Whistleblower ✓

42 | dirty raffle

On Tuesday (in a turn of events that surprised absolutely no one who knew me) I was late to Human Sexuality.

The basement of the biological sciences building was dead quiet, save for the whir of air conditioning and an eerie hum emitting from a maintenance closet. My footsteps echoed as I tore down the hallway.

With the lightning-quick agony of ripping off a DIY waxing strip, I shoved open the first set of double doors.

It was something out of a stress-induced nightmare. Up on the stage, Nick went silent. An entire lecture hall of my peers twisted around in their seats to see what the interruption was. It was me. Wide-eyed, stone-faced, wearing light wash jeans that may or may not have had five tiny smudges of Cheeto dust on the right thigh where I'd accidentally wiped my hand after Hanna and I had shared the most nutritionally disastrous breakfast of our lives.

"Hey there," Nick called from the stage.

Oh, God. He was doing this.

"Hi," I said, my voice suddenly very high-pitched.

"We're ten minutes into the lecture," Nick replied, not looking remotely remorseful for the public humiliation he was subjecting me to. His hair wasn't in its usual ponytail today, but the rest of his hipster aesthetic remained intact: grandpa glasses, Star Wars t-shirt, tweed blazer.

"Sorry," I said.

At least, I tried to say it. Terror had frozen my vocal cords. I'm pretty sure I just mouthed the word.

Nick took a breath, shot me one last withering glare so the whole class knew he wouldn't tolerate being interrupted, and resumed the lecture.

I briefly considered turning on my heel and leaving.

It wasn't too late to drop a class. I could take the incomplete. Drop out of college entirely. Change my name. Join a traveling mariachi band.

"Laurel," I thought I heard someone whisper.

Like a pair of magnets, my gaze snapped together with Bodie's. He was sitting in the third row from the back. My row. The seat on the aisle was occupied by his backpack.

He'd saved it for me.

I could've cried with relief, but I was a little too focused on not tripping over my own feet as I darted down the aisle. Bodie lifted his backpack half a second before I threw myself into the seat. I tugged on the swivel desk with a tad too much enthusiasm, and it snapped into place with a loud thunk that caused a few heads to turn again.

Fucking Nick.

What specific brand of asshole called out his students in a one-hundred-person lecture? Honestly. Four years of tuition at Garland was enough to buy a starter home in most states. You'd think Nick could respect that my being late to class came at a far greater cost to me than to him.

It wasn't until I leaned back in my seat and exhaled a shaky breath that I noticed the paper coffee cup that'd appeared on my desk.

Across the side, scribbled in black marker, was BUDDY.

I guess, statistically speaking, there had to be at least one barista in Garland, California who didn't follow football.

"Is this for me?" I whispered.

Bodie nodded.

"You need it more than I do," he whispered back.

And then he smiled, and it was over for me.

"I guess I owe you my firstborn, now," I said.

Bodie cleared his throat.

I realized, belatedly, that this saying held significantly more sexual connotations when uttered while the dual projector screens up at the front of the room read Unit Seven: Fertility, Pregnancy and Childbirth.