GENTRY

11

Briar wakes up, "why are you here?"

Ellie sits up on the ground. She's maybe slept an hour. The bags and mascara that drag under her eyes prove it.

"I wanted to make sure you were okay," Ellie offers, her lips pressed tightly together.

"Well, I am," Briar snaps. She's bitter. She's never drunk so much that's she blacked out before. She only wonders what humiliating things she got up to last night. At least, she had Ellie on her side. Someone was watching out for her.

"Do you know what happened last night?" Ellie asks.

When Briar shakes her head, Ellie begins to explain. The dancing, the boy who tried to take her upstairs. Luis stopping them. The trip to the doctor's office.

All of it isn't there for Briar. It wasn't like a light went off. Things got fuzzier and fuzzier until everything was a blur. She doesn't remember any boy in particular. A few she danced with refilled her cup. How could she have been so stupid?

"Do you want to call the police?"

"No," Briar jumps in quickly.

It would be humiliating if they began an investigation. They would dissect every part of her life, and she'd be That Girl on campus. Everyone would know. Hawkwood isn't big. Briar would rather no one knew. She'd rather no one talked about it. Despite what people may say, there is such a thing as bad publicity.

It would be humiliating if they didn't investigate. Campus police didn't do anything last time. She doesn't know if the police would take her seriously. She isn't sure if being roofied is any more serious than nearly being murdered, and she doesn't want to compare, but if reporting one is viewed as attention-seeking behaviour, than surely the other is.

"Okay," it doesn't satisfy Ellie, but she doesn't want to tell Briar what to do.

Ellie gets up off the floor, folding up the blankets she brought from her room to sleep with, when she spots a note on the floor.

She recognizes the paper immediately. It's thick, a crisp white, and is folded perfectly in half. Briar gets up, dizzy on her feet, and walks around to the letter.

"Who's it from?" Briar asks.

Ellie opens it. The two read along. It's from The Divide, and one note is tucked inside another. One is addressed to Briar, the other to Ellie.

Ellie doesn't read hers out loud. The letter calls for an immediate meeting in the backroom of the campus' pub at ten o'clock this evening. She will have to endure everyone for two hours, and though the pub normally closes at 11, the staff will turn a blind eye.

Briar's letter is practically the same, except for hers warns of a strike against her, for reporting to campus police.

All across campus, the others open similar letters. Only Felix faces a strike as well, for his role in accompanying Briar to the police station.

There is no time to meet up and discuss the events of last night. By the time the others awaken, it is already noon. Study spaces during the day fill up like the bellies of the hungry at a feast. Quickly.

Instead, they go to the cafeteria on campus and eat, separately. Not necessarily avoiding each other, but not waving when they see one another. They do what little work they can to prep for Monday classes. The first game of the season is on Thursday, and the play premiers Friday. Midterms. Everything is piling up, like cars on the freeway.