Chapter 35

Grant

There was no way I could sit in my office any longer. Ben was in his meeting, and the waiting was driving me absolutely nuts. Our entire futures hinged on how well Ben handled this meeting and whether the President believed him or not. My nerves were running wild, and I couldn’t concentrate on anything but that. Finally, I shut everything down and headed over to his office to sit down in the chairs out front. I wanted to be there when he got back from his meeting. I wanted to hear what was going to happen before it was told to Kylie so I could be prepared for the aftermath. I knew Kylie had to be as nervous as I was.

Ben was taking a lot longer than I thought he would and had been in the meeting with the president for over three hours. On one hand, that could have been a good thing, her giving him time to point out all the mistakes in this whole thing. On the other hand, she could be giving him discharge papers and explaining the process to him. I needed to get myself in check. I was so used to being the one in control, the calm one. But at that moment, with everything on the line, I was completely freaking out.

I stood up as soon as I heard footsteps, folding my hands together in front of me as Ben rounded the corner. He stopped for a minute, surprised to see me waiting outside of his office, and then picked up the pace, getting to me and putting his hand up. He didn’t want to talk about it where people could hear us. He unlocked his office and stepped inside, holding the door for me before closing and locking it. He waved to the chair, inviting me to sit down, and then went behind his desk, plopping down and running his hands over his face.

I wanted to give him time to cool down, gather his thoughts, and get himself back to normal. Jumping right in with a million questions was only going to frustrate him, and I was sure he’d just faced a million and one questions from the president. I sat tapping my foot, trying to keep control of my emotions.

“Okay,” I said, taking a deep breath. “I’m trying not to freak out, but I need to know what is going on. You were in that meeting for over three hours. What happened? What did she say? Did she believe you? Are we all fired?”

“Grant,” Ben yelled to get my attention. “You have got to keep yourself together here, man. Take a deep breath and calm down. What happened to you being the calm one? The one who kept his shit together all the time?”

“I don’t know,” I groaned, leaning back in the chair. “This whole thing has finally gotten to me. I feel like I’ve snapped.”

“Well, pull yourself together.” He shook his head.

“The truth of the matter is, it doesn’t look great,” he said. “It’s not the worst it could be, but it’s not the best it could be either. She is very doubtful, very upset, but I think I might have started to convince her of the lies. I showed her all the inaccuracies of the photo, showed her the cutouts, pointed out that the other man in the picture wasn’t even me. She took a magnifying glass to the damn thing. She looked like she was starting to come around by the time I left the meeting.”

“Good,” I said, sighing. “This whole thing is such bullshit. Well, it’s not really. We are actually breaking the rules, but if I’m gonna get caught, it’s not going to be from some hack job of a photoshopped picture.”

“There is one other thing,” he said. “They found out Kylie is pregnant. It was typed on the status with the picture. I told them I had no idea if that was true or not, but they are questioning those rumors. They will probably be calling her down to the president’s office next.”

“All right,” I said, calming down. “I should get back for office hours. Thanks for calming me down, man. I’m sorry I freaked out. I will be ready for Kylie when she comes knocking.”

“Just keep your chin up and your head down,” he said as I walked out of the office and back to mine.

I sat in the office for most of the afternoon, scanning through Facebook for any more copies of that picture. I didn’t find anything else on there, though, and was happy Kylie had switched her profile to private. Later that day, when I opened back up for office hours, there was a knock on the door. I opened the door to find Kylie standing there, looking a bit more than nervous. I invited her in and locked the door behind us. She walked in and plopped down in the chair, leaning her head back against the wall with her eyes closed. She looked exhausted, so I got up and grabbed her a bag of chips and some water.

She smiled as she took them from me, opening the water and taking a sip. This whole thing was bad for her and the baby. I couldn’t believe we were back in the same exact spot again. Only this time, we had way more to lose.

“So, I just left the meeting with the president,” she said. “They pulled me out of bed, which you know me. I wasn’t too thrilled about it. Turns out looking like hell when facing her worked in my favor. She immediately had sympathy for me. I am pretty sure I got her off our backs, at least for a little while. She seemed to believe everything I said, especially since I started crying, like, as soon as I sat down in her chair. These damn hormones are killing me.”

“What did she ask you about?”

“Everything,” she chuckled. “Everything in my life is now privy to the president. Well, everything I wanted her to think about my life at least. Of course, I didn’t tell her the truth. I wouldn’t be sitting here if that was the case.”

“Tell me what happened from the top,” I said, looking over at her.

“She started by pulling out the photo,” she said. “I sat there with her by my side pointing out every place that you could tell it was photoshopped. I told her where that picture of me came from and pulled out the copy of that picture and gave it to her.”

“Nice,” I said with a smile.

“She compared them and shook her head, seeming pretty satisfied with that explanation,” she said. “I even went on to her computer and showed her how Photoshop worked since she had no idea. I photoshopped a picture of her head on top of a ballerina. I have to say, my limited knowledge of Photoshop is better than the clowns who made the picture. She was impressed and cracked some joke about using that to slim herself down in the yearly graduation pictures. Of course, I giggled and offered my services.”

“You are too much,” I said shaking my head. “What happened next?”

“We talked about the first picture,” she said. “I went word for word with the original story that we had, adding in that we had run into Arthur and Jeffrey there. She was really curious why they would be at a hotel in Providence. I think that distracted her from wondering what we were doing there. I explained to her that there hadn’t been any more rumors about the three of us since that picture came out. I told her there was a good reason for that because none of us were connected, and after that happened, we made sure we barely even spoke to each other. Everything was academic after that.”

“Did she believe you?”

“I think she did,” she said, sitting up. “I really think that she did.”

“So that was it? All we had to do was send you to become besties with the president and everything would be cleared up? I need to remember that in the future,” I said, chuckling.

“Hopefully, we won’t need me like that in the future,” she pointed out. “But that wasn’t the last of it. She found out I was pregnant. She asked if the rumors were true, and I felt like lying to her was a bad idea. I’m still going to be here when I’m seven months pregnant, and I think she will notice that. I told her I was pregnant and begged her not to tell anyone until I was ready to come out with it. I told her at that point it was a vicious rumor, and I wanted to be able to get a handle on it.”

“That had to have raised some red flags,” I said, leaning forward.

“It did, but I made up a story fast.” She shook her head. “I told her I’d made a mistake, that I trusted this fraternity guy and thought he actually cared about me. Of course, I broke down in tears thinking about how sad it would be if it were true. I told her that he got me pregnant and told me he didn’t want anything to do with the baby. She sat down next to me and rubbed my back, even telling me about services the college offered to women who were going through similar things. She told me I had a bright future ahead of me even with a baby and gave me this really sweet pep talk. I almost felt bad for lying to her.”

“You had to,” I said, walking around and sitting next to her. “It was for all our best interests. I’m sorry you have to go through this. That you have to be in a place where everything is a lie.”

“It won’t be for that much longer,” she said with a kind smile. “I think she is convinced, and that is the most important thing to me right now. Having her walk me out, hug me, and tell me to come to her with anything I need made me know she no longer suspected the two of you. What she will do with the picture and this crazy person online, I don’t know, but I think we’ll be in the clear from here on out unless we severely screw up in some way. I want all of this to be behind us. I want to move on, graduate, and start out lives together without looking over our shoulders every five seconds. No, I won’t be Ben’s date to any dean’s dinners for a while afterward, but I can come home to you guys every day and know we’re a family.”

“You’re right,” I said, leaning forward and kissing her cheek. “Why don’t you go home, get a nap, and then come over to my house tonight? I’ll cook you some really good food, and we can relax and watch some movies or something.”

“That sounds nice,” she said, looking at me lovingly. “Thank you for always being there for me and for never letting me down. And tell Ben what happened when you see him. It will calm his nerves a little bit. I’m sure he’s on pins and needles waiting to find out something.”

“I will do that.” I helped her up and showed her to the door.

I watched her walk out and down the hall, shaking my head and smiling as I went back in the office. At least we could all breath easily tonight, even if we hadn’t heard from the president. I wasn’t even sure she would call me to her office now. It was hard on Kylie, but I was glad she was there to save the day yet again.