Page 71 of Final Drive

“I understand.”

“Including your designation status, if it’s relevant.”

I keep my voice level. “She targeted me because of my designation. It’s the whole shape of the harassment.”

“Then it will come up.” Okafor’s expression is careful rather than warm. “I’m telling you so the decision you make is an informed one.”

“I already made it.”

She studies me a moment, then opens a laptop. “Walk me through it. Start wherever it starts.”

So I do. The first time Kinsley put herself in my way outside the boathouse. The texts. Her friends trailing me across campus, always at exactly the distance where I could feel them. The restaurant footage she passed to Quinton Whitmore. The way all of it accelerated once we started winning.

Okafor types steadily and only interrupts to pin down a date or a name. She doesn’t react to any of it, which I’m grateful for. I don’t need somebody to feel sorry for me. I need somebody to take notes and do the job.

“You’ve mentioned Quinton Whitmore,” she says when I stop. “Where does he sit in this?”

“Kinsley is what got me through your door. He’s part of the same pattern.” Tyler and I went back and forth about it half of last night while Eli slept with his arm across my stomach, and this is where we landed. All of it in one place, and let the office sort out the procedure. “They were coordinating.”

“How?”

“Kinsley filmed me at a team dinner. That footage ended up with Quinton. He used what he learned from it when he made unwanted physical advances.”

“Are you saying Mr. Whitmore assaulted you?”

“He grabbed my arm and tried to kiss me after I told him I was leaving. I pushed him off and got out. It’s in the timeline with the date on it.”

Okafor stops typing. “Then Mr. Whitmore isn’t incidental to this, and I won’t treat him as though he is. His conduct may have to be addressed on a separate track, procedurally. It goes into your report today either way.”

“Okay.”

She starts typing again, adding something to what she’s already written. When she finishes, she folds her hands on the table.

“Then let me be honest with you. This office takes every complaint seriously. A high-profile athletic program, active press coverage, and these two names in particular are going to make the process harder than it should be.”

“Harder how?”

“Ms. Adams has longstanding family ties to this university. Mr. Whitmore’s father sits on the athletic advisory board. Neither of those changes what this office is obligated to do, and both of them tell me the process will be contested.”

My stomach goes over. I knew about Quinton’s father. Whatever longstanding family ties is doing in that sentence is new.

“So it gets slow because of who they are.”

“Slower and harder than you want,” she says. “Not impossible. If the documentation supports what you’ve reported here, there are clear grounds to open an investigation.”

“It’s documented.” I take Tyler’s folder out and put it on the desk. “Screenshots with metadata. A timeline. And a written statement from a woman at another school who went through the same pattern with Quinton Whitmore four years ago.”

Okafor opens it. She gets through three pages before she stops turning them.

“Who assembled this?”

“My teammate. Tyler Wu. He’s a dual major in physics and economics, and he builds a case the way he’d build a proof.”

“I can see that.” She sets the folder to one side. “I’ll read it in full today. If it holds up the way I expect it to, a formal investigation into Ms. Adams opens by close of business and she’s notified inside forty-eight hours.”

“And Quinton?”

“One step at a time, which I gather is already your strategy.” She rests a hand on the folder. “His conduct is part of the report. What happens procedurally from here depends on what the initial review supports.”