"Be quiet—can you hear me?" the voice on Brad's phone laughed, and the line crackled like it wanted to spill everything.
"Brad?" I said before I thought. My voice sounded small against the noise of the campus walkway.
"Shh," a woman's voice whispered. Then Brad's voice, loud and stupid and unmistakable: "Not here. I said not here."
"Who is that?" I managed. My hand tightened on the phone until the screen went bright with my grip.
Silence answered me. Then a laugh, high and satisfied. Breath. A bed squeak. The kind of sound you only ever hear in private.
"This is—who is that?" I asked again. The woman said something soft, and Brad said, "Later." He laughed, and it wasn't the laugh he used with me.
I think I dropped the phone. It clattered against the pavement and I bent without thinking to pick it up. My fingers shook.
"Immy?" I heard a distant voice call my name. I didn't turn. My ears were full of voices that didn't include mine.
I pressed my thumb to the call log. The screen showed Brad Bennett. I thumbed to call back and stared at the gray face of the building opposite me.
"You alright?" someone asked across the walkway.
"I'm fine," I lied. The lie tasted metallic.
People passed. A group of students in Bennett Group jackets swanned by, laughing. One of them looked over at me and smirked like he had been