Sasha hadn’t slept—her eyes rimmed raw, the last vestiges of mascara smeared beneath them. She sat cross-legged on her stripped bunk, a half-packed duffel at her feet, absently tracing her thumb over the jagged edge of a blister. The dorm was nearly silent, save the distant shuffle of early risers. Riley’s bed was empty. She didn’t have to wonder where her friend had disappeared to.

The weight in Sasha’s chest was heavier than anger—heavier even than envy. She glanced at her cracked phone, at the unsent message to Wilkins, her finger hovering. No apology, no explanation could unstitch the mess she’d made. She deleted the draft, breath shaking, and pressed her palms to her eyes.

The door creaked. Riley stepped inside, hair mussed, eyes rimmed with exhaustion and something like hope. Their gazes caught and clung. For a moment, neither spoke.

“I know,” Sasha whispered, voice brittle as shattered glass. “About you and Elias. And about what I did.”

Riley’s shoulders slumped. She sank to the edge of Sasha’s bunk, close but not touching. “I know about you and Wilkins,” she said softly, words trembling. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

Sasha gave a small, humorless laugh. “Would you have understood? Or just seen me as some walking scandal like everyone else?” Her voice warbled, the sarcasm empty, her usual shield gone.

Riley hesitated, then reached over and took Sasha’s hand, thumb brushing the mark of her blister. “You’re my best friend,” she murmured. “I was so scared of losing you, I didn’t even realize you were drowning too.”

Tears pressed at the corners of Sasha’s eyes. “I wanted to burn it all down for you. Instead, I nearly took you with me.”

They sat quietly, fingers laced, letting the ache and forgiveness bleed between them. Sasha pressed her forehead to Riley’s shoulder, clinging for one last moment of childhood before the world pried them apart for good.

“You’ll be okay,” Sasha whispered as Riley rose, voice steadier now. “You’ll have him. That… matters.”

Riley paused at the door, half-turning. “It matters that I’ll miss you,” she said, voice catching. Then she was gone.

In the corridor, Elias waited, back pressed to peeling paint, jacket slung over one arm. For the first time, he looked completely untethered, his cool reserve shattered.

“They want you in the director’s office,” he said, eyes searching her face for cracks. “I’ll walk with you. If you want.”

She nearly crumbled at his gentleness. They walked in silence, knuckles brushing, each glance a promise. When she was called inside, Elias watched her go, jaw clenched and eyes storm-bright, knowing his world was about to tilt.

Inside, Riley faced the tribunal—Wilkins nowhere to be seen, his career already ashes thanks to rumors that had Sasha’s fingerprints all over them. The questions they lobbed were pointed, cold, digging at her secrets. “Do you have anything to say for yourself, Ms. Summers?”

She drew a single breath, let her shame burn into steel. “I’m more than what you’ve found online,” she said quietly, voice sure. “I’ve worked for this place. I loved it. But I won’t apologize for wanting something more.”

They deliberated with furrowed brows and murmured words she never quite heard. The verdict—dismissal, effective immediately—felt less like a guillotine and more like the snipping of a too-tight thread. She didn’t cry, not here, just squared her shoulders and walked out into the too-bright hallway, Elias waiting at the far end.

He stood as she approached, something breaking in his expression as he looked at her empty hands. Without a word, he shrugged his jacket free, draped it over her shoulders, and took her face in his hands.

“I can’t stay,” he murmured, voice wrecked and beautiful. “Not here. Not without you.”

She surged into him then, hands in his hair, breath mingling as the world narrowed to the taste of his mouth and the heat of his body. He pressed her back against the cool cinderblock wall, one hand at her jaw, the other sliding beneath the hem of her shirt, desperate to memorize the curve of her waist, the quickening of her pulse.

They barely made it to her empty dorm, door locked behind them. Sunlight spilled careless across tangled sheets as Elias kissed every inch of doubt from her skin. He undressed her slowly—reverent, trembling, as if he still couldn’t believe this was allowed. Riley ached for him, for the freedom simmering in the air between them.

His hands traced fire along her thighs; his mouth was warm, insistent, urging her hips upward. He worshipped her body without words, coaxing every shiver and gasp until she arched beneath him, need coursing through her like electricity. When he entered her—slow, deep, a single sound caught low in his throat—they moved together as if nothing else had ever mattered. She clawed at his shoulders, moaning his name, and he shattered against her, pleasure and heartbreak twined.

After, she curled into the hollow of his chest, feeling the rhythmic thud of his heart, the sweat cooling between them. He held her fiercely, as if daring the world to pry them apart again. Their whispered promises—“We’ll figure it out… I love you… whatever comes next”—danced in the hush before sleep.

Later, when the sun broke through the blinds, Riley sat up, hair tangled, traces of Elias pressed into her skin. She watched him pull on his shirt, pause, and meet her gaze with a small, crooked smile—one part apology, all devotion.

Across campus, Sasha wandered the empty quad, the wind tugging at her hair. She stopped, tipped her face to the dawn, and let the silence settle around her. Slowly, carefully, she let her heart open—just a crack—to the idea of something new. For the first time in forever, she felt the ache inside her loosen, making room for hope.

Inside the dorm, Riley and Elias lay together, fingers entwined, the sheets tangled around their legs. The world outside thudded on—doors slamming, voices rising—but for now, they stayed wrapped in the afterglow, savoring the freedom, the fear, the promise of a future uncharted and impossibly bright.

And when Riley finally closed her eyes, she let herself believe—just for a moment—that love was worth it, no matter the scars, no matter what they’d lost.