"Nothing spreads faster than gossip at Yale."
The photograph haunted Silver through the sleepless hours between midnight and dawn, floating behind her eyelids every time she tried to close them. She could see it perfectly—the grainy quality that somehow made it look more intimate than it had felt in person, the way the streetlight caught the snow falling like scattered stars around her and Carroway's silhouettes. By the time pale February light crept through the diamond-paned windows of her Gothic tower room, she already knew the damage would be waiting for her.
By breakfast the next morning, Silver's face was everywhere.
Not in the literal sense, thank God—but in every phone, every group chat, every hushed whisper that ricocheted across the vaulted dining hall like pucks careening off the boards during a chaotic power play. The medieval stone walls that had witnessed centuries of Yale drama seemed to amplify every murmur, every sideways glance, every badly concealed snicker.
