Whistleblower ✓

05 | the art house

As predicted, the Art House had boxed wine. Within five minutes of our arrival, I'd downed two glasses and poured myself a third, which I nursed as the three of us wandered around the party aimlessly.

The house rented out by the art club was perhaps the oldest on the Rodeo—an enormous brown-shingled monstrosity with peeling paisley wallpaper and warped wood flooring in every tiny, cramped room. Smoke drifted through the house from the screen door in the back, and the song blasting from the speakers in the living room was one I didn't recognize.

It wasn't exactly my scene. But I'd been there enough to know how to fake it.

My roommate, on the other hand, was right at home. We barely made it through the door before a cluster of kids from her figure drawing class came over to greet her with hugs and fist bumps and one formal handshake. So Hanna was having a delightful time—although it probably had something to do with the five shots of whiskey she'd had at the pregame.

"We should play beer pong!" she exclaimed. "Andre! Where's Andre?"

Andre, who was standing directly behind her, put his hand on top of her head.

She spun around under his palm, her hair getting all mussed.

"BP. Let's go. I'll kick your ass."

This coming from a girl who was a full foot shorter than him.

Hanna's face was flushed bright red and her pin-straight black hair—which she'd chopped off over the summer so it fell two inches shy of touching her shoulders—was rumpled, but somehow her winged eyeliner had remained un-smudged.

That was Hanna, though. She was a walking Instagram candid.

"Those are fighting words," Andre warned her.

"Laurel," she said, "get the Natty Light."

My red Solo cup of wine and I made our way into the kitchen, where a pair of guys were having a loud and slightly slurred argument.

"No, you're not listening," one said to the other. "If Banksy was one guy, we'd have caught him by now. It's gotta be more than one guy—"

"Excuse me," I murmured.

They didn't show any sign they'd heard me.

I huffed and shouldered between them to grab a cardboard case of beer from the countertop. It was pretty heavy. I debated setting my wine down and ditching it, then decided to get creative and bit the edge of my cup so I could use both arms to carry the beer.

If only my dad could see what my tuition's really paying for.

Hanna and Andre were in the dining room, setting up empty red cups on either end of a table that looked like it been handcrafted by a freshman who'd accidentally enrolled in a woodshop class and decided to roll with it.

Hanna kept knocking cups over with her elbow. Andre hovered beside her, diligently setting them upright again each time.

"Don't you dare spill!" Hanna warned when she saw me.

She'd let me borrow one of her shirts to wear with my high-waisted denim shorts, which were technically also hers from her chubbier days back in freshman year, before she'd taken up running.

I set down the beer and carefully plucked my cup from between my teeth.

"Ta-da!" I said with a flourish.

Hanna wasn't amused.

I helped Andre pour four beers into all twenty cups, then stood back and sipped my wine while Hanna made a show of stretching.