Page 142 of Never Forget
"Yeah. I saw it."
The house had been ribbing Cole about it for weeks.
"She came to the station," he said.
I waited.
"Not to say thanks. She came to ask for something."
"Alright."
He turned his beer in his hands.
"There's more to it than the video. She's in trouble. A real situation. Someone dangerous is looking for her, and she needs somebody standing next to her while she handles it." He paused. "She asked me if I'd be that somebody."
He didn't look at me when he said it. I didn't look at him either. That was how Cole did it. You let him tell you without making it a thing.
"And?"
"And I don't know her."
"Okay."
"And the part of me that wants to say yes doesn't fully make sense. Which worries me."
I took a sip. Thought about what he wasn't saying.
"Cole."
"Yeah."
"What would you have done if she hadn't kissed you?"
He thought about it. "Same thing. I'd have pulled her out. I'd have walked away. I wouldn't have looked back."
"And after?"
"I wouldn't have thought about her."
"But you have."
"Yeah." He exhaled. "I have."
The yard kept moving around us. Our Jack was walking over with a question about the grill, saw my face, pivoted, and walked back.
I thought about being twenty-six.
I thought about Anna's voice on a phone at my kitchen counter, a few weeks after Jack died. My sister three states away telling me that Jamie didn't need me to protect her from a fight. She needed me to be in it with her. I thought about the day I showed up at Jamie's door and said I was in. I thought about how I hadn't known anything back then and the only thing I'd known was that I wasn't going to stand on the edge of her life while she fought alone.
I looked at Cole.
"You already know what you're going to do."
He was quiet for a moment.
"Maybe."
"You do." I took another sip. "You didn't come over here to ask me what to do. You came over here to say it out loud so it'd be real."
