Photos of Chapman, clippings, and red marker scribblings covered the walls. The smell of burnt popcorn filled the room, and an inkjet printer spit out pages like the press under the Times building. Lakshmi grabbed two pages from the expanding stack, walked them and a bowl of popcorn to Caitlin, then ended her phone call on her way back to the kitchen.

“Caitlin,” she said over the sound of a refrigerator door opening, “I am so sorry for how things ended last night. I know I should have told you about the restraining order.”

Caitlin shook her head. “I got your texts.”

There’d been three that morning.

A drawer opened and shut. “Sorry about that too, but I believe a proper apology is done in person, preferably with alcohol.” Lakshmi reappeared with two topless domestics. “Fancy a beer?”

“Hold that thought.” Caitlin fixated on the heading of the pages in front of her: Initial draft, not for public release. “What am I looking at?”

Lakshmi set one of the bottles on the coffee table between them and hovered, holding the other. “The executive summary of a campus-wide sexual abuse study that won’t publish until the fall. Listen to this.” She took the top page.

“ ‘Seventeen percent of the undergraduate women participating reported being the victims of attempted or completed nonconsensual sexual penetration while at college, while twenty-nine percent reported experiencing some type of nonconsensual sexual contact.’ ”

She drank from her beer, kept going. “ ‘Additionally, thirty-five percent of undergraduate female participants and a similar percentage of graduate students reported experiencing some form of sexual harassment.’ ”

She handed Caitlin the paper, pointed to a paragraph. “You have to read this part; it makes me too angry.”

Caitlin read to herself.

Perhaps most distressing, however, was the revelation that among those participants who did not report an experience of the most serious type of sexual misconduct—nonconsensual attempted or completed sexual penetration—45 percent of the undergraduate women and 29 percent of the women graduate students indicated that they didn’t feel the incident was “serious enough” to disclose.

Caitlin reached for the other beer, took a sip. “It’s a really great pull, Lakshmi. Awful, but congratulations.”

“Maybe it will help with your story.”

“Maybe.”

Lakshmi joined her on the couch, her hands folded in her lap. “I know I should have told you about the restraining order straight away, but I didn’t want to risk losing you.”

Caitlin inched away from Lakshmi. “Losing me?”