Page 42 of Devil in Disguise

All righty, then.

Which was why, half an hour later, she was sitting in a waiting area, working through Engineering Statics problems andnotwondering what this was about. She still hadn’t had time to put on any makeup or even find a bra, but she had an hour to prep for class, and she’d already done at least half the homework. Not too bad. Not failure-bad. She could turn this around.

“Dyma Cardello?” a man asked. He was hovering in the hallway, wearing a golf shirt and slacks but looking like it was his disguise, because he’d rather be wearing a tie. Mr. Greene. Even hisnamesounded like he should be wearing a tie.

“Yeah.” She stood up, trying to stuff her book into her backpack at the same time. “Just a second.”

She followed him into the kind of office her mom tended to work in—meaning, “boring,” with white walls and a metal desk and stacks of folders. And a single visitor’s chair set in front of the desk.

What it was really like? An assistant principal’s office. She knew what those looked like. Let’s say she’d been there.

Mr. Greene settled himself in his chair behind the desk, opened a document on his computer, tapped a pen, looked up at her through his glasses, and said, “I’m sure you can guess why you’re here.”

“Well, no,” she said. “I can’t.”

He sighed, tapped his pen a few more times, and said, “When students have major conflicts with their roommates, we expect them to come to us, not take matters into their own hands.”

“Hey,” she said, “I didn’t start it. And, what, I can’t tell somebody off when they’re way out of line? What am I supposed to do, record our interactions on my phone and come in here to tell you my roommates are being mean to me? You must have one heck of a busy job if you care about that.”

He looked pained, like an accountant who’d just discovered that the diner was out of stewed prunes. “I’m going to remind you,” he said, “that you signed the Husky Code of Conduct, and you’re expected to abide by it.” He’d also noticed that she wasn’t wearing a bra, she could tell, because he was sort of looking past her.

She said, “Let’s say I forget what it said. What exactly did I do that violated the Husky Code of Conduct?”

“You engaged in a physical altercation with your roommates after a disagreement over quiet hours and struck one of them, and since then, you’ve created a hostile environment.”

Her mouth dropped open. “Seriously, dude?”

Some more accountant-without-prunes. “Seriously, Ms. Cardello. And that’s the right word, because we take this very seriously.”

It wasn’t that she wasn’t scared, because she was. Her mouth had gone dry. It was just that she was more mad than scared. “Except I didn’t. I never touched my roommates. Maybe I wanted to, but I didn’t. Because I don’t want to get kicked out of school, that’s why. I don’t have a dad who works for Microsoft or whatever. I don’t have a lot of other options.”

“Suppose you give me your version of the story,” he said.

“Suppose I ask you first who told you this. Sydney and Cassandra complained about me? Really?”

“That’s immaterial.”

“Wait,” she said. “It’s somebody’s parents, because this has ‘parent’ written all over it. Sydney and Cassandra wouldn’t do it. Theyareafraid I’ll beat them up. They barely even talk to me anymore. Somebody told their mom, and they left out the bad parts they did, so now they just have a psycho roommate that they’re scared of.”

He sighed. “And your side of the story would be …”

She told him. Not the way she’d told Owen after it happened. The way she’d have told the principal. Briefly. What she’d heard, and what she’d said.

“So you threatened them,” he said.

“Well, yeah, I guess. What, I’m supposed to let people talk about me sexually like that, in my own room? Know what that’s called? Sexual harassment. Don’t tell me that’s not in the Husky Code of Conduct. If you’re planning to discipline me for that, you’d better be ready for me to fight it, because I will.”

Obviously, she’d gone from “scared” to “mad.” That tended to happen.

He held up a hand. “Hang on, now. I didn’t say anything about disciplining you. This is a fact-finding meeting.” He tapped his pen some more, then said, “Is there anybody to back up your version of events?”

“What, were allmyfriends sitting around the room, too, listening to people talk about my body and how they wanted to fuck me, not to mention my general trashiness? No.” Probably because she hadn’t had any friends yet, but hey, it had been the first week. Also, yes, she’d said “fuck” in her disciplinary meeting. She wasreportingit, that was why.

“You didn’t tell anybody?” he pressed. “Your parents?”

As if she’d have done that. Like she needed her mom to worry more. “My boyfriend. On the phone.”

“Immediately afterward?”