He scratched his neck and looked at the ground. Shuffling the few steps round Max, he ended up closer to his bike, then turned the discussion back to something that didn’t make him feel quite so uncomfortable. “You seem to know more about Bethany than just through e-mail.”
Max smiled. “Actually e-mail’s a great way to get to know people.” Max herself hadn’t used e-mail in years, but it used to be a nice concept. “You can be more honest. Nobody says anything in haste. You’ve always got time to reread it and change what you don’t like. Not like speaking where you’ve blurted it all out and pissed ’em off. And if they do piss you off, you’ve always got it in writing, too.”
Freddy cocked his head and peered at her through a fringe of hair. “That’s what Bethany used to say. She always wanted to make sure she had it in writing. She didn’t like using the phone—” He cut himself off, as if she’d caught him in a lie.
Max knew she was on to something. Had Freddy known what she did late at night? Had he called her himself, pretending he was someone else? Achilles? The thought made her dizzy with possibilities.
“She hated using the phone?” Max prompted.
If he’d had the top button of his shirt done up, he’d have been pulling at it. Instead, he cleared his throat. “For company stuff.” Max couldn’t ignore the specificity of his language. “She said everyone always got it mixed up. She only used the phone when she had to, like with Mrs. Pratt, who doesn’t even own a computer.” His shoulders slumped and disappointment crept into his voice. “Bethany never told me she used it for anything but her business.”
It. The phone? The Internet? Both?
Watching the play of emotions across Freddy’s face, Max got a head rush. As if some strange force had come to life in her. As if Bethany suddenly had.
Testing, pushing, she took a step closer, letting him take a nervous step back.
“She had lots of friends on the Internet, Freddy.” That was another murderous angle Max hadn’t even thought of. She’d look at that, too, but another time, another place.
Freddy looked up, his cheek pulling in where he’d bitten himself on the inside. His backpack slid down his arm and bounced against the side of his leg.
“She didn’t tell me about that.” The injured tone implied he thought Bethany had told him everything about herself.
“You two were good friends, weren’t you?”
“We talked sometimes,” he admitted cautiously, one hand behind his back, the other still clutching the nylon strap of his pack.
“Did you like her even though she was fat?” Her question was blunt, almost painful, and better to dig out the truth. Bethany shriveled several dress sizes inside her.
Freddy shot up straight. “She wasn’t fat. She was ...”
What were the words Ladybird had heard him use? “A cheap fat bitch, maybe?”
Freddy leaped back, tripped over the edge the curb, stumbled, then caught himself. “I never said that.”
“Not even to your friends?”
“Well ...” A car whooshed by, traveling far too fast for a parking lot. Freddy looked at his bike, then licked his lips. “A guy’s gotta do what a guy’s gotta do.”
“Did you tell her that’s how you saved face when your little pals made fun of your job and your boss?”
“Bethany didn’t expect me to defend her. We were friends on the—” Again, he truncated his words. “We didn’t have to broadcast it to the world.” A world that didn’t understand what it was like to be an outcast. Or a teenager.
God forbid he should admit any of this to his buddies or his parents.
“You used to spend hours on the phone with her, didn’t you, or e-mail, when you were supposed to be studying up in your room?”
He swallowed, his Adam’s Apple bobbing along his throat. “Yeah, we talked on the phone, played with e-mail. There’s nothing wrong with that.”
“What’d you talk about, Freddy?” She spoke softly, moved in for the kill, stopping her slow forward momentum when she was within two steps.
“Just stuff.” Again, the nervous swallow. He stared at the building facade, the concrete at his feet, and the stinking trash can behind her left shoulder.
“What kinda stuff?”
He looked at her then, straight into her eyes, suddenly and unexpectedly defiant. “You already know. She told you. I can tell. So what are you asking me for?”
No, Max didn’t know for sure. From the red seeping into his cheeks and the flush creeping up his neck, she had a damn good idea. She did not, however, say a word. She let Freddy hang himself.
His nostrils flared. He stood taller, then leaned closer. He might have believed Bethany betrayed him, but still he defended her, looking over Max’s shoulder to make sure he couldn’t be overheard, lowering his voice. “We didn’t talk about sex.”
Then again, maybe he was defending himself.