Elena's POV
Someone has released footage of me in Professor Winters' office.
It is edited as usual. Now this person has skills, because I was never in the professor's office in the first place. I followed Ethan's advice and I refused point blank. Second, I don't even do women.
By the time I get to class people are whispering the word lesbian at my back like. I walk through the hallway thinking about all the ways I am going to find whoever is doing this and make their life genuinely difficult.
Professor Winters is suspended. Pending investigation. I have dragged the poor woman with me. She probably has a husband who thinks she is a cheat now.
I go to the dean's office. I sit down across from him and I tell him everything from the beginning. I lay the phone out like evidence.
He picks it up. Check it.
Turn the screen toward me.
The phone is completely dead. Black screen. Will not even turn on.
"You need a mental evaluation…" the dean says
Later in the day,I am sitting in a white room across from a campus psychiatrist. Apparently a student who gets expelled twice, accuses professors of things they did not do, and carries around a phone with no evidence on it is a student with concerning behaviour patterns.
I answer her questions. I keep my voice level. I watch her write things down.
The Broken Pieces find me that evening in the library.
I have not told David and Olivia about the phone. I do not want to drag them into it. I just tell them I was set up and the footage is fake and I need them to believe me.
"Obviously you were set up," David says. "You are not stupid enough to do something like that on campus."
Olivia nods. "We know."
Only Ethan knows the real truth. He has not stopped quietly digging since the night his father was hospitalised.
The next day, I have a task
TASK: Go to the dining hall at peak lunch hour. Pour your tray over your own head. Stand there for one full minute. Do not move. Do not react. Failure penalty: we ruin Olivia Santos. You have seen what we can do.
I put the phone down.
I sit on the edge of my bed and I think about Olivia who did not even blink when I told her I was set up. Olivia who has never once looked at me like I am too much trouble.
I am not dragging Olivia into my mess.
I get up. I go to the dining hall.
Peak lunch hour. The place is packed. Every table full, every corner occupied, the noise level high and comfortable and ordinary. I join the food line. I get my tray. Rice and soup. I pay and I turn around and I walk to the very centre of the dining hall.
I stand there for one second.
Then I lift the tray and tip it over my own head.
The rice hits first. Then the soup, warm and orange sliding down my face, into my hair, across my shoulders.
The dining hall erupts.
Screaming laughter. Chairs scraping. Phones shooting up instantly, everyone recording, someone already going live, I can hear it in the way they are narrating what they are seeing.
I stand there.
One.
Two.
Three.
I count in my head with my eyes open and my face completely still and I think I should not keep friends. I think everyone I get close to becomes a target. Ethan's father. Now Olivia. Everyone I care about is leverage. Maybe the kindest thing I can do for any of them is become someone they are afraid of instead of someone they love.
Four.
Five.
A chair scrapes loudly across the floor on the far side of the room.
I see Thomas stand up.
He does not rush. He does not look around at the crowd or at the phones or at the chaos. He looks only at me. He picks up his jacket from the back of his chair and he walks through the dining room.
He stops in front of me.
He puts his jacket around my shoulders.
Then he steers me toward the exit without saying a single word and the entire dining hall goes up in wows
Victoria appears at the door.
She steps into Thomas's path with her chin up and her eyes blazing. "Thomas, what are you doing? You cannot be serious right now…"
"Leave my path," he says.
"She is humiliating herself and you are going to…"
"I said move Victoria."
Victoria's face reddens in embarrassment. Then it hardens back into the usual armour and she steps aside.
She turns to launch herself at me instead and I brace.
Then Ethan walks through the cafeteria entrance.
He takes in the scene in about half a second. He does not know what happened. He has no context. He just sees Victoria Sterling moving toward Elena with her hands out and he steps directly in front of her.
"Stop, rabid dog," he yanks her mid-launch.
Victoria looks at him like he is something small and ignorable. "Get out of my way, scholarship boy."
"Make me," Ethan says. Very calm. Very steady. He knows this is trouble and he does not move anyway.
Victoria stares at him.
Ethan stares back.
Thomas steers me through the door before I can see how it ends.
**
Outside the air is cold and I am covered in rice and sticky soup. Thomas is standing in front of me with his hands in his pockets looking at my face.
"Are you okay," he says.
"What do you care? You and you psycho babe," the words tumble out of me grudgingly
He looks at me for a long moment. Like he is deciding something. Then he says it.
"It was me. In the hotel room. I was the one."
I go very still.
He holds my gaze.
"And I have been watching you since before that night." His voice is quiet and even and absolutely certain. "We need to talk. Tonight. My room."
"Go get yourself cleaned up…" he turns and walks back inside.