Love Out of Order (Indigo Love Spectrum) (24 page)

I narrowed my eyes in confusion at her. “Lindie, what
is this?”

“Don’t play that game with me. It’s one thing if you
want to embarrass yourself. But this school—this journal
has a reputation to maintain. A reputation that you
should care about,” Lindie said. Her mouth was still
m
oving, but she was apparently too disgusted, furious, or
whatever else to make more words come out.

“Huh?” I looked down at the papers, but none of it
made any sense to me still. Most of the papers were pho
tocopies of journal articles from schools with lesser-
known law reviews. And there were some other papers
mixed in as well.

“This. You didn’t think I would notice? That no one
would catch you?” she screamed.

My heart sank as I started to catch on to what she was
ranting about.

“This is what you consider a student note?” She raked
a hand through her strawberry blonde hair before ges
turing to the papers again, apparently at a loss of words at that point.

I tried to swallow, but my mouth was too dry. It chose
that very inopportune moment to imitate the Sahara. I
peered more closely at my outline, the note that was sup
posedly mine, and the student notes from the other
schools’ law reviews before me. They all had striking sim
ilarities from what I could see. Too striking. But I had nothing to do with any of it. The only thing familiar was
the general topic. I hadn’t even used those notes as part
of my research.

“That’s not mine,” I said in a very small voice that I
barely recognized. That, admittedly, did not sound very
convincing. Lindie gave a cry of disgust mingled with disbelief that made me jump with its intensity.

“Denise! This is from the thumb drive you put in my
box,” Lindie said. My heart sank further, which I hadn’t
t
hought possible. I had given Lindie my thumb drive to check my note progress because I was having computer
issues, but—

“Well, it can’t be my, last semester you saw my—it’s
just not mine,” I said weakly. I sounded like such an
idiot. A lying idiot. But I was in such a state of shock that
I couldn’t come up with anything better.

Lindie jerked something from her pocket and held it
up to my face. Well, it did
look
like my thumb drive. It
was pink like mine. And had a chip in the lower left
corner of the casing like mine. Sighing angrily, she huffed
over to the computer at the desk. After jamming the
thumb drive into the USB port on the front of the com
puter, she looked over at me pointedly for emphasis. She
tapped her finger impatiently on the desk for the few
moments it took the computer to register the drive. Then
after double-clicking the “My Computer” icon, she
clicked on the icon for the thumb drive.

I let out a little cry of shock as I hastily read the names of the folders on the drive. They were mine.
Folders for my outlines, my exam answers, and so on. I held my breath as Lindie double-clicked on the folder
entitled “Law Review Stuff.” I scanned the files in panic.
The file for my note was gone. There was no file entitled
“D’s Note.” Instead, there was a file that shouldn’t have been there. A file I had not put there entitled “Student
Note.” So my note was gone. All of my work. All of my
research. For a fifty-page paper. Gone. And this impostor
in its place. This impostor that could get me kicked out
of school in its place.

“
That’s just not mine. It’s—it’s not mine. Someone switched—someone must have switched ’em. Someone
took my jump drive. And they put this thing—this thing
that’s not mine on it,” I stammered, backing away from
the computer. A pain I had never known before coursed
through my stomach. I was suddenly grateful I hadn’t
had time for lunch. The only thing I was grateful for at
that moment.

“Likely story,” Lindie said with a harsh little laugh of
disbelief. “We’ll just see what honor council has to say
about this.” She looked a little too happy about that. I had the feeling that Lindie didn’t care if I’d plagiarized
my note or not. She just wanted to see me kicked off of
law review. She hated me that much.

“But that’s not mine. My note’s gone. Lindie, please.
Someone got my drive. Someone got to that before you.”
Tears welled up in my eyes. I couldn’t get kicked out for something I hadn’t done. I couldn’t get kicked out in dis
grace. I couldn’t get kicked out of law school. My mother
would die. I would die.

“Denise, there are large sections of these notes ver
batim in your supposed note draft and outline. And no
hint of a footnote. Then again, I guess your whole
damned paper would be one long-ass footnote if you
tried to do that, huh?”

“But—”

“No one messes with my law review!” she screamed.
Her face was redder than her hair.

“I—”

“I mean it. Leave.”

“Give me—”

“Now.”

“I just—”

“Out!”

“You can’t do this to me!” I finally found my voice.
But it was too late.

“We’ll just see about that, you lying, sneaking thief. I
knew you weren’t law review material. And now I have the proof. You probably lied your way onto this journal
in the first place. Now you’re finally going to get what
you deserve.” Lindie pushed me out of the office. And
with that last syllable, she slammed the door shut in my
face. I sunk down against it, wondering what I was going
to do. If there was anything I could do. I didn’t know
who was watching and I didn’t care.

Who would do such a thing? Who could hate me so
much that they would want to ruin my life? What have I
ever done? What horrible person—

Of course.

“Cindy.” I jumped to my feet. I must have looked pretty insane in that moment. Hair sticking up all over
my head. Eyeliner and mascara streaked all over my red,
wet face. Sweater all twisted up and wet and wild-looking
from having been my makeshift handkerchief.

“What are you looking at? Get the hell outta here!” I
screamed at no one in particular, but at everyone in the
hallway at once. I have never seen people scatter so fast in
my life. Another new hot gossip topic. Ah, how won
derful for them. Glad my life was all the entertainment
they could need and want.

* * *

I gulped, my mouth acid with fear as I took a very
official-looking letter out of my mailbox from the dean’s
office, followed by another very official-looking letter from the honor council. It was the Friday after Lindie
had contributed to the ruining of my life. I sank down on
the ground next to the mailboxes for my apartment com
plex. The boxes were stationed outside near the parking lot. I didn’t even feel the cold and wet of the concrete
beneath me. I felt nothing at all. The world was rapidly
falling out from under me.

I didn’t have to read the letters to know my life was
over. But I went through the mechanics of ripping both
letters open simultaneously. I skimmed over formalities,
procedures, and more formalities. I then hugged the letters to my chest and closed my eyes.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I’m gonna be given a chance to present
my side alright
, I thought.

It was all going to be over very, very soon. No more
law school. Nothing. Less than nothing. Left with fear, bitterness, and anger. Just when I thought life had thrown its worst at me, it was only getting started. It seemed the
harder I tried to be happier, the harder life pushed me back down into darkness. I wanted to see life in a less
bleak way. A less desperate one. But it wasn’t happening.
Man, was . . .enius at screwing up my life. Ironically, it
was the only thing I could get right anymore.

“What should I even care anymore?” I muttered.
“You okay?”

I jumped, startled, at the sound of a voice. How dare
someone interrupt my wallowing? I glared up into the
confused face of some undergrad who was always hitting
my window with Frisbees. Even in the middle of winter.
Especially him.

“Yeah. I’m fine. Don’t mind me. My life is just falling
apart here,” I said.

He jumped back, raising his hands in front of him in some stupid, defensive gesture. “Hey, um, I just want my
mail. That’s all. So, whoa, don’t freak out or anything.”

“Then get it. And go away. Leave me alone. Just get
your stupid mail and walk away. Don’t mind the freak
show. Watch your step. Don’t wanna get too close. Don’t
let life get too real for you. I wouldn’t want to force you
out of fantasy land where everything’s so perfect for you.”

“But you’re—well you’re kinda in front of my box . . .”
he started. His voice trailed off as I shot daggers into his eyes with mine. “Um, yeah, that’s okay. You know what,
you just stay where you are. I can totally come back later,”
he said. And he backed off, tripping over his feet. Then,
he turned around and jogged back to his apartment.

I laughed bitterly. My bitter laugh turned into a sob. Astoria would have found that hilarious, if I could have
found the strength to pick up my phone and press send.
But even more importantly, if I could have found the
strength to hear her voice. I had been carefully avoiding Astoria since having received the worst news of my life. I
knew it wouldn’t be long before she found out, though.

A
storia cornered me after our trial advocacy class one
day before I could leave the classroom. I knew what she was
going to say and I’d been trying to avoid this conversation.

“I knew he would lead to something like this. Should I kill him? Or are you going to?” Astoria said.

Astoria had been trying ever since the day Lindie
threw me out of the journal office to talk to me about
what was happening. I hadn’t seen Suse since “the inci
dent.” And I was sure didn’t want to. Suse was spending
a lot of time locked away, working on her own note and
going through the latest Charles drama. Which made me
feel even crappier. I couldn’t even be a good friend to Suse
because of the nonsense that was going on in my life.

“He doesn’t have anything to do with this,” I said
defensively, even though I was thinking the same horrible
thought as Astoria.

“Like hell he doesn’t. You know those bitches did this.
And you know why they did it, too.”

Of course I did, but I repeated to Astoria the line I
constantly got from John, even though that line infuri
ated me. “He can’t control them.”

“Aw, hell. You sound just like him. He done up and
brainwashed your ass now.”

“I knew you would do this,” I said.

“What? Talk sense?” Astoria snorted, her voice acrid
with sarcasm.

“I should have known. You’ve been against us from the start.”

“Everything’s been against you two from the start.
You know why? ’Cause you shouldn’t be together.”

I
jumped at the sound of John’s voice. “Here we go
again. Always with this shit.” I hadn’t even heard him come in.

“What? I’m the only one using common sense out of
anyone in this room,” Astoria said.

“Sense. That’s what you call this ignorant, vicious
noise you’re always putting in Denise’s ear?”

My eyes kept darting between them as if I was
watching some kind of awful, nightmarish tennis game.
The words volleyed between them were becoming more
brutal with every swing.

“Well, I’m tired of you leading her on. All you’re
going to do is crush her in the end. Leave her broke up and not even care that you did it. Why you playin’ with
her emotions like this? That’s what I don’t understand.”