Whistleblower ✓

37 | just words

I know she intended it to be a comforting sentiment, but it wasn't.

I scratched my nose on the sleeve of my cardigan and sighed wearily.

I'd put this off for too long.

"I need to show you something, Hanna."

Together, we walked outside to the little lot tucked halfway under our building. I didn't want her to see it. Each step was like trudging through knee-deep mud.

But I knew I needed to show her.

Hanna's sharp inhale was followed by a strangled cry of disbelief.

For a long moment, we stared at my car in silence.

Hanna tugged the sleeve of her sweatshirt down over one hand, stepped forward, and rubbed tentatively on the tail of the L. I'd already tried this myself, but I didn't bother telling her it wouldn't buff out. I just appreciated the thought.

"W—when?" Hanna finally asked. "When did this happen?"

"That night you blacked out. While I was in Target. Somebody keyed it in the parking lot."

"Did you see who?"

I hadn't, but I figured I'd share my hunch, so I told her about the carload of football players in Kyle Fogarty's Tesla.

I expected her outrage. I expect tirades and monologues.

But when Hanna spoke again, she was calm.

"Get in," she told me, nodding towards the driver's side door.

"What?"

"Get in. We're driving to Ralph's, and I'm buying you whatever wine you want. I've got my fake in my wallet. Let's go."

"Hanna," I said, hugging my arms over my chest. "I'm not going out in public in my car. Everybody will see—"

"Everybody's gonna see that you were harassed," she cut me off. "Everybody will see, and everybody will know that you don't give a flying shit what they do to you."

I'd had coffee dumped on me. I'd had my car vandalized. I'd been fired.

I felt my bottom lip twitch.

"But I do give a shit," I admitted.

And then my throat was tight, and the corners of my lips tugged back as I tried to hold back the sob I'd been stamping down for the last month. I buried my face in my hands and pinched my shoulders up to my ears, burrowing into my cardigan like a turtle hiding in its shell.

Like maybe, if I squeezed every muscle in my body, I could hold it together.

I didn't see Hanna come towards me, but I felt her when she threw her arms around me and hugged me tight.

"I hate this," I cried. "I hate this. I can't do this."

"You can," Hanna whispered fiercely. "You are."

I hated that Hanna was seeing me cry. I never liked crying in front of the people I loved—her, Andre, my dad—because I didn't want them to be the sponges that mopped up my anxieties.

I hated Truman Vaughn for all he'd caused.

I hated Rebecca, for firing me to impress a man.

I hate Fogarty for what he'd done to the car my dad had worked so hard to buy me for my sixteenth birthday.

But most of all, I hated the little seed of regret growing in the pit of my stomach. I hated that, sometimes, I imagined what my junior year would've been if I hadn't written the article. If I hadn't known.