Whistleblower ✓

01 | perfect storm

I wish I could say it was the first time I'd put off writing an article until the day it was due, but my dad didn't raise a liar.

The third floor of Buchanan, the main library on campus, was bleak.

Florescent lights twitched overhead and the scent of burnt popcorn circulated through the air conditioning ducts. Luckily, it was only the first week of the semester, so no one was around to watch me wrestle my USB drive into a slot on the side of an ancient copy machine.

I still hadn't finished unpacking into the new off-campus apartment Hanna and I had leased, but somehow I'd managed to spend fifty-eight dollars on Mexican food and leave an important assignment until the last second.

The food thing was Andre's fault. He was the one who kept suggesting we grab lunch at Pepito's, our favorite taco stand (a place where self control meant nothing to me).

The second thing was all my own doing, unfortunately.

But this morning I'd had hope. I'd thought I'd pulled off another successful feat of procrastination—another last minute lunge across the finish line that separated failure from permissible mediocrity.

I hadn't accounted for the rain.

Garland, California (population thirty thousand during the school year, and half of that in the summer) was an hour north of downtown Los Angeles. We were used to droughts. But by the time I'd made it to Buchanan, I was soaked from the crown of my head to the chipped nail polish on my toes.

I'd worn a sundress. I looked like an idiot.

A very damp idiot.

And as I stood there, slapping the side of the copy machine and dripping a puddle onto the hideous grey-green carpet beneath me, my phone started to vibrate somewhere in the depths of my backpack.

I groaned and dropped it to the floor to begin a search and rescue mission.

There were only three people who could realistically be calling me—Andre Shepherd, Hanna Pham, and my dad.

It was Hanna.

"Why are there granola bars all over the bathroom floor?" she demanded, in lieu of a greeting.

"I'm sorry," I said. "The bottom of the box gave out. I was in a rush."

"Are you in class yet?"

"Nope. Buchanan. Third floor."

"Oh, shit. Is it Thursday already?"

It was, in fact, Thursday—otherwise known as deadline day at the Daily, Garland University's school paper. Our editor-in-chief wanted a hard copy turned in to a box on her desk by noon.

Joke's on her, I thought.

My article was going to suck no matter what format it was in.

The abomination in question had started chugging out of the printer at a speed of approximately two lines an hour.

I groaned and pinched the bridge of my nose.

"I'm in hell," I muttered under my breath.

"Well, at least you finished it, right?" Hanna offered. "Ellison can't get mad at you if it's done. You did your best. That's what counts."

I barked out a bitter laugh.

"Han, this is the worst thing I've ever written."

And I'd authored a lot of Jonas Brothers fan fiction back in middle school, so the standards of judgment were pretty low.