Christmas came and went. I went home to Iowa for two weeks and came back in January to a frozen campus and a new semester. Elliot picked me up at the bus station, and when we got to my building, he parked the car and did not get out.
"I want to ask you something," he said.
"Okay."
"Why did you tell me to wait? On the steps. In the rain. You could have told me the truth right there. You knew who did it. Why did you give yourself a day?"
I had never told him. I had told the dean, and Priya, and my mother, but I had never told him.
"Because I needed to know I would do it," I said.
"Do what?"
"Tell the truth even when it cost me something." I looked at the windshield. "All my life, the easy thing has been to take the blame, because if I take it, nobody has to fight. If I say it was my f
