When To Put Trust On The Line

Part 15

I checked my surroundings before heading into the room, quietly closing the door behind me. I found the light switch and flicked it on. The room was empty. I didn't think Derrick was there until he suddenly surfaced from behind a row of computers. He stared at me, his eyes defined by his grey shirt – a colour he constantly wore, I noticed. After a while of silence, he said, "You came."

I crossed my arms over my chest. "Yeah." He circled around the row of computers and stood a few feet in front of me, leaning against the back of a chair. He put his hands in the pockets of his jeans and looked down at the floor, letting out a little sigh. I sighed too, rolling my eyes. "What is it?"

Silence. Then, "Okay. Look... I already apologized for what happened last Friday. I was angry and went out of line. But I thought about what you said." He looked at me and I straightened my shoulders. "You said that... if you were in my position, you would be trying hard to figure out what really happened. The truth." He stared at me.

I nodded. "Yeah. I said that."

He gave a nod. "Right. And I was thinking... maybe I should look into this. Invest my anger doing something that could help my best friend."

"Okay...?" I shrugged. "So, I'm here because...?"

Derrick stood up straight. "Well, you seem to believe so much that, uh, your boyfriend is innocent, and I know you wanna prove it. So, I thought you could work with me."

I raised an eyebrow. "On?"

"On figuring out the real story. So you could help your boy and I can maybe help my friend and his family at the same time. We just gotta squash this whole hate thing we got goin' on, for a minute at least."

"So... you lashed out at me twice. Hated me like I did you wrong, but now you want me to work with you. And just forget everything and be okay with this?"

Derrick licked his lips and sighed. "I know. Just... do it for Kenny. I know you wanna find out what happened."

I looked down briefly. "So what do we tell everyone?"

He frowned. "What do you mean?"

"When people see us together, it'll look weird." Kenny's friends certainly would not let that slide by.

"We don't let that happen," Derrick responded simply. "We gotta be discreet. If we got the whole school talkin', we'll look bad. We shouldn't even be doing this."

"So then, how do we do this?"

"We find strategic places to meet."

"And we do what when we meet?"

"We talk. Figure out how to handle the situation. Try to do what the cops couldn't, or didn't."

"And we do that how?"

"That's what we'll discuss once we meet up. Look, are you in or not?"

I sighed. "Yeah, I guess. I wanna help Kenny."

He gave a nod. "Alright."

I blinked. "So we only met up today to settle this?"

"Yup. That's right. I got some shit to do, so we can talk more in depth tomorrow."

"Who says I'm not busy tomorrow?"

"Are you?"

I looked away. "Nah."

"A'ight then. I'll see you tomorrow."

"In here?"

"Same drill. Wait ten minutes."