Chapter 13 #2
I read the caption and then closed the app when I saw some of the comments. “Well . . .” I bit my bottom lip, glancing at my professor, who was looking out the window. “Um . . . So I guess I need a new assignment.” He snorted. “Any ideas?” I wheedled.
The look he gave me was definitely that of a man at the end of his tether. “How about a reflective piece on self-growth and self-control?”
A giggle burst free, and then my eyes widened when I saw he was serious. “Oh, come on!”
“No.” He was shaking his head again, looking down at his desk.
“Eight days. You lasted eight days.” He looked up at me.
“I really thought you wanted to prove to me, the dean, and yourself that you could be a reporter.” He pointed to his phone.
“I don’t care what you think you found, or what Dustin Slater said to piss you off, but that is not the way a story gets handled.
” He frowned. “Unless it’s tabloid journalism you wish to pursue.
Which is fine,” he conceded. “Nothing wrong with that if that’s what you want to do.
But you are quite vocal on investigative journalism being your passion. ” He tossed his glasses on his desk.
“He was avoiding me,” I mumbled.
“Mmhmm. I can’t say I blame him.”
I shot him a dirty look. “He knows something about that program and—”
“No.” His hand was up, palm facing me.
I sighed, pulled the old spring roster packet from my bag, and dropped it gently onto his desk like it wasn’t going to add fuel to the fire.
“Where did you get this?” he asked immediately.
“Back storage room behind the athletic office.”
He pinched the bridge of his nose again. “Why were you in the back storage room behind the athletic office?”
“I was looking for defensive-end history,” I said. “For Mike’s feature.” He looked at me. “I don’t know what the big deal is for spring training,” I wailed. “They’re training like it’s the Olympics or something.”
“That is — technically — reasonable,” he allowed. Then he gestured. “Why is this piece of paper an explanation as to why you’re chasing the wide receiver across the field?”
I pointed to the scratched-out name — the missing evaluation. Then the next page and the next. “I didn’t look for this. I literally opened a folder and it jumped out at me.”
“You didn’t look for this?” he muttered, dripping sarcasm.
“You just search for a story in an old storage room you shouldn’t have been in, and you didn’t find a folder dated four years ago with something in it you can’t explain, so you immediately think it’s a conspiracy?
” He harrumphed. “No, you weren’t looking at all.
” He glared at me. “That is how trouble starts.”
“Do you know the name?” I asked quietly. He didn’t answer immediately. Which, in itself, was an answer.
Finally, he said, “This is a D1 college. Coaches change. Policies change. Students leave programs all the time. Despite your . . . belief, the athletic program is a very hard program, and a number of students, players, athletes, kids find it very difficult to sustain.”
“I don’t think he left,” I said softly. “I looked.” I ignored the cursing. “There’s no record, he was erased.”
Flannigan’s eyes flicked to mine, sharp with worry.
“You drop it. I don’t care what happened here.
” He saw my look, and he looked at the paper again.
“Fine, I care, but I don’t care for this .
. . this obsession of yours to be the reason they finally have to kick you out.
You were on thin ice, Hadley. I thought you’d skate, I didn’t expect you to cut a hole in it and go ice fishing. ”
“Lot of ice there, tell me you’re Canadian without telling me you’re Cana—”
“Shut it.”
“Fine.” I sat in silence while Professor Flannigan returned to staring out the window. “You don’t think it’s worth—”
“No. It is not worth your education.” He leaned forward, voice firm. “Not under any circumstances.”
“I wasn’t planning to—”
“You were absolutely planning to,” he snapped. “Your face is planning to right now.”
I opened my mouth, closed it, and opened it again. “Okay, fine . . . I’m curious.”
“You are a journalist. Curiosity is your weakness and your weapon,” he said bitterly. “But this? Let it go. Understand?”
I swallowed. “Yes.”
The long silence that followed was beginning to feel oppressive. “Please don’t make me do internal reflection,” I mumbled. “We both know I’m going to suck at it so badly.”
Amusement flickered in his eyes. “You probably would,” he conceded. He glanced at his watch. “Go. I have office hours in five minutes, with students who listen,” he added.
“I listen.” I stooped to pick up my bag, then hesitated. “Did you get your ass ripped open by the dean?”
His face screwed up at my question. “God help this girl, please,” he muttered. “I got a very clipped phone call if that’s what you mean.”
“I’m really sorry about that.” I was, and he nodded briefly. I headed to the door.
“Be sorry about all of it, Hadley. Actions have consequences.” He waved me away. “I want a feature review idea by nine a.m. tomorrow. You’re already a week and a half behind.”
“On it.”
“And Hadley?”
“Yes?”
“I mean it when I say drop it.”
I smiled. “Of course.”
It was not a yes.
He knew it.
I knew it.
The papers on his desk definitely knew it.
I left his office, feet dragging a little. Earlier, when my temper eventually cooled, which took a while, from either Dustin not being open or the way the coach had spoken to me, I’d seen the stares and the not-so-hidden giggles. I just hadn’t put the two together.
I’d chased him across the field. Not even subtly. Flat-out raced after him.
What did I expect was going to happen? Coach Sutherland must have thought all his birthdays and Christmases had come at once. I doubted I’d even been out of the building before the call to the dean was made.
The folder burned a hole in my backpack. Flannigan was probably right. This was college, life happened to us all, and this was likely nothing. It was just an old paper. Old ink. Not an old mystery.
But I’d looked. I couldn’t find him. And every instinct I had was screaming that there was a story here.
Which meant I absolutely couldn’t forget it.