LIFE LOOKED a little brighter on Monday than it had in weeks. Maybe it was the revenge. Maybe it was the sex.
Okay, it was probably the sex.
Whatever the reason, I felt more like myself than I had in a long time. I walked all the way to my psych seminar thinking dreamy thoughts about Rafe instead of ducking my head when people passed by.
Twenty-four hours had elapsed since my prank. And then forty-eight. There were still plenty of pics and videos on social media, but I hadn’t heard my name in conjunction with any of them. And there were no more scary mentions of Beta Rho alumni taking legal action.
Life was good.
On Tuesday I went for a run with Rafe before Urban Studies. After class he left for a dining hall shift, and I took a moment to call the nurse practitioner on my way back to Beaumont.
Ms. Ogden answered on the first ring. “How are you, Bella?”
“I’m good. Really good. But I have a question.”
“Shoot.”
“Well, I have a new boyfriend…”
“Congratulations!”
“Thanks. And I wanted to get tested once again, just out of an abundance of caution.”
“Right. You don’t even need to make an appointment for that. Just come in during business hours.”
“That’s easy,” I said. “So here’s one more question — I had a swab test of my fun zone when I was sick. But I’m assuming that this time I just have to pee in a cup?”
“That’s right. And it’s the same for him if he wants to be tested. If you’re starting a new relationship after a non-monogamous time, it’s good practice for anyone to get tested.”
“Right.” Monogamy was treating me really well these days. I’d woken up this morning with a horny Rafe in my bed again. And after we’d scratched that itch, he went out and brought back coffee. If I hadn’t already seen the point of having a boyfriend, it would have sunk in while I was drinking that latte in bed.
“Remind me, Bella,” Ms. Ogden said into my ear. “What’s your major?”
“Psych.”
“Huh. Have you ever considered nursing school? I think you’d make a great nurse practitioner. Or a midwife. There’s definitely some psych involved. You have a great attitude, and you’d get to talk fun zones for a living.”
“Wow.” What a crazy idea. “I’d never considered anything medical. Because the people who are trying to get into med school are the most stressed-out students at Harkness.”
“I’ll bet they are. And maybe nursing isn’t as glamorous as being a full-fledged doctor. But the grad school piece is so much easier. If your plans for next year aren’t firm yet, you should take a peek at the Harkness nursing program. Just to see if it interests you.”
“Harkness has a nursing program?”
She laughed. “I suppose the undergrads wouldn’t necessarily notice it because it’s hidden inside the med school. I’m on the faculty, actually.”
“Wow,” I said again. Me, a nurse? Maybe that wasn’t as crazy as it sounded. “I’ll look it up. Today.”
“You do that. And call me if you want to talk more about it.”
I walked home in a daze, wondering if I had the right coursework on my transcript to get into a nursing program. For the first time all year, I felt a tug of interest toward life beyond my Harkness degree.
The happy high I was riding lasted an entire week.
Then, inevitably, a certain voicemail message plunged me back to earth. If I’d thought there would be no repercussions for pranking Beta Rho at the football game, I’d been naive. My stomach bottomed out when I listened to the voice on the other end of the line. “This call is from the offices of Wilma Waite, dean of students. Please call us immediately regarding a confidential matter.”
Oh, shit. It was time to pay the piper. Wilma Waite wasn’t just a dean. She was the top-dog dean.
She wasn’t an easy lady, or so I’d heard. Her nickname was Whomping Wilma. My hands were actually sweating as I hit redial. I put the phone to my ear, listening to it ring. Then I gave myself a pep talk. Short of expulsion, whatever punishment they doled out to me would be worth it, right? Getting even with Beta Rho had felt very, very good. I just needed to remember that while they were grilling me in Whomping Wilma’s lair.
“Dean Waite’s office.”
“This is Bella Hall returning your call…”
“Miss Hall.” The receptionist’s voice was cool. “Thank you for being so prompt. Is there any way that you could come in to Dean Waite’s offices right now?”
Yikes. If the dean had cleared her schedule to deal with me, that couldn’t be good. “Sure,” I said, wanting to get this over with.
“I need to ask you not to speak to anyone on your way in.”
“Um, okay.” Holy crap. Did I need a lawyer? I’d watched plenty of TV. If I didn’t like the questions they were asking me, I could always stop the interview and call my father. He’d love that. But I knew he’d help me immediately.
The receptionist told me where to find the dean’s office, but I already knew where it was and it took me only two minutes of walking to reach Tappanworth Hall. The place was built to intimidate. When I pulled open the giant wooden doors, I found myself in an echoing marble anteroom. Through another set of imposing doors was a double-height office with thick Persian rugs on the floor. There were two assistants seated behind enormous desks. One jumped out of her seat when I came in. “Isabelle?”
“Yes.”
“Let me take your coat. The dean is quite grateful you could make it.”
Grateful? The rumors must be true, then. Whomping Wilma must enjoy punishing undergraduates.
“Can I get you coffee? Tea? Water?”
“Uh, water would be great.”
A few minutes later I was ushered through yet another set of carved oak doors into the dean’s private office. Dean Waite didn’t look like the dominatrix I’d expected, though. She was a rather ordinary looking lady with grey, librarian hair. “Have a seat, Isabelle. And thank you for coming.”
“It’s Bella,” I said, just to make myself feel brave.
“Bella, take a chair,” she said.
I did. Nothing happened until the receptionist had left the room and closed the door.
Then Whomping Wilma folded her hands on the desk. “Bella, we have received a complaint against the members of the Beta Rho fraternity.”
My heart lurched as I replayed that sentence in my head. She’d said the complaint was against the fraternity, not from the fraternity. Oh.
Ohhhhh. Oh no. I was afraid to hear where this was going.
“Given what the complainant has told us, the school is investigating several of the fraternity members. We have an obligation under Title Nine to maintain a safe and harassment-free atmosphere for all students.”
“Okay,” I squeaked, trying to do the math on what might have happened and how Whomping Wilma got my name.
“One member of the fraternity is cooperating with this investigation. And this member brought your name to our attention.”
Oh. But… who?
“It’s really quite unusual to have the testimony of one fraternity brother against the rest of them. So we need to corroborate the things he’s telling us.” She stared at me with expectation in her eyes.
“I see?” I said. Although I didn’t really.
“Bella, do you have anything you’d like to report?” Her gaze was like a laser.
Wow. I didn’t want to report anything. But now she had me wondering where the other complaint had come from. If another woman had gotten hurt by Whittaker and his cronies, that changed things. It had to. If I told Dean Waite that I had nothing to say, he might get away with it.
And what if they’d done something truly awful to someone else?
I swallowed hard.
“If you’re worried about implicating yourself in any wrongdoing, you could speak to a lawyer first.”
“I didn’t do anything wrong,” I said quickly. (Unless we were counting the football game stunt.) “It’s just that I really don’t want attention.”
“Bella, this office will not release your name. The investigation is private.”
Oh honey, really? “Dean Waite, there’s no such thing as private. If I tell you my story, and you start asking the fraternity questions, they’ll know exactly who talked. They have a nasty little website where they air all their grievances.”
“Do you mean…” The dean shifted the papers on her desk. “Brodacious.com?”
“That’s the one.”
The dean made a note on her pad. Shit! I’d already contributed to the investigation.
She sighed and set down her pen. “A former member of the fraternity has made serious allegations regarding their treatment of you, and I was hoping you could corroborate his story. That’s all I can say. Except that if it happened, and you don’t help us prove it, it could easily happen again to someone else.”
Ugh. She was right, of course. The college didn’t want trouble. And I didn’t want that on my conscience. It’s just that I also didn’t want to be targeted for telling the truth.
Coward much? “Okay. Fine. I get it. I’ll tell you.”
Her eyes lifted. “Can we do this now? I’ll need to record our interview.”
Oh good God. What had I just agreed to do?
The assistant was called back in to set up a video camera. I just sat there in my chair, sweating. The assistant sat down too, a notepad in her lap.
They both stared at me. “Okay, Bella. Please tell us about your recent interactions with members of the Beta Rho fraternity.”
After a big gulp of my water, I tried to think where to start. “Well, in September I went to their Casino Night party…” Jesus Christ. I was going to have to tell a dean, her assistant and a video camera that I’d had sex with Whittaker.
So I did.
“It was consensual?” Dean Waite asked.
“Absolutely — no question,” I admitted. Shoot me already. Nobody at Harkness would ever have sex again if they knew they could end up telling Whomping Wilma about it later.
“What happened afterwards?” the dean prodded.
Marching onward through my tale of woe, I walked them through my medical diagnosis, eventually arriving at the ugly night in question.
I told my audience that Whittaker had sat me down in the breakfast nook.
I told them that we’d done shots of tequila.
And while my face burned bright red, I told them that Whittaker had denied giving me an STI. And in the next breath, he’d asked Dash to mix up “the special.”
The fucking special. It had leveled me like a tranquilizer dart. I’d spent six weeks trying not to think about that night, but the dean’s clarifying questions kept pinning me back inside that awful moment. “How did the drink appear?” Cloudy. “What was in it?” Orange juice, and an umbrella, but only in mine.
Jesus God, I was such an idiot. How could I have missed that big red flag? Why did I think guys who bragged about drinking beer out of their jock straps would suddenly decorate a lady’s drink, just to be nice?
The whole situation was mortifying. And it was also really fucking scary. I’d done a fine job of blocking all this out until today. But now as I described to the dean how tired I’d gotten immediately after drinking it… Saying it out loud brought me right back to the moment.
In spite of the water I’d been gulping, my throat went dry. “The next thing I remember is waking up on the wood floor.” The sensations clobbered me all over again. Freezing. Stiff. Confused. My missing sweater. Awful words written all over my skin.
Weirdly, there were tears dripping down my face, and I’d barely even noticed them. It was all too vivid. I was gripping the armrests of the wingback chair, terrified at the idea that I’d been so defenseless in that house.
They’d put me on the floor, and covered my body with taunts while I was unconscious.
Then they’d left me there, like garbage.
“Bella?”
I looked up to see the assistant offering me a box of tissues.
“Th…thanks,” I stammered, grabbing it.
“I’m sorry that happened to you,” she said, her voice soft.
“Yeah. It, um…” I was reaching the end of my ability to speak. I felt almost as wiped out as I had that morning, when my limbs wouldn’t do as I’d asked.
“You’re almost through it,” the dean said, her voice calm. “Tell us what happened when you left. How did you feel when you left? Physically, I mean.”
Now that I was allowed to leave the frat house behind, I started to feel a little better. “I… Weird, I guess. Heavy. Clumsy. I fell down on the sidewalk.”
She scribbled furiously on her notepad. “Did anyone witness this?”
Hoo boy. “Yes. One person walked me home.”
Her eyebrows lifted. “Who?”
A few minutes later, I was drinking another glass of ice water while the dean’s assistant tracked down one Rafael Santiago. And ten minutes after that, I heard my boyfriend’s voice in the lobby. “What is this about?”
“Can we please be done now?” I asked the dean.
“Yes — for now. But I may need you again for follow-up questions.”
“Any time,” I offered. I would have promised her my firstborn to get out of that room.
In the outer office, Rafe stood by a window, drumming a pencil against his leg. I’d never been so happy to see anyone in my life.
When he got a look at my face, he crossed the room in three paces. “What’s the matter?” He pulled me to his chest without giving me a chance to answer. “Did something happen?”
“Bella,” the dean said behind me. “Please don’t answer. His testimony has to be unbiased.”
“My testimony?” His voice rose dangerously. “Forget that. Tell me who made her cry. Bella never cries.”
This used to be true. “I’m fine,” I said from the comfort of his sweater. “They were just asking me—”
“Bella!” the dean interrupted.
I pushed back to look up into Rafe’s eyes. “Nothing happened to me today,” I tried. “This is old news.”
His shoulders relaxed. “Oh.”
“Mr. Santiago, if you would please step into my office.”
“I will do that as soon as my girlfriend does not look so freaked out.” He led me over to a chair.
“I’m okay,” I promised, blinking away my latest batch of tears. “I promise. The sooner you talk to her, the sooner we can go home.”
He was still frowning, and I loved that frown. I didn’t think I was the sort of girl who wanted a knight in shining armor. But apparently the occasional display of chivalry was pretty fucking sexy. Who knew?
“Don’t go anywhere,” he ordered me in his bossiest tone.
I gave him a salute. He kissed me on the top of my head and went into the dean’s office.
