My Roommate Tried to Frame Me for Giving Her Syphilis, So After Rebirth, I Went on the Warpath Chapter 04
At ten minutes to ten the next morning, Grant stopped me outside the main auditorium.
“Mia, there’s still time to change your mind.
“Sign the withdrawal form right now and I won’t say your name once in there.”
I raised my eyes to him with something that wasn’t quite a smile.
“Save that offer for yourself. You’re going to want it in about ten minutes.”
I pushed the doors open and walked into the auditorium.
The noise in the room died all at once.
A few hundred pairs of eyes swung onto me, and somewhere in the rows people were swearing under their breath.
“Here comes the plague.”
“She actually showed up. No shame at all.”
I walked to the seat set aside for me and sat down without a word.
The assembly started at ten sharp.
“Everyone is here, so let’s begin.”
Grant stepped up to the podium with his face set hard.
“We’ve brought all of you here today because of a serious public health incident on this campus.
“Chloe, why don’t you start by telling everyone what happened.”
She had a mask on and looked like she might go down at any second.
“Two nights ago I forgot my shower things, and Mia came over and offered me her towel.”
Her voice caught, and the tears came down her cheeks in fat drops.
“She has been my best friend since move-in day, so I took it without thinking twice.
“I never once imagined she knew she had that disease and handed me a used towel anyway.
“Now I’m on shots and pills every single day, and my doctor says this could follow me for the rest of my life.”
The room broke into noise.
“Expel her!”
“Send her to prison! That’s assault!”
“Words are cheap. We have proof!”
Bree stood up right on cue and slapped a handful of receipts onto the projector.
One was a billing statement from a private clinic under a fake name. The other was a purchase record for a heavy-duty antibiotic.
“We found these wedged in the back of her cabinet when we cleared out her bed yesterday!
“She has known she was infected for a long time, and she has been quietly filling prescriptions for it!”
Kayla was on her feet right after her.
“I’ll back that up. For six months Mia has used tutoring as an excuse to stay out all weekend.
“When she got back last Sunday night she had these strange red patches on her neck, and she borrowed my full-coverage foundation to hide them!”
She threw me a look of pure disgust.
“I looked it up. That is the textbook rash you get in the first stage of syphilis.
“She knew she was contagious and she handed Chloe a used towel anyway. She’s taking it out on the rest of us!”
Grant’s face went dark.
“Mia, is there anything you would like to say?
“We have witnesses and we have documents. Refuse the medical review one more time and the department calls the police.
“And you will be expelled the same day.”
The auditorium broke into applause.
I let out a short laugh and walked straight to the podium.
My hand had barely reached the computer when Grant threw an arm in front of it.
“What do you think you’re doing? Get down! This is not the place for a scene!”
A few of the student officers rushed the stage to pull me back.
I grabbed the spare microphone off the podium.
“Mr. Mercer, if this is a public hearing, does the person it’s about not get a single word in her own defense?”
“Defend what? The evidence is right there!” Grant barked at me.
“Evidence? A receipt from God knows where and a few tears?”
I held up the flash drive in my hand.
“Give me five minutes of your time.
“In five minutes all of you can decide for yourselves whether I’m the one who should be walking out of this school, or whether the person who made this up is walking into a squad car in handcuffs.”
Down in the rows, people started looking at each other.
Grant’s face changed and he turned to call security, but Alan Whitfield, the dean of the college, who had sat through all of it without a word, spoke first.
“Let her play it. If this is a public hearing, she gets to defend herself. Once there is hard evidence on that screen, nobody is fooling anybody.”
Grant’s jaw tightened, and he stepped aside because he had no other choice.
I slid the flash drive into the computer.
Then I looked up and found Chloe in the front row. Her eyes had already started darting around.
“Chloe, you’re absolutely certain you got sick from using my towel. Is that right?”
She twisted the hem of her shirt in both fists, went white, and made herself nod anyway.
“Yes. It was the one you gave me.”
“Good.”
I hit enter.
“Then do me a favor and explain this to everybody in this room.”
The giant screen behind me lit up.
Every head in the auditorium came up at once.
The whole room sucked in a breath at the same time.
