why would you even bother telling someone your secrets before killing them

[self_composed]

By the end of Bio, the halls are full of people eager to inform Bella and everyone else within earshot that her friend is a murderer. They have entirely the wrong attitude to have formed the impression because he just now murdered someone, and also her father hasn't come looking for her yet, so this is probably nonsense.

Bella goes to gym.

Comments

[self_composed]

"Well," says Bella. "Would you like it if you were nice?"

[edgeofyourseat]

He gives this some thought.

"Dunno. Probably not. But if I was, then I would. I like being me."

[self_composed]

"I'd like to be nice. But I care about other things more, so I don't go very far out of my way to get that particular wish. But then, my brain tries to tell me that whatever I did instead of being nice was really nice after all - I had better motives than I did, whatever mean thing I said was an accident and I meant to say something else, it wouldn't really have been nicer to do the 'nice' thing for some reason even if I couldn't have known that ahead of time. And that's bullshit, and I do not wish to be full of bullshit - and that is something I care about more than most other things."

[edgeofyourseat]

"Oh," he says. "Huh. Yeah, I get it."

[self_composed]

Bella smiles. "So that's why the notebooks. But I've been doing this for a while, and my brain mostly gets the picture that I'm not going to let it pull anything like that, so I don't need them that much recently. Except for more ordinary notetaking."

[edgeofyourseat]

Alice smiles.

"That's pretty cool."

[self_composed]

"I compile them into searchable typed-up files, periodically," she continues. "This one's almost full and ready to be converted."

[edgeofyourseat]

"Cool," he repeats.

And almost says something else.

And doesn't.

[self_composed]

"What?" Bella asks, tilting her head.

[edgeofyourseat]

"I was gonna say, can I read some, but I'm pretty sure the answer's no."

[self_composed]

"I don't put anything sensitive in the ones I bring to school. They've been swiped before," Bella says, handing over her current notebook. "Plenty of it's written in a weak makeshift code of sorts anyway. You can ask if you don't understand something that sounds interesting - in general it's not specifically aimed to keep you out."

[edgeofyourseat]

"Okay," he says, grinning, and starts flipping through this one from the most recent page backward. "So I'm a pinball wizard now, huh? Awesome."

[self_composed]

"It amuses me, and thus it is so," Bella says placidly. "Makes a decent code too, although frankly so would 'Alice'."

[edgeofyourseat]

"Probably, yeah. Is this felony assault one about me, too, or are there fights going on at this school that I'm not in?"

[self_composed]

"That's also you, yes. I didn't get around to looking up whether provocation's an extenuating circumstance - and have decided not to ask Charlie, for the time being."

[edgeofyourseat]

Flip, flip.

"Who'd you cut off in traffic?"

[self_composed]

"A Jeep," says Bella.

What? That's all she knows about the other vehicle. If it had been someone she knew she would probably not have cut him off.

[edgeofyourseat]

"Guess I won't ask why you did it," he says, indicating the I HAVE NO EXCUSE written next to the note.

[self_composed]

"No excuse doesn't mean no reason. I was in a hurry. That's just not actually a good cause for cutting somebody off. Probably saved me less than thirty seconds if anything, and I could have gotten into an accident."

[edgeofyourseat]

He snorts and looks back down at the book.

"If I had one'a these, would you wanna read it?" he asks, not quite as nonchalantly as he meant to.

[self_composed]

"Probably," Bella says.

[edgeofyourseat]

"Well, I don't. But who knows, maybe I'll start."

[self_composed]

"Heh. I've never gotten anyone to start serious notetaking before," chuckles Bella.

[edgeofyourseat]

"Have you tried?" he wonders.

[self_composed]

"No, not really. I don't think most people care about the same things I care about anyway. Renée doesn't even write down grocery lists when she does the shopping. She wanders through the store and grabs what looks good and wonders why she doesn't have a red onion when she wants one the following Thursday. Charlie's pretty diligent about getting stuff he learns in investigations written down, for documentation if there's some kind of dispute later, but he doesn't extend it to any other sphere of life."