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November belonged to West, although I spent a couple days with my dad at Thanksgiving.

December belongs to the case.

“You want me to get your drinks?” Bridget’s scooping low-fat mayo into a bowl.

“Yeah, maybe two waters and a skim milk?” The dining hall uses these tiny glasses, so you have to take three or four to get enough liquid.

I carry the drinks, bread, crackers, and the bowl of soup I got on the line over to the table by the window where Bridget and I like to sit. She’s already there, mashing up hard-boiled eggs with a fork. There’s a pile of finely diced dill pickle on a plate. I slide into my seat and reach for the celery stalk.

I dice with a butter knife, remembering the first time I saw her make egg salad with ingredients off the salad bar. It was just a few days into first-year orientation. I was so glad, then, to have been assigned to Bridget by the housing gods, because here was a girl with ideas.

Here was a friend who was smart and kind and matched to me in every way that mattered.

She finishes mixing mayonnaise into the bowl of eggs. “I can take that celery.”

I pass her the plate, and she tips the diced celery in, along with the pickle, salt, and pepper.

“How was your lawyer thing?” she asks.

“Horrible.”

“What was it like?”

“They asked me every question fourteen times, and most of the time I wasn’t allowed to answer. When I was, I had to say whatever one thing I’d rehearsed with the lawyer, and then Nate’s lawyer would say something to make it sound like I was a crazy slut.”

“God.”

“I know. But it was exactly the way my dad told me it would be, so I knew what to expect.”

“Does that help?”

“What?”

“Knowing what to expect?”

I shrug, because the cry-pressure is building behind my eyes, and I should be tougher than this. I am tougher than this. “It just turns out that when smart, rich guys in suits spend hours asking you questions designed to make you feel like a crazy slut, it’s really hard not to start feeling like a crazy slut.”

“You’re not a crazy slut. We don’t even believe in sluts.”

“I know. But it’s still hard. It’s, like, superhuman difficult.”

“Did you cry?”

“In the car on the way home.”

“But not in front of the lawyers?”

“No, but only because we took two breaks so I could pull myself together.”

“Can’t you get out of doing this?”

“Only if we withdraw the suit.”

“But you’re not thinking about that.”

“I don’t know. I don’t know if I’m thinking about it.”

I haven’t let myself think about it.

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