I woke up with the best hangover of my life.

Oxymoron of the century.

It took me a moment to identify that I was in Andre's bed, and that the lawnmower next to me was not, in fact, a lawnmower but my bed-hog of a roommate snoring into the crook of her elbow. Hanna was not graceful in sleep. It didn't help that, after Bodie and I had moved our dance party to Andre's apartment and brought half a bottle of wine with us, she'd taken it upon herself to chug the rest.

Hanna breathed in. The mattress rumbled.

I leaned over and pressed a kiss to her sweaty forehead.

My phone was perched on the very edge of the bedside table, so I had to reach over her to grab it. A pair of text messages from Bodie were waiting for me.

How do you drink this much wine I feel so dehydrated??? read the first, which he'd sent all of eleven minutes ago.

The second was shorter.

Also good morning

And a smiley face. Not the polite soft smile one. The grin.

I stared at that smiley face for far longer than I'd like to admit before a tiny, muffled burst of Andre's goofy laughter carried from the living room, followed by the low whisper of someone trying to shush him.

It was a whisper I recognized.

I wiggled down to the foot of the bed, trying not to rock the mattress and wake Hanna, and padded out of the room and down the hall.

Andre and Bodie were in the kitchen, both of them attempting to laugh as discreetly as possible, like teenagers passing pencil drawings of penises back and forth in the front row of AP Spanish class. Bodie was still in the Pepito's t-shirt and jeans he'd worn last night.

He had the rumpled hair and bean-shaped pink splotch on one cheek of a man who'd slept like a rock.

I felt warm all over.

"Morning," I greeted.

Bodie turned and beamed at me, which was more than I deserved in my state. My hair was pulled back tight from my face and I had Andre's Mario Badescu pimple cream dotted on pimples that'd bloomed on my chin and—agonizingly—between my eyebrows.

"Sorry, Laurel," he apologized, shoulders still jerking when his breath caught on another laugh. "I'm so sorry. Did we wake you up?"

"No," I said, smacking my lips together. Water. I needed water. "The hangover did."

Bodie motioned for me to plop down in one of the two stool as the kitchen island while he grabbed a glass out of the cupboard and filled it under the sleek stainless steel faucet.

Andre was wiping tears from his eyes now, and had his lanky arms folded over his chest, like he was trying not to explode.

"What is so—" I began.

Bodie reached into the sink, lifted a plate, and set it on the counter in front of me along with my glass of water.

At first, I thought the rectangular hunks of black were two iPhones, side by side. It took me a moment to discern that what I had before me were actually two very, very burnt Pop Tarts.

"Bon appe—" Andre couldn't even get the words out.

He dissolved into chest-heaving, wheezing laughter.

I plucked up one of the charcoal briquettes formerly known as a Pop Tart and tapped it with my fingernail.

Rock solid.

"Gordon Ramsay would rip your throats out," I declared.

Bodie lost it.

"We were in a rush, okay?" Andre said. "We gotta be at the field in half an hour."

It struck me, then, that Bodie had chugged wine with me knowing full well that practice the next morning would be rougher because of it.

"I need to run by my place and get my stuff," he said, collecting his keys off the kitchen counter.

"Do you need a ride?" I offered.

The corners of Bodie's lips twitched.

"I live in this building," he said. "So no. But thank you for the offer."

I pursed my lips and nodded, trying not to look embarrassed. He hovered for a moment, both of us staring unabashedly at each other, before he shuffled across the kitchen and into the little front hall.

"See you in a few," Andre called before the door swung shut behind Bodie. The second it did, he turned on me and said, "Are you two a thing now?"

"I have no idea," I admitted.

We weren't nothing, that was for sure.

"Bodie slept on your couch, didn't he?" I added.

His wrinkled clothes and uncombed hair were hardly suspect, but the red splotch on one cheek was a dead giveaway that he'd spent the night with his face pressed to the leather cushion.

Andre sighed and folded his lanky arms over his chest.

"He's trynna find a new place right now. Said he doesn't want to room with Kyle anymore. Something about your car getting scratched up."

I sucked in my lips.

Andre pressed his palms flat to the counter and leaned over the island.

"Talk to me, Cates," he said.

"I didn't want to freak you out and it wasn't even that big a deal it was literally the dumbest thing like we're talking a few teeny tiny scratches and it doesn't matter," I said in one breath.

Andre ran his tongue over his front teeth.

"Did Hanna know?"

Busted.

"In my defense," I said, holding up a finger, "she only found out over the weekend. So you're only a few days late."

Andre groaned and brushed a palm over the top of his hair. It was getting long. The racing stripes across his temples weren't as sharp and well-defined as they'd been at the beginning of the semester.

"You gotta tell people shit, Cates," he said.

"I do tell people shit," I snapped, feeling a bit like he'd smacked me in the face. "The whole reason my car got fucked up is because I told people shit."

"Nah, nah, nah." Andre shook his head. "I mean about you. If someone else's got a problem, you're all over that shit. You rally for them. But when it's your problem? Laurel. Look at me."

I had pressed my forehead to the kitchen counter.

The faux-marble was smooth and cold and did wonderful things for the hangover migraine that was brewing en mi cabeza.

"It's embarrassing," I murmured against the stone.

Andre sighed.

I lifted my head to look him in the eye.

"You don't have to tell me everything," he said very gently. "You just gotta know you can."

I made a heartfelt little grunting noise at the back of my throat before I hopped up off the stool and circled around the island to hug him.

Andre laughed as we rocked side to side, our arms tight around each other.

"You're gonna be late to practice," I groaned into his armpit.

"Make sure Hanna doesn't eat the rest of my Pop Tarts, okay? I only got, like, two packs left. I put 'em on the top shelf. Do not help her."

After I'd sworn myself in as a guardian of Andre's breakfast goods, I ventured back into his bedroom to grab my phone.

I had a voicemail from Ellison Michaels.

I'd missed her call by four minutes.

I shuffled into the bathroom, so I wouldn't disturb Hanna or distract Andre from packing his football gear, and hit play.

The message was cursory and ominous, in true Ellison fashion: "Cates. Text me when you get this. There's someone in my office right now I think you want to meet."

❖ ❖ ❖

Her name was Sarah.

She was twenty-six and a Garland University alumna. An economics major. Uselessly good at ping pong, frustratingly bad at all forms of creative expression. Two dogs. A nine-month-old son and a wife at home watching him.

Sarah lived in Michigan, now, and she did not watch football. Not anymore.

Seven years ago, she'd been an athletics department intern getting paid minimum wage to work at a charity event when Truman Vaughn grabbed her ass.

A few days later, she'd submitted a tip to the Daily.

She hadn't known what else to do.

Nobody had answered her.

And now she was sitting in Ellison Michael's office, hands braced around a ceramic mug of chamomile tea, dark brown eyes tracing over the student events posters tacked up to the walls with a bittersweet blend of pride and nostalgia.

"You're Laurel," she said when I arrived, breathing heavy because I'd jogged all the way from The Palazzo.

"Yeah. Yeah, that's me."

I apologized for the delay, and the fact that I was wearing yesterday's clothes, and the general hungover aesthetic I had going on.

Sarah assured me that she remembered how college worked.

"I wanted to come to you guys first," she said, steeling herself with a sip of tea. "I need you to know that I'm sorry I didn't come out here sooner. I was going to lie to my wife and say it was some kind of alumni thing, but—" she shrugged helplessly. "I had to tell her. I tell her everything."

Except for this.

She'd held onto this for seven years. Kept it tucked away, so it wouldn't bother anyone she loved. So it wouldn't hurt them the way it hurt her.

"Thank you," I told her. "Thank you so much."

Sarah nodded.

"I want to help," she said. "Whatever you need..."

"Is whatever you're comfortable giving," Ellison finished for her.

Sarah's face scrunched up. I plucked the Kleenex box off Ellison's file cabinet and passed it to her without a word.

"My memory isn't great," said Sarah, fingers shaking as she fumbled for a tissue with one hand, so she could keep hold of her mug. "I don't know if I can get all the details right. I know—" she inhaled, and it caught in her chest, but she pushed on, "—I know the event was on a Saturday, and I think it was March, but I—I can't remember who they were honoring—a water polo coach? I don't—"

Sarah's voice broke off with another tight inhale.

Ellison leaned forward so she was eye-to-eye with her.

"Sarah," she said, "nobody expects you to remember everything."

"But isn't that how this goes?" she asked, breathing faster now. "They put you up on the stand and they ask where you were and when and why and what shade of lipstick you had on and what color shirt the guy was wearing and—and if you say I don't know then they—they—and it's not even a big deal. He just—he grabbed my ass! And maybe his fingers were—I don't know—wedged in—and maybe he ground himself against me, and I felt—" Sarah's face shuttered, so quickly I could've blinked and missed it. When she continued, I had the strangest sense that she was telling us exactly what she'd told herself for seven years: "But I feel like that's nothing. There are women out there who get assaulted, you know?"

"What he did is assault," Ellison said. "And if it's a big deal to you, it's a big deal. Period."

Sarah set her mug down on the desk so she could blow her nose properly.

"I thought nobody read the tips," she admitted after wiping the first nostril. "I thought I was just, I don't know—" she paused to tackle the other, "—shouting into the void."

Ellison waited until Sarah had finished wiping her nose to say, "If you don't want to come forward publicly, you don't have to. But I know there are other women out there who wrote tips like yours, and I know they're scared, too. You aren't alone. Not in any part of this."

Sarah looked from Ellison to me and back again. Then she took a shaky breath and tossed her clump of used tissues in Ellison's trashcan.

"Okay," she said. "Okay. Let's do it."

_________________

Author's Note: This story hit 1 million reads on Wednesday night. I stayed up far too late to catch it when it happened, and then I took some screenshots, and then I pulled my duvet up to my chin and I had a little celebratory cry.

Also on Wednesday? The nominations for The Fiction Awards 2019 opened! For those of you who are unfamiliar with them: @thefictionawards are a community-run competition here on Wattpad (it's been going strong since 2016). Each year, you nominate your favorite books by leaving the title and author's username in an inline comment on various categories (teen fiction, romance, fantasy, best overall story, etc).

I feel weird asking for your support. I don't like being a bother. But I've never won an award for any of my writing (and I am really, really proud of this book) so if you have a chance to check out @thefictionawards, please nominate Whistleblower for best romance! 

Or best chicklit. Or best overall story. Or all three. Whatever you feel like. Romance is my top pick. (Also, my characters are 20+ years old, so I don't think this really qualifies as teen fiction.)

Your friendly author,

Kate