She found Grant near the sideline, toweling sweat from his neck, laughing at something Wade had said. He noticed her approaching before Wade did, and something in his posture shifted. A flicker of surprise quickly smoothed over into his usual easy smile. “Ohio,” he said. “Didn’t expect to see you here.”
Joe stopped a few feet away, close enough to be heard clearly, far enough to make clear she had not come to shout. “Paige has bruises on her arm,” she said. “From your friend.” Grant’s smile faltered just slightly. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” “I think you do,” Joe said, her voice level, unhurried. “I don’t have proof yet, but I will.”
“Is that a threat?” Wade said, stepping closer, some of his earlier smugness curdling into something harder. “No,” Joe said, and she looked at Grant when she said it. Not Wade, because she understood in the way her father had taught her to understand things exactly who was really in charge of what happened next. “It’s a fact. You can laugh at me. You can spread whatever you want about my family. I’ve let that go because it cost me nothing real.”
She paused and something in her voice shifted quiet and absolute. “But when you touch someone who can’t protect themselves, that ends here.” The field around them had gone quieter. A few nearby players slowing their drills to listen. The way people always slow down when they sense something is about to break open.
Grant recovered his smile, though it did not sit quite as easily on his face this time. “Big words,” he said, “for someone about to get thrown out of school on Friday.” “We’ll see,” Joe said, and she turned and walked away, unhurried, the same way she had walked away from him weeks earlier on this same field, leaving behind a silence that this time did not feel quite as certain of itself as it once had.
That evening, back in her dorm room, Joe finally told Nora everything, the suspension, the manufactured concerns about her financial aid, the hearing scheduled for Friday at six. Nora listened without interrupting, and when Joe finished, she was quiet for a long moment, weighing something in her mind. Then she reached into her desk drawer and pulled out the small personal drive she had kept hidden there for four days, turning it once in her fingers before setting it down on the desk between them.
“I think I might have something,” she said carefully. “It’s not complete. It’s not enough on its own, but I think it might be a start.” Joe looked at the drive, then up at Nora, a question forming in her eyes. “What is it?” “Footage,” Nora said. “From the day your bag was tampered with. I need a few more days to see if I can clean it up. Maybe get someone in my department to help identify who’s in it properly. But Joe,” she met her roommate’s eyes steadily. “I don’t think you did this. I never thought you did. And I think by Friday, we might actually be able to prove it.”