At 2:00 AM, our Student Rep, Brad, tagged me in the class GroupMe. [Student ID ending in 0089 must report for the 800-meter fitness assessment. Absence will result in an automatic failure.] I woke up instantly. Yesterday, the lottery had picked my roommate, Tiffany. How did the number suddenly change to mine overnight? I told Brad I had just been discharged from the hospital and couldn't run half a mile. He accused me of slacking off. "The lottery picked you. If you don't show up, enjoy the disciplinary mark on your permanent record." So, on the day of the test, I showed up. I ran ten seconds, foamed at the mouth, and collapsed with a deafening thud right in front of the State Senator who was visiting campus. The next day, Brad, the Dean, and the entire administration were in a total panic. 1 At 2:00 AM, the vibration of my phone jolted me awake. It was a notification from the class GroupMe. Brad, our Student Rep, had tagged me. I rubbed my eyes, reading the message twice in disbelief. [Student ID ending in 0089, report to the track at 2 PM sharp for the mandatory physical assessment. Attendance is non-negotiable.] I stared at the screen. 0089. That was me. But I vividly remembered the lottery results from yesterday. The ID selected was 0088. That belonged to Tiffany, my roommate and the class Social Chair. How did the number shift by one digit overnight? I scrolled up to check yesterday’s logs. Conveniently, all messages regarding the lottery had been deleted by an admin. Only the new notification remained. Run an 800-meter dash? Absolutely not. Two days ago, I had an emergency appendectomy. The doctor explicitly told me: No strenuous exercise. Asking me to run 800 meters wasn't a test; it was a beautifully orchestrated attempt at manslaughter. I didn't want Brad to go to jail for murder, so I messaged him privately. [Brad, I literally just got out of surgery for my appendix. I can't run. Please redraw the name.] Seconds later, Brad posted a new announcement in the main chat, using a pinned message so everyone would see. [The list has already been submitted to the Dean’s office. No substitutions. No exceptions.] Then, he replied to my DM: [The lottery picked you. Stop making excuses. If you aren't there, I'm reporting you for truancy.] My grip on the phone tightened. I turned to the other bed in my dorm. Tiffany was awake, scrolling on her phone. "Tiffany," I said, trying to keep my voice calm. "Yesterday, you were the one picked for the run. Did Brad make a mistake?" 2 Tiffany didn't even look up from applying her lip gloss. "There's no mistake. It was always you. Just run fast and don't embarrass our class, okay?" I looked at my other two roommates. They avoided my eyes. "Yeah, Sarah, it was you yesterday. Just suck it up." "If you skip, you'll get a disciplinary strike. You know how hard those are to expunge. Just jog it." I almost laughed out loud. Asking a girl with fresh stitches in her abdomen to run half a mile? This wasn't a mistake. This was a setup. Brad and Tiffany were dating. He was obviously swapping the numbers to save his girlfriend from sweating, expecting me to just eat the loss. Well, I wasn't going to play nice. 3 Early the next morning, I went straight to our Academic Advisor, Ms. Perkins. I explained that I was post-op and couldn't run. Ms. Perkins didn't even look at my paperwork. She just sighed, annoyed. "Sarah, Brad already briefed me. The lottery is fair and random. You refusing to participate shows a lack of school spirit." "If our class fails the participation metric because of you, it affects the whole department's funding. Do not be selfish." "And don't try to fake sick. Do you know how many students claim they have 'appendicitis' before the fitness test? It's a cliché." I slammed my hospital discharge papers and the bill onto her desk. "Is a bill for $15,000 a cliché, Ms. Perkins?" She glanced at it and waved her hand dismissively. "I've seen Photoshop before. The school takes this test seriously. Unless you have a note from the Surgeon General himself, you are running." My blood pressure skyrocketed. Normally, getting a medical exemption requires a bureaucratic nightmare of paperwork that takes weeks. I had gone to the ER off-campus. She was walling me off. Since the official route was blocked, I went to the battlefield: the GroupMe chat. [ @Brad : There is no record of the drawing in the chat. Did you perform this 'lottery' in your dreams?] Two minutes later, Brad posted a photo. It was a wrinkled piece of paper with "0089" scribbled on it in sharpie. It proved nothing. He could have written it five seconds ago. [Random selection. Fair and square. If anyone has a problem, DM me.] Tiffany immediately chimed in: [This is a chance to show our class pride! Everyone needs to cooperate with the Student Reps.] "Cooperate?" I laughed. At the start of the semester, Brad and Tiffany skipped a mandatory lecture to go on a date, forgetting to submit our class's group project. The professor failed the whole class on that assignment. Brad had given a tearful apology then, promising to "do better." I guess "better" meant forging documents. I opened the Google Sheet where the class roster was stored. It was shared with everyone. I checked the "Version History." I took a screenshot of the edit made at 2:03 AM and posted it to the group. [Brad, yesterday the selected ID was 0088—Tiffany. Why did the spreadsheet get edited at 2 AM to change it to 0089?] [Does Excel have a mind of its own now?] Brad didn't panic. He replied instantly: [Tiffany has been working tirelessly organizing the Fall Formal. As Student Rep, I used my discretion to rotate the duty to the next person on the list to prevent burnout.] Working tirelessly? Yesterday, Tiffany posted twenty Instagram stories of herself kayaking at the lake. I screenshotted her Instagram and dropped it in the chat. [Kayaking all day looks exhausting. Glad she has the energy to type in the chat, though.] The group went silent. Tiffany, humiliated, finally snapped in the chat: [The list is finalized! It cannot be changed! If you don't show up, it's on you!] 4 At 1:00 PM, Ms. Perkins called me into her office again. She adjusted her glasses, looking at me with pure disdain. "You students are so fragile. 'Snowflakes,' as they say. This test is critical. If you had an issue, you should have said something before the list was submitted to the Dean." "I tried," I said. "Brad changed it overnight." She rolled her eyes. "You need to learn to support your leaders. Go get ready." She grabbed her purse and trotted out. Everyone knows the 800-meter run is the worst. Nobody wants to do it. If I managed to get out of it now, someone else would have to be picked last minute. Brad had set me up so that if I quit, the class would hate me. I walked back to my dorm. I turned off the lights and climbed into bed. Who cares about the 800 meters? Let the class score a zero. If I fail, I'm the only one in trouble. If the class fails, the Advisor loses her bonus. Let them burn.
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