Chapter 3: The Confession Booth
He didn’t take her hand. He stood on his own, his legs feeling untrustworthy. The sound of the crowd was a receding tide, leaving them stranded in the sudden quiet of the emptying arena. He followed her out, the ghost of her fingers on his wrist still buzzing on his skin.
They walked for blocks without speaking. The humid night air was a relief after the canned heat of the gym. Will’s mind was a scrambled, staticky mess. He kept waiting for her to peel off, to disappear down a side street with a sarcastic wave. She didn’t.
She led him to a diner he’d never noticed, tucked between a laundromat and a shuttered vape shop. Its neon OPEN sign buzzed like a dying insect. The flickering glow painted the sidewalk in sickly pink pulses.
Inside, the air was thick with grease and old coffee. She slid into a sticky vinyl booth in the back. He sat across from her, his back to the wall, automatically scanning the room. Two drunks mumbled over pie at the counter. A cook yelled in Spanish from the kitchen.
A waitress with tired eyes dropped two menus and disappeared. Cat didn’t open hers. She just watched him, her elbows on the Formica. “Well?”
“Well what?” His voice came out rough.
“The gun, Will. Start there. Why is it in your bag?”
He looked past her, at the ancient television above the counter. A Twilight Zone rerun played on mute, the stark black-and-white images flickering. Rod Serling’s lips moved soundlessly. Submitted for your approval. His all time favorite show. The coincidence felt like a cruel joke.
“It’s not loaded,” he finally said. It was a deflection, a technicality.
“That’s not an answer. It’s a fact. A worrying one.” She leaned forward. “Most people don’t carry a gun, loaded or not, to their American Foreign Policy lecture.”
“It’s for protection.”
“From who? Disagreeable polysci majors?” She didn’t blink. “You shove frat presidents and rob biochem geeks in their apartments. I think you’re the thing people need protection from.”
The mention of Ryan was a sucker punch. His head snapped up. “How do you know about that?”
“Please. The kid you roughed up cried to his roommate, who cried to his girlfriend, who’s in my study group. Ryan is currently debating changing his major and moving back to Plano. You made quite an impression.”
Will felt exposed, his movements tracked and catalogued. He’d thought the encounter with Ryan was a private, contained piece of ugliness. It was just another piece of data circulating in the system.
“He was selling cut product. Someone could have gotten hurt.”
“And you’re the quality-control vigilante?” She shook her head, a short, frustrated motion. “Don’t moralize at me. You took his money and his pure stash. You’re not Batman. You’re just a better thief.”
The waitress returned. Cat ordered black coffee. Will just shook his head. The silence stretched until the mug was placed between them. Cat wrapped her hands around it but didn’t drink. The steam curled up toward her face.
“How long have you been dealing?” Her tone was quieter now, almost clinical.
“What makes you think I’m dealing?” The old defense was automatic, thin as rice paper.
“The guy you punched at the Sigma Chi party owed you three hundred dollars. Ryan had a supplier’s number. You carry a gun and have a constant supply of cash that isn’t from a job. It’s an obvious regression analysis.” She sipped her coffee, her eyes locked on his over the rim. “So. How long?”
He looked down at the table, at a burn mark shaped like a crescent moon. “Since high school. Back home.”
A flicker in her eyes. Not surprise. Confirmation. “Why?”
He laughed then, a hollow sound that hurt his throat. “Why do you think? I’m poor, Cat. Actually poor. Not ‘my-allowance-didn’t-come-this-week’ poor. ‘The-power-gets-shut-off’ poor. ‘Choosing-between-new-brakes-and-groceries’ poor.” The words tasted like the West Texas dirt he’d swallowed his whole life. “The scholarship covers tuition. It doesn’t cover existing.”
“So you deal coke.”
“It’s a market with demand. I’m good with numbers. I saw an opportunity.” He shrugged, mimicking a casualness he didn’t feel. “Started here the first week of school. Frat guys have more money than sense. It’s easy.”
“It’s stupid.” Her voice was flat, definitive. “You go to Rice. You’re a statistics prodigy. In four years, you’ll have recruiters from every finance firm and tech company on earth throwing six-figure salaries at you. You are literally about to buy your way out of being poor. And you’re going to torch it all for what? A few thousand dollars now?”
Her logic was a battering ram against the fragile fortress of his choices. He had no retort that didn’t sound like a child’s tantrum.
“It’s not that simple,” he muttered.
“It is. You’re choosing the shortcut. The one that ends with you in prison or dead.” She set her mug down with a sharp click. “And the gun? Is that part of the business plan?”
The air left his lungs. The diner seemed to tilt. The silent TV showed a man staring into a mirror at a stranger’s face.
“It was my friend’s,” Will said. The words were ash in his mouth.
Cat went very still. Her probing intensity softened into something more careful, more dangerous. “Eli.”
Hearing the name in her mouth was a physical blow. He actually flinched. “How do you know that name?”
“I read the news story, Will. From two years ago. Out near Lubbock. Home invasion at a party gone wrong. High school football star Eli Buchanan killed. His best friend, a William McCord, wounded in the shoulder. Held him while he bled out.” Her voice was impossibly gentle now, each word a precise incision. “They never caught the guys who did it.”
The world narrowed to the sound of his own blood roaring in his ears. The sticky vinyl under his palms. The bitter smell of burnt coffee. She had excavated the cornerstone of his ruin and laid it bare on this filthy table.
“Don’t,” he choked out.
“I’m not asking for the details. I won’t.” She held up a hand, a peace offering. “But the gun, Will. Why do you have his gun?”
He couldn’t look at her. He watched Rod Serling’s silent monologue. “I took it from his truck. After. The cops missed it. I just… took it.”
“Why?”
“Because they didn’t catch them!” The words burst out of him, louder than he intended. The drunks at the counter glanced over. He lowered his voice to a raw whisper. “Because the world just… kept going. And he was gone. And I had this hole in my shoulder. And the gun was a thing. A solid thing. It’s a fact. It exists.”
“And carrying it makes you feel what? Safe? Powerful?”
“No.” The answer was immediate, absolute. “It makes me feel like him. For a second. Or it makes me remember. I don’t know.” He finally met her gaze, his own vision blurring. “It’s just a weight. I’m used to the weight.”
Cat studied him for a long time. The harsh diner light washed out her features, making her look older, weary. She didn’t see a project or a charity case. He saw her calculating the immense human damage spread out before her, the cost of repair.
“You can’t carry it anymore,” she said, not unkindly. It was a verdict.
“I can’t get rid of it.”
“Not that. The weight.” She pushed her coffee aside. “You’re carrying all of it. The poverty, the grief, the guilt. It’s going to break you in half. And you’re using the dealing, the fighting, the numbness, to prove that it already has.”
He had no words. She had dismantled him completely.
“The gun stays locked away. The dealing stops. Now.” She said it like it was simple, like telling him to switch majors.
A bitter laugh escaped him. “And how do I ‘exist,’ then? You going to fund my life, Cat?”
“Get a job. A real one. The math tutoring center is desperate. They’d hire you on the spot.” She leaned in, her voice dropping. “Or don’t. And see where the path you’re on leads. I’ve read the statistics, too. They’re not in your favor.”
The waitress slapped the check on the table. The flickering neon from the window pulsed across Cat’s determined face. She had drawn a line. Not in friendship, not in romance, but in basic human preservation.
He stared at the check, a tiny slip of paper that felt like a verdict. He thought of the velvet bag in his drawer, the contacts in his phone, the cold comfort of the gun’s grip. It was a system, predictable and grim. She was offering chaos, a terrifying unknown.
“Why do you care?” The question was barely audible.
“Because it’s a waste,” she repeated, her earlier frustration softened into something sadder. “And I hate waste.”
The harsh clatter of the diner felt magnified in the silence that followed her words. Will couldn’t hold her gaze. He looked down, tracing the sticky rings on the Formica with a blunt fingernail. The weight she described was so ingrained in his shoulders he couldn’t remember a time without it.
Cat watched him retreat, and something in her own posture softened. The interrogation was over. She’d planted the charge; now she had to wait to see if it would detonate. She leaned back against the squeaking vinyl.
“So,” she said, the word a deliberate shift in the atmosphere. “What do you like?”
He blinked, thrown completely. “What?”
“What do you like? You don’t get to just be a collection of damage and bad decisions. There has to be something else in there.” She gestured vaguely at him. “Music? Books? Terrible reality TV?”
Will opened his mouth, then closed it. The question was bizarrely difficult. Hedonism wasn’t liking; it was consuming. The blur of parties, the chemical rush, the frantic physicality—none of that was about preference. It was about erasure. He floundered, his mind a blank, white screen.
His eyes drifted past her again, to the silent television. On screen, a man was pleading with a department store mannequin that had come to life. The stark, high-contrast shadows were unmistakable.
He pointed a vague finger. “That,” he said, his voice rough.
Cat twisted to look. “The news?”
“No. The Twilight Zone.” He said it almost defensively.
She turned back, intrigued. “The black-and-white thing? With the scary theme song?”
“It’s not scary. It’s morality. It’s psychology.” A flicker ignited behind his eyes, the first she’d seen that wasn’t anger or pain. “It’s about people getting exactly what they deserve, usually in the worst, most ironic way possible. The universe correcting itself, one twisted tale at a time.”
He sounded different. The flat affect was gone, replaced by a fast, almost scholarly passion. Cat rested her chin on her hand, watching him. “Okay. Sell me on it. What’s the best one?”
“‘The Eye of the Beholder.’” The answer was immediate. “This woman’s in a hospital, her face bandaged after surgery. The doctors are trying to fix her ugliness to conform to society’s standards. You never see anyone’s face. The tension is all in these voices, these shadows.” His hands moved slightly, sketching shapes in the air. “The big reveal isn’t a monster. It’s that she’s beautiful, by our standards. And everyone else is these grotesque pig-people. The horror is that she’s the freak there.”
He took a breath, the words coming easier now. “‘Walking Distance’ wrecks me every time. Guy goes back to his hometown, finds it’s literally his childhood. Sees his younger self. Tries to tell the kid not to be in such a rush to grow up.” Will’s voice dropped, catching. “He can’t stay. No one can. It’s about… the permanent goodbye to your own past. You can visit, but you can’t live there.”
He went on, detailing episodes about bookish men who finally get time to read after an apocalypse and break their glasses, about terrifying gremlins on airplane wings seen only by one unstable passenger, about a desperate man who sells his soul for a fortune, only to be trapped forever in a bank vault with his meaningless money.
Cat listened, utterly absorbed. This wasn’t the brooding dealer or the angry brawler. This was a kid with a nimble, analytical mind, finding framework for the world’s cruelties in fifty-year-old television. It was the most sincere thing she’d ever heard him say.
“You know an awful lot about a TV show,” she said softly when he paused.
A ghost of a shrug. “We had a satellite dish that mostly got static but one showed old movies and Twilight Zone marathons. My grandma tried to educate me.” The upbringing reference slipped out, unvarnished. He didn’t seem to notice.
Cat filed the sliver of information away. She nodded toward the TV where the credits were now rolling. “So that’s your definitive comfort viewing? Cosmic irony and existential dread?”
“It’s honest,” he corrected, a faint defensive edge returning. “The rules are clear. Push the button, you get the consequences. No one gets off easy.”
“Sounds familiar,” she said, her eyes flicking to his hands, which had recently pushed and punched and stolen. He followed her gaze and stuffed them in his jacket pockets.
She made a decision. “I’ve never seen a single one. Not all the way through.” She slid out of the booth, picking up the check before he could. “Come over to my place. Show me. Your top three.”
He stood slowly, confusion plain on his face. “Right now?”
“Yes, right now. The tutoring center opens at nine a.m. tomorrow. You’ll need something to keep you awake until you can apply, since you’re quitting your other job tonight.” She said it as if it were already settled. “Consider it a cultural intervention.”
He hesitated, the old walls trying to re-form. This was a vulnerability that didn’t involve violence or sex. It felt more dangerous.
“It’s just TV, Will,” she said, already walking toward the cash register. “Not a contract. You can leave whenever you want.” She paid, the neon buzz painting her in that sickly pink light. She turned back, a challenge in her eyes. “Unless you’re scared of a few black-and-white metaphors.”
He wasn’t. He was terrified of the person who might watch them with her. But the diner, with its ghosts of their last conversation, was suffocating. The cold grip of the gun in his backpack felt suddenly ludicrous. The flickering screen held a different kind of truth, one he knew how to navigate.
“Fine,” he said, the word a surrender to a puzzle he couldn't solve. “But you’re providing the popcorn.”
The walk to her apartment was a quiet negotiation of space on the cracked sidewalk. The neon diner glow faded behind them, replaced by the sulfur-yellow of streetlights cutting through the live oaks. She lived in a renovated craftsman house divided into units, nothing like the bland dorm he inhabited. Her porch swing creaked in the faint breeze.
Her space was all soft light and organized clutter. Books piled neatly on a desk by the window, a woven rug from some faraway market, a faint scent of lemongrass. It felt lived-in, intentional. Will hovered near the door, an intruder in this curated peace.
“Shoes off,” she said, already kicking her own sneakers into a corner. “And relax. You’re standing there like you’re expecting a raid.”
He toed off his worn boots, feeling exposed in his socks. He kept his backpack close, the weight inside a quiet shame. She disappeared into a small kitchenette. He heard the rattle of a kettle, the pop of a microwave bag.
She returned with a large bowl of popcorn and two mugs of tea, setting them on a low coffee table before a modest TV. A fleece blanket was draped over the back of a deep, worn sofa. “Sit,” she instructed, grabbing a laptop. “What’s the first masterpiece?”
He sank into the cushions, which gave way more than he expected. The backpack he placed on the floor, nudging it out of sight with his heel. “You should start with ‘The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street.’ It’s the most obvious one.”
“Obvious how?”
“It’s about a neighborhood tearing itself apart because the lights go out. They turn on each other, invent enemies, destroy their own community out of fear.” He accepted a mug, the heat seeping into his hands. “It’s a parable about McCarthyism. Or xenophobia. Or just people being people.”
“Charming,” she said, typing. She found the episode on a streaming service. The familiar, haunting theme filled the room, and Rod Serling’s introduction began. Will’s posture changed almost imperceptibly; the defensive hunch of his shoulders eased as he was pulled into the stark, grainy world.
They watched in silence for ten minutes. Cat curled her legs beneath her, absently eating popcorn. Will was perfectly still, his eyes fixed on the screen as the suburban suspicion metastasized into violence. When a boy was accidentally shot by his panicked neighbor, Cat inhaled sharply.
“God, that’s dark,” she muttered.
“The real monsters are always us,” Will said quietly, almost to himself. “Serling knew that. He’d seen war.”
As the episode reached its bleak climax, a chill seemed to settle in the room despite the warmth. Cat shifted, pulling the fleece blanket from the back of the couch. She unfolded it, not just over herself, but letting it drape over his legs as well. It was a casual, pragmatic gesture against the fictional chill.
During the next episode, “Nightmare at 20,000 Feet,” the distance closed further. When the gremlin first appeared on the wing, shattering the window, Cat flinched backward. Her shoulder pressed against his arm. He didn’t pull away. The tension on screen was a live wire; the shared warmth was a quiet antidote.
By the time the third episode, “Time Enough at Last,” began, they had sunk into a mutual slump against the cushions. The blanket was a shared territory. Her head, almost imperceptibly, leaned toward his shoulder during the heartbreaking scene where the last pair of glasses shattered. He didn’t move. He let the weight settle there, a soft, confusing pressure that was somehow more terrifying than any confrontation.
The closing narration echoed. The best laid plans of mice and men… The screen went black, reflecting their tangled, blanket-draped silhouettes back at them.
For a long moment, neither spoke. The only sound was the hum of the laptop fan. Will was acutely aware of the points of contact: her temple against his shoulder, her thigh parallel to his, the wool of the blanket trapping their combined heat.
Cat stirred first, pushing herself upright with a soft sigh. “Okay. You win. That’s devastating television.” She reached for her phone, plugging it into a small speaker on the bookshelf. “I need something that isn’t cosmically bleak.”
She tapped the screen. A pulsing, synth-driven beat filled the room, followed by a clear, yearning female voice. “I’m sorry if I say, 'I need you.’ But I don’t care, I’m not scared of love…”
Will listened, his brow furrowing slightly. He took a sip of his now-tepid tea.
“You don’t know this?” Cat asked, watching his face.
“Should I?”
“It’s Halsey. ‘Colors.’ It’s everywhere.” She tilted her head. “What do you listen to, then? Death metal?”
“Sixties and seventies stuff, mostly,” he said, shrugging. The admission felt mundane compared to their earlier topics. “My grandma’s records. The Mamas & the Papas. Creedence. The Stones. A lot of Motown.”
“Classic rock. How… collegiate.” Her smile was teasing, not cruel. She scrolled, then played another track: a driving, angular guitar riff and a manic, talk-sung verse.
Will shook his head slowly as the chorus hit. “Nope.”
“That’s The 1975! ‘Love Me.’ You live under a rock.”
“I told you, I like The Zombies. ‘Odessey and Oracle.’ 1968. Or ‘Bookends’ by Simon & Garfunkel. That’s a perfect album.” The words came out faster, another unconscious unveiling. “The sequencing from ‘Save the Life of My Child’ into ‘America’ into ‘Old Friends’? It’s a narrative. It’s statistical beauty.”
Cat muted the music. The sudden silence was heavy. She looked at him, her teasing expression replaced by genuine curiosity. “Statistical beauty.”
He realized he’d slipped. He retreated. “Forget it.”
“No, wait.” She leaned forward. “The Zombies. Hit me. Prove you’re not just name-dropping.”
He let out a long breath, trapped. His eyes flicked to the ceiling, organizing data. “Colin Blunstone’s vocal on ‘Brief Candles’ is a masterclass in restrained agony. The Mellotron on ‘Changes’ was played by a guy who’d never seen one before, Al Kooper mailed the tape from New York. They recorded ‘Odessey and Oracle’ at Abbey Road right after Sgt. Pepper, used the same four-track machine, but their engineer was a classical guy who hated rock, so he mixed all the warmth out until ’68….” He trailed off, hearing himself.
Cat was staring, her mouth slightly open. Not with judgment, but with dawning, amused comprehension. “You’re a total nerd. A massive, walking, talking music nerd.”
“It’s just information.”
“It’s a library. In a very confusing building.” She shook her head, a laugh escaping. “So you’ve got apocalyptic TV parables and the recording history of defunct British psychedelic bands in there. And also a business plan for narcotics distribution. The human brain is weird.”
He had no reply. The contradiction sat between them, absurd and true. The fleece blanket was still warm. The ghost of the theme song lingered. Her phone, silent now, held a world of sound he found foreign.
She glanced at the time on her screen, the blue light washing over her face. “It’s late.” The words weren’t a dismissal. They were a statement of fact, heavy with unasked questions about what happened next.
He moved to get up, the spell breaking. “I should go.”
“Yeah.” She didn’t stop him. She pulled the blanket tighter around herself as he stood, the cool air rushing in to replace his warmth. He picked up his backpack, the gun inside knocking softly against a textbook. The weight felt alien now, a relic from a different timeline.
He stood at her door, fingers on the latch. The quiet hum of her apartment, the scent of lemongrass and popcorn, the imprint of her head on his shoulder—it all formed a palpable barrier between him and the dark street outside.
“The tutoring center,” she said softly from the couch. “Nine a.m.”
He nodded, not turning around. “I know.”
He stepped out onto the creaking porch. The swing moved in the corner of his vision. He didn’t look back as he pulled the door closed, hearing the soft, definitive click of the latch behind him. The night air was cool, but his shoulder still burned where she had leaned.