Page 140 of Study Buddies

“It’s going to be fine,”I said to Kyle as we waited outside the English Department conference room.

I stood up, absent-mindedly starting to pace, but Kyle tugged on my hand until I sat down again. “It’ll be fine,” I repeated.

“So you’ve said.”

He looked remarkably calm, for someone accused of cheating. And—though this should’ve been the last thing on my mind—remarkably good. He had on black jeans, a tight blue gray henley shirt that brought out the color of his eyes, and for the first time in my memory, his varsity baseball jacket.

It looked good on him—very good. Which wasn’t the point. His looks weren’t on trial, just his integrity. And possibly mine. Because anyway you sliced it, if the department truly thought he cheated, then they had to either think I was in on it or incompetent. Neither were pleasant thoughts.

But the worst thought was how hard Kyle had worked. How he’d really tried, especially with his last paper. And now they wanted to fail them.

As if reading my mind, he patted my arm. “Your grade should be fine. They can’t hold you accountable if your student cheated.”

“You didn’t cheat,” I said firmly. “And it seemed like they didn’t have an issue with failing me if my tutoring student failed.”

His jaw clenched, and he looked away.

“You didn’t cheat, Kyle,” I said again. “That’s the important thing. That’s all that matters.”

He shook his head slowly, clearly not believing me. “To be honest, Tori, they probably would have accused me of cheating even if AI that can write papers in seconds didn’t exist. I don’t know how we’re going to prove otherwise.”

We’d been through this before. That was the only thing I’d been able to learn before his meeting, that they thought he used AI to write his papers, which was ridiculous. And I hadn’t even learned that from my advisor, who hadn’t answered any of my messages. That info had come from Professor Abrams, my Comp 102 teacher.

I patted my journal, and the prints-outs in it. “I’ve got a record of every tutoring session and what we covered in each one. I’ve got the dates of all the drafts you wrote. Every study group you attended.”

His hand had moved to my thigh, but he kept it still, like an afterthought. Needless to say, that wasn’t how he usually approached touching me. But then he gave a ghost of a smile. “I hope you didn’t provide full details of everything we did during the study group sessions.”

For his sake, I returned his smile. “I was vague on a few parts of it.”

He was silent, his expression stony. Every time someone walked past us in the hallway, I looked up, wondering if we wereabout to be summoned into the little room. But apparently they were in no hurry to let us in there.

Kyle cleared his throat. “They can’t fail you if I cheated,” he said gruffly.

“You didn’t cheat.”

“I know, but even if they don’t believe that, they shouldn’t be able to touch you.”

“That’s not what I’m worried about.”

There was a tick in his jaw as he looked away.

Finally, Professor Abrams poked her head out of the room. “Kyle? Tori? They’re ready for you.

We stood, and I felt the absurd urge to take his hand. But he was a grown man, he didn’t need me to do that. Except I kind of wanted to do it, anyway.

Professor Abrams gave me a brief smile as she held the door for us, but there was obvious concern on her face.

Inside the conference room, several people were already seated around the table. My advisor, Dr. Mitchell was there. He didn’t even look up when I came in. Maybe he was still irritated about how I’d stood up to him before about my class choices next semester. But I was glad I’d done that—and grateful that Kyle had encouraged me to do so.

A man in a suit sat next to my advisor. I was pretty sure he was the assistant chair of the English department. And there was a guy in his early thirties in a windbreaker, whom Kyle obviously knew. He must’ve been the representative from the Athletics Department. Kyle shook his hand and sat down next to him, and I didn’t like the way it looked, as if Kyle was on trial with his representative at his side. Which, I supposed, was true. But it wasn’t right, and to be honest, it scared me.

Professor Abrams indicated a chair next to her, which was supportive of her, but I sat on Kyle’s other side, unwilling toabandon him. And also making it clear, up front, that I didn’t believe the accusations against him.

Once we were settled, the co-chair of the department, Dr. Daniels, began with a long speech that included phrases such as interdepartmental cooperation, good faith arrangements, and lack of academic integrity, and betrayal of Langley standards.

Wonderful. Good to know he was keeping an open mind.

Then he laid out the gist. It was as we suspected, he thought that Kyle had used AI to write his papers. “We ran both of the papers he’s turned in so far this semester against an AI checker, and the likelihood that they were written by AI was 86% and 91% respectively.”

---