I picked up my gloves, my goggles, and my glass cutter. It was time to create.
I ran the cutter across the deep blue shard, listening for that soft crackle that meant the score was clean. A quick press with the pliers and the glass snapped in two. I carried the piece to the grinder, letting the diamond bit hum away the edges until they matched the curve I needed. Water trickled over my hands, carrying the glass dust into the basin, leaving the surface cool and safe to touch.
I set the piece down and repeated the process with the next shard. Clean. Methodical. Completely Zen — if I didn’t count the part where Dante’s voice kept threading through my thoughts, no matter how hard I tried to grind it out.
A couple of hours later, I blew out a slow breath, peeled off my gloves, and set them on the bench. I’d made progress, but not the kind I could hold up as finished. Time to scrub away the smell of must and glass dust, tame my hair, and leave my refuge for another day.
By the time I locked up and stepped outside, the late-afternoon sun was already dipping low, turning the campus into a pretty picture postcard. My phone buzzed before I made it ten steps.
Dad: Dinner with the Harringtons tonight. Seven sharp.
Ugh. The Harringtons were obnoxious racists, and stuck in 1950; I detested them. If Chuck Harrington told me tonight that women only got an education to support their husbands, I wouldn’t be responsible for my actions.
Even my dad didn’t like them. But they were big donors, and donors kept Dad happy.
I tucked the phone away and made for the library, weaving through a quad full of students in leggings and hoodies, coffee cups in hand. They got to finish their day sprawled in front of the TV or at a party. Mine meant swapping one performance for another — student liaison, perfect daughter, convenient prop in my father’s networking plans.
First stop was the student services office. I dropped off three folders — each for athletes needing extra monitoring — to Mrs. Lyle, the Academic Committee Coordinator. When Dad showed interest, he showed it fully, and he’d sent a message with the ‘list.’ Dante’s folder sat right on top, his name in bold black ink, almost daring me to open it again.
I didn’t.
From there, it was across campus to the policy building for a late seminar on comparative education models. I took the backrow, pulled out my notebook, and let the lecture wash over me. My notes were meticulous, my questions ready when called on, but my brain kept drifting back to the shed.
Back to that shadow.
By the time class ended, I’d managed to shove the thought aside, if only so I could make it through dinner. I headed to my dorm room, dumped all my stuff, and hurriedly got changed into the version of me that my father approved of: neat, low ponytail, pearl studs, a navy dress that didn’t wrinkle.
The girl from the workshop — the one with streaks of copper dust on her cheek — was long gone.
The Harringtons were already there when I arrived at the dean’s residence on campus. Within moments, I knew the night was going to go exactly as expected: polite laughter at bad jokes, the same old ‘aren’t you dating anyone’ questions, and Chuck giving me that patronizing nod when I mentioned my studies — as if it was cute I had an opinion.
My dad greeted me with a squeeze to my upper arm and a warning glance not to say anything to upset them. I wanted to. But I kept my tone warm, my answers bland, and my eyes on my water glass.
It was exhausting, but that was the cost of being the dean’s daughter. And, unfortunately, of keeping my secret life just that — a secret.
My phone dinged, and the conversation at the table stalled.
“I’m so sorry,” I said with a flush, and reached in to silence it. I caught the message notification.
QB10: We need to talk
Shit.
“Savannah, phones are not permitted at the dinner table, you know that.” My father’s voice was soft, but the weight behind it could level a building.
There’d be a lecture later — behind closed doors, with that same patient disappointment he reserved for real transgressions. I knew it, and so did he.
“My apologies,” I murmured, tucking the phone away like it hadn’t just dropped a spark into the middle of my evening.
I forced my expression back into something pleasant while the conversation resumed, but my mind wasn’t on the Harringtons anymore. I was thinking about Dante, why he wanted to talk, and why the message felt less like an invitation and more like a summons.
Chuck Harrington droned on about the ‘right kind’ of people being admitted into universities these days, and my father nodded politely, his jaw just a little too tight. I was nodding too, though for entirely different reasons — each one accompanied by a fantasy of dumping my glass of ice water into Chuck’s lap.
I couldn’t sit here for another second pretending I wasn’t vibrating from that text.
“Excuse me,” I said with a polite smile that fooled the Harringtons, but not my father. “Restroom.”
I stood and walked away before he could object. The air in the hallway was cooler, quieter, free of Harrington smugness. I slipped my phone from my clutch.
