"She wanted results."
Silver barely slept after seeing the gossip post. The grainy photo of her and Eli, faces inches apart, burned into her mind every time she closed her eyes.
By morning, the gossip had spread faster than any wildfire.
Whispers chased her from the dorm hallway to the campus café, half-formed versions of the truth murmured behind cups of coffee and laptop screens. Everywhere she went, she caught fragments. "Lounge," "hockey guy," "late night." Like broken glass underfoot.
She kept her head down walking through Commons, hoodie pulled up, earbuds in even though no music played. But she could still feel the stares. The way conversations paused when she passed, then picked back up in hushed tones.
By the time she sat down across from Americus in the dining hall, her nerves were shot.
Americus didn't say hello. Didn't even look up from where she sat, arms crossed, jaw tight.
Her phone was flat on the table, the gossip post open like evidence at a trial.
