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“Not too far from here, actually,” he said. “I’m from Newport Beach. I went to Waterview High. It’s just a ten-minute drive away.”
The moment she’d been waiting for had finally arrived. She did her best to seem genuine as she continued.
“Oh, I know a girl who went there,” she said excitedly as she conspicuously touched his forearm. “Do you know Eliza Dempsey?”
She studied his face as she said the name. He seemed a little nervous, but it wasn’t clear if that was because he knew Lizzie or because Hannah had made physical contact with him. She immediately regretted the choice to do so, as it muddled how to interpret his reaction.
“The name sounds familiar,” he replied carefully. “But I can’t picture her.”
“Hold on, I think I have a photo of her,” she replied, pulling up the selfie she’d taken of the two of them this afternoon specifically for this purpose. She held out her phone for him to see.
“Oh yeah,” he said. “I remember seeing her around campus last year. I didn’t really know here though.”
Hannah debated how to proceed. She needed more information, but she also wanted to protect Lizzie from avoidable blowback.
“So you don’t know what happened to her?” she asked, lowering her voice conspiratorially, even though they were alone.
“No,” he answered blankly. “What?”
“She told me that people at the school bad-mouthed her, spread rumors and stuff. You really didn’t know anything about that?”
“We didn’t really travel in the same circles,” he explained.
Hannah was getting frustrated. Finn’s lack of awareness seemed legit, but if he was behind this, he could have gotten quite good at practiced cluelessness. She decided to up the ante, even if it risked confrontation.
“But she dated Daniel Catalon,” she said. “You were on the lacrosse team together.”
He was quiet for a moment, seeming to process the consequences of what she’d said.
“How did you know that?” he asked suspiciously. “What is this?”
She pressed ahead, ignoring his quite valid questions.
“I’m just saying that you were on the same team with this guy. Lizzie broke up with him and then people started spreading crap about her. But you’re saying you don’t know anything about that stuff. I’m trying to decide if I believe you. I just want to know what kind of guy you are before this goes any further.”
“I’m not sure it should,” he said taking a step back from her.
Hannah silently noted that the flirting portion of their time together seemed to have officially ended. That was fine. Now she could be more direct.
“You would never harass her here at Irvine, would you, Finn?”
“Is someone doing that?” he asked, not answering her question.
“You tell me,” she shot back.
“There’s nothing to tell,” he said. “I don’t know anything about any of this and I’m starting to feel like you only brought me back here to ask me about it.”
“That’s a hurtful accusation,” Hannah said, even though it was true. “But now that we’re here, I feel like I’ve got to have my friend’s back, especially after everything she’s been through and considering that your fraternity has a history of harassment. Are you sure that as a new pledge, you didn’t offer her up to get bonus points with the members?”
For the first time Finn looked truly angry. Hannah almost welcomed it. If he made any kind of physical move, she was ready to take him out using the self-defense training that Jessie had made her take. But he made no attempt to approach her. Instead, he sighed heavily, lowered his head and shook it in frustration. When he looked up at her again, he had regained control of himself.
“Listen,” he said slowly, “You clearly don’t know me or what I’m about. I don’t owe you any explanation but I’m going to give you one anyway. Yes, I went to high school with Daniel, and we were on the lacrosse team, but that doesn’t mean we were buddies. I was injured part of the season, and I didn’t hang out with him anyway. And I joined this fraternity because my dad was in it. He pressured me to join, even suggested that any disposable income I might need at school was dependent on it.”
He looked around even though there was no one there, then continued in a quieter voice.
“To be honest, it wasn’t my first choice,” he muttered. “But so far, everyone has been pretty cool. Like you said, it doesn’t have the greatest reputation lately. Maybe that’s why all the guys are on their best behavior—because another violation during this school year would get them kicked off campus. Regardless, I haven’t seen anything that made me uncomfortable. And I definitely didn’t do anything like you suggested, offering up some girl I don’t even know as a potential victim of harassment just to get in good with the fraternity. I don’t know what your problem is, but I don’t appreciate you coming in and laying these accusations on me like this. Maybe you should go.”
Hannah didn’t have a quippy response. Finn made a compelling case, though there was no way she could verify it right now. Of course, there was also no way she could disprove it either, at least not with the information she had so far. Her only move right now was to back off.
