He shakes his head and finally closes the laptop. “I’m sorry. We’re not even allowed to look at it if it’s locked.” His expression is blank, and he keeps glancing at the door, as if help might arrive soon. Then it occurs to me that maybe hehascalled for help. Maybe he has some sort of button under his desk that summons campus security when someone gets too upset. Like in a bank robbery.
Maybe this has happened before. Not just to me.
“She stole it,” I say under my breath, maybe just to confirm it out loud for myself. The words taste like rust. Like blood. I hate them.
Hate that this is my reality.
He chuckles under his breath again, as if I’ve made a joke. “She wouldn’t do that.”
I meet his eyes one last time, knowing he doesn’t believe me. Just like no one believed me back then. And with that, I’m moving. The door slams behind me harder than I mean for itto. I’m back up the stairs, past the pictures and the vending machines.
I don’t see the person at first, just past the entrance to the student center. She’s a blur of movement in my periphery, just another student.
Then I hear my name—quiet, cautious. As if she doesn’t believe it’s really me.
“Lila?”
I stop. My breathing is so loud in my ears I’m not even sure I heard it. Slowly, I turn.
When I see her face, something flutters in my chest like wings. “Jade?”
It’s impossible and also…inevitable. Of course she’d be here. She was themebeforeme. Ralston’s protégé before I came along. I haven’t seen her in years, but her features are the same. Softer, maybe. More tired. Her dark skin is still beautiful, her hair still worn in a buzz cut.
She holds a laptop against her chest like a shield. “Didn’t expect to see you here.”
“Um. Same,” I manage to say.
Her eyes flick over me. “Are you…here for”—she looks away, rolling her eyes—“Ralston Week?” The words sound like they taste bitter on her tongue.
I snort, feeling equally bitter. “Not exactly.”
There’s a beat, and then she nods, almost as if she gets it. Maybe she does. Maybe not.
“Something weird just happened,” I admit, watching her closely.
She waits.
“I asked to look at my thesis, but it was locked under a different name.Hername.”
Jade doesn’t flinch. That’s almost worse than if she’d argued with me.
“How is that possible?” I ask.
She releases a long breath that says so much and nothing at all. “How do you think?”
“I know she used some of my words in her speeches. In her writing. But to lock the paper completely…”
“Can’t have the proof getting out, can she?”
I just stare at her. Is it possible she believes me? Is it possible she knows everything Ralston’s done? “You knew?”
“You really thought you were special, didn’t you?” she scoffs, shaking her head.
Her words sting.
She opens her mouth to speak, then seems to think better of it, her eyes dancing back and forth between mine. “I tried to warn you, remember? I told you not to trust her. I told you what she was like. What she did.”
I can’t speak, can’t think of anything except her words and the truth in them.Why didn’t I listen back then?We both know the answer to that.
