Whistleblower ✓

16 | caffeinated

Hanna's excitement was contagious. It was also the feeling I'd been holding my breath for since the morning the article broke, so when I shouldered through the door to our apartment and she shoved a shot glass of Fireball in my face, I didn't even pull a face at the fragrant stench of cinnamon and regret. I just dropped to a knee and tossed it back.

"That's my girl!" Hanna cheered. "Okay, now go throw on some leggings or something. We're going to the Art House."

"What's wrong with my uniform?"

Hanna made a retching sound.

I rolled my eyes, climbed back to my feet with an unflattering grunt, and went to riffle through my closet for something that didn't make me look like a middle-aged father of two on a vacation somewhere tropical. When I finished changing into something more befitting of my youth, we tucked the rest of the Fireball into an inconspicuous reusable bag from Trader Joe's and made our way over to the Rodeo.

It was unusually dead for a Gameday. I guess people weren't really in the mood to celebrate after such a bad loss.

That was fine.

Hanna and I would turn up on behalf of the entire study body.

A boy with watery eyes and greasy shoulder-length hair answered the door of the Art House, his face sinking in disappointment at the sight of us.

"It's not the pizza!" he called over his shoulder.

There was a chorus of groans from the living room. Hanna and I shouted out our apologies as we clambered up the stairs and down the hall, where we pounded on Mehri Rajavi's door and yodeled out her name until she finally yanked it open, sighing in a way that told me she was more amused than annoyed.

"I smell Fireball," she accused.

"We're celebrating!" Hanna announced, tugging the handle out of her reusable bag with a flourish.

Mehri frowned skeptically.

"I thought we lost the game."

"Oh, we got killed," Hanna confirmed. "Just, like, annihilated."

"So what's the occasion?"

I smiled and said, "Dismantling the patriarchy."

Mehri nodded, just as I'd known she would, and replied, "I'll drink to that."

❖   ❖   ❖

Exactly one week after our article dropped, I slept through my Monday morning alarm.

I knew I'd be late for Writing 301 the moment I pried my eyes open. The room was too bright, too uncomfortably warm from the sunlight streaming in through the window—although these complaints might've just been the residual effects of the hangover I'd given myself from drinking a third of a bottle of Fireball on Saturday night.

Which reminded me.

Truman Vaughn was suspended.

Ellison and I, along with everyone else at the Daily, had pushed over the first domino in what would surely be a long and winding chain. But there was momentum, and there would be an end. Vaughn would face the consequences for what he'd done.

I believed that.

And so I rolled out of bed with a smile on my face.

I showered and threw on denim shorts and a pale pink short-sleeved shirt, then slid on a pair of sunglasses I'd stolen from Andre and headed onto campus.

By the time I made it to the humanities building, I'd missed passing period completely.

I didn't even care.