptation. It wasn’t worth it if it threatened what they had, which was the world.
Colt fought against the web, he had to; it was his job and with Feb gone and after Melanie left him that was now his world.
“Do you remember this note?” he asked.
“Yes, but barely.”
“You threw it away?”
“I guess so,” she shook her head. “I don’t know. Probably. It was twenty-five years ago.”
“Think, Feb.”
“I am Alec!” she snapped. “But it was twenty-five years ago!”
Good Christ, he hated it when she called him Alec. He had no idea why she did it, she knew he hated it, but she did. She’d never called him Colt, even after that night when he’d told her that Alec was gone, that the name his parents gave him and called him was something he didn’t want any claim to anymore. He wanted to be known as Colt, the name he and Morrie made up for him when they were six. The name he’d given himself. He’d begged her to stop calling him Alec but she never did.
“Just take a minute and think,” he urged, setting his anger aside.
She closed her eyes, tilting her chin away, pressing more of her weight into her hand at his chest, still not cognizant she was touching him there and he was touching her back or he knew she’d move away. Distance for Feb, since it all went down, was important. Not just with him, with everyone, but he’d noted, and it never failed to piss him off, especially with him.
She opened her eyes. “Mrs. Hobbs’s class. Geometry. Second period.” She shook her head but said, “We had that class together. She passed the note to me then. I think I threw it away.”
It hit him and Colt remembered.
“You fought in the hall,” he said.
Her eyes widened and she nodded. “Pushing match. Angie started it. Mrs. Hobbs broke it up. Shit,” her head jerked to the side, “I totally forgot.” She looked back at him. “Angie was crying and screaming but more crying. She was out of her mind. They sent her home.”
“You were crying.”
That’s what he remembered. He’d seen her eyes red from the tears when she was at her locker. He’d walked her to class. He’d been late to his own. At lunch he’d told Morrie but Morrie had already heard about the fight from someone else. After school they’d made her sit through football practice so they could drive her home. Colt even remembered putting her in his car. She’d been silent. She’d never said why they fought. Feb could be like that, hold things to herself forever, a personality trait she had that was a nightmare he’d lived for way too long. It was just Angie was there one day and the next she wasn’t. Feb had been devastated. Then Jessie’s folks moved to town and Feb and Jessie hooked up, hooking Mimi with them, and Angie was a memory as it was with teenage girls.