I wish I could say it was the first time I was running a little late to class, but my dad didn't raise a liar.

November had arrived, and with it came the drizzly Southern California rain. I tried to angle my umbrella to shield my backpack as I bounded up the front steps of the biological sciences building.

Bodie looked up from his phone when I burst into the lobby.

"Finally," he huffed.

"I know, I know," I chanted.

He started down the hall to the dimly lit alcove where the elevator sat, framed by a potted shrub in the corner and a cork board on the wall. I followed after him, falling a little behind as I wrestled my umbrella closed and shoved it back into its protective sleeve.

I barely noticed when Bodie stepped into the elevator without me.

The doors were a half a second from closed when I stuck my arm out. The safety mechanism kicked in and they bounced open.

Bodie's smile was the picture of innocence.

"Sorry," he said. "Are you going down?"

I grabbed a fist-full of the front of his shirt and tugged him down so I could cover his mouth with mine. Bodie humored me by stumbling backward until he was flat against the elevator wall.

It was a frustratingly short ride to the basement.

The lecture hall was buzzing with chatter and laughter when we slipped through the double doors. Bodie led the way to my usual spot, third row from the back, where Olivia and Ryan were sitting. Andre sat on the other side of the room with Scott Quinton—the linebacker with the thick neck—and some other players.

I plopped down in the seat beside Olivia, who was busy texting. For a moment I worried the contact name on the top of her screen would be CAN GO TO HELL, but it was Mehri Rajavi (with a pink heart).

Nick took the stage.

His hair was just long enough now to twist into the tiniest of man buns, and he'd opted for a real button-down shirt today instead of his usual graphic tee. His aesthetic was evolving.

"Let's get to our first group of the day," he said.

Three guys and a girl in the second row stood and made their way to the podium. Kyle Fogarty was the last of them. The green in his hair was gone, leaving behind a blonde that was pale and dull.

The first slide of their presentation appeared on the twin projector screens.

Sexual Assault on College Campus.

Unease twisted my stomach.

The girl took the lead for their group, walking us through their introduction. Their PowerPoint slides were poorly designed. The font choices were so atrocious that I was sure I felt Andre's soul leave his mortal body on the other side of the room.

By slide three, I realized they were just dumping information—statistics and data points and dictionary definitions—in an attempt to prove they deserved a passing grade.

It wasn't going well, to begin with.

But then Fogarty grabbed the mic.

"Of course, we should take those numbers with a grain of salt," he said. "Girls do accuse men falsely, like, all the time."

Beside me, Bodie bristled and tensed in his seat. I settled my fingertips on top of his wrist, a silent command for him not to say or do anything dumb.

"For instance," Fogarty began (I knew some bullshit was about to come out of his mouth), "let's take the Vaughn case."

His eyes landed on me.

He paused. I realized, all at once, that he wanted me to speak up. He wanted me to crack, to make a spectacle of myself.

Some people didn't want to hear you. Some people wanted to shout and shake you down until you conceded, or until you tripped over logic and said something factually inaccurate that they could latch onto, like one mistake meant your entire philosophy was flawed.

I wasn't going to give him the opportunity.

I closed my notebook, swung my swivel desk into place at the side of my seat, and leaned forward to tuck my belongings into my backpack. A few heads turned at the sound of my rustling papers.

"The girls who accused Vaughn—" Kyle continued, louder now.

I tugged the zippers shut.

"—ruined his career over a hand brushing an ass—"

In the middle of a lecture hall packed with a hundred people, I pushed myself to my feet.

Fogarty stopped mid-sentence and grinned.

I stared him down.

"Laurel," Nick called, voice wobbling with uncertainty. "Could you take a seat and let this group finish their presentation? Please?"

I looked Nick dead in the eye as I reached down to grab my backpack and slid both straps over my shoulder. No, I was not going to take my seat. I was not going to sit down and give Fogarty his captive audience.

I looked down, prepared to ask Bodie to shift his knees to the side so I could get through.

But Bodie pushed his swivel desk out of the way and grabbed his backpack, too. I'd turned plenty of heads in the room, but the moment Bodie got to his feet, the whole lecture hall was watching us.

I waited for him to say something to Fogarty.

I waited for him to snap.

Instead he turned to me and said, very calmly, "Lead the way."

He gave me that look again—the one that told me he'd follow wherever I led—and I was calm.

Down on the stage, Fogarty's smile had vanished.

"St. James," he called, eyebrows pinched like what the fuck, man?

Bodie looked down at the stage, at his ex-roommate and ex-friend, and shook his head.

"Are you serious?" Fogarty demanded. "It's called freedom of speech! I'm allowed to—"

"Kyle," I said.

He broke off in the middle of his sentence.

I'd never thought I was capable of commanding a room of a hundred people into dead silence. I wasn't the kind of girl who did theatrics and spotlights. I thrived on invisibility. On making myself small, and quiet, and docile. But I wouldn't let anyone bully me into silence.

So I looked down at Kyle Fogarty and said, solemnly, "Grow up."

For a split second before much-expected anger painted his face red, Kyle Fogarty looked very young and very lost.

He was a boy. A boy who'd been hurt, just like Bodie.

But I'd hold boys responsible for their actions.

And he'd trashed my car.

I turned to Bodie. Together, we shuffled into the aisle. Olivia flipped her desk down, grabbed her bag, and came after us. Ryan picked his skateboard up off the floor and joined her.

Across the lecture hall, where he sat with his group, Andre rose from his seat, too. I met his eyes across the room. He raised his hand to his forehead, saluting me, and started up the aisle towards us.

Scott Quinton stood, too.

I'd never looked him in the eye before. It was a strange feeling to finally have your existence acknowledged by someone you'd seen around campus for more than two years.

Quinton was a pleasant surprise.

I was sure that he'd be it. The six of us would make our statement.

And then, a few rows down, a girl I had never really seen or spoken to before in my life rose from her seat. I didn't know her name. I didn't know a thing about her. But she stood for me, too.

One by one, then in pairs and clusters and entire rows of the lecture hall at a time, my classmates stood and gathered their belongings.

Like dominoes.

Fogarty had stopped talking. He watched, with tight lips and a grim pallor to his face, as three-quarters of the room vacated their seats. Nick called out, in a voice tight with uncertainty, and begged us to sit down, to listen, to not blow this out of proportion.

I didn't look back.

_________________

It seems really fitting that I'm posting the last chapter of Laurel's story the same day the Jonas Brothers release their first album in a decade. I like to think she'd be really excited about that. I'll be posting my big announcement (and all the wonderful fan art I've received) shortly. I am totally not crying. Nope.

Your friendly author,

Kate