What the hell is going on?
I reach into my bag and power on my phone.
It buzzes and buzzes, indicating missed calls and texts—way more than I would have expected. I turn onto Washington, toward the Standman quad, about to read one of the several missed texts from David and Lani when I bump into a slim body.
Torrence, a girl from my Shakespeare class, starts apologizing at the same time as I do.
“I wasn’t watching where I was going,” I admit.
She’s talking with a girl I don’t know, and she introduces her as her roommate, Asia.
“Nice to meet you,” I murmur, but it’s obvious I’ve interrupted some serious conversation. I’m about to get on my way when Torrence raises her eyebrows expectantly.
“Did you hear?” she asks cryptically.
I blink at her. “Hear what?”
The two girls exchange a glance. My stomach drops. Something is up.
“There was an assault this weekend. On campus!” To their credit, they don’t seem to be gossiping; they appear sincerely horrified, and I mirror their sentiment.
“W-what kind of assault?” Though already I suspect.
“A girl from SDG was almost raped,” Asia says with appropriate somberness.
My throat tightens. “Do you know who?”
“Liz Poletti.”
Oh my God. Liz. I just saw her. Friday night at Toolies bar. “Is she…is she okay?” I ask shakily.
“I don’t really know how to answer that,” Torrence admits.
“Right. Of course not.”
“All I heard was that she came home to the sorority house when most of the girls were still out, but Kari Marx—she’s in my women’s studies class—was home studying or something and saw her. She came in all messed up and disheveled, or whatever, and Kari kept asking her what happened, and finally she admitted a guy attacked her.”
I shiver. I know the news I’ve just heard is probably making me paranoid, but I still have that feeling that I’m being watched. Of course, that’s probably because of Brody’s stalky behavior before we became friends.
“Do you know who it was?” I ask.
They both shrug. “Yeah. She knew the guy. He’s a senior, but new on campus. I don’t know his name.”
The hairs on the back of my neck stand at attention, my subconscious whispering the name that only just floated through my mind. Brody. But I know better. I may not know him all that well, and I may be naïve when it comes to guys, but I know he wouldn’t do something like that.
Still, even as I assure myself that there are hundreds, maybe thousands of transferred seniors on campus, I recall Liz flirting with Brody at Toolies Friday night…
What if they met up the next night? What if they went out, and Brody…No. I halt my train of thought. I told him we were friends, and I owe a friend the benefit of the doubt. Especially with something as abhorrent as this.
I mutter some cursory platitudes about how awful it all is, and make my way onto the deserted quad, the shadows of the ancient maples setting my already jittery nerves on edge. I swipe open my phone, but before I can open one of the many unread texts, it buzzes in my hand. David calling.
“Hey,” I answer. I’ve already figured that he’s been trying to reach me to tell me about Liz, and probably to use her as a cautionary tale to be more careful around campus. But how careful can one really be? If Liz knew the guy, chances are he didn’t just assault her on the street, right? Are we never supposed to trust anyone at all?
“Bea? Where in the actual motherfucking fuck have you motherfucking been?”
Jesus. His hysterics make me giggle, and I hear him huff through the phone, unamused. “I was…just having coffee.” With Brian. But David doesn’t need to know that yet. Not while he’s in such a state. “My battery was low. I turned my phone off so I’d have it for the walk home.”
David’s excitable breathing is audible through the phone. “Good. That was smart. Good,” he says almost to himself.
