Three knocks. Dorian opened the door.
Marcus stood in the hallway, gym bag over one shoulder. His eyes went past Dorian into the room before either of them said anything.
Dorian stepped aside.
Marcus crossed to the desk without asking. Crouched, reached behind the outlet, and came up with the charger cord—black, tangled on itself. He wound it around two fingers, methodical, not rushing.
Neither of them spoke. The silence settled between them, no longer awkward, just heavy.
Marcus straightened, cord in hand. He didn't move toward the door yet. He looked at Dorian—not scanning him for anything specific, just looking, the way you'd look at something to confirm how much it had changed since you last saw it up close.
"You don't feel anything, do you," he said.
Dorian's jaw tightened before he could stop it. He waited for the rest of it—Priya's name, the video, something to push back against. It didn't come. Marcus just watched him not answer.
"I don't know what you want me to say to that," Dorian said finally.
"I'm not asking you to say anything." Marcus slid the cord into his jacket pocket. "I already know."
He walked to the door. Stopped there, hand on the frame, back to Dorian.
"I hope it's worth it," he said. Quiet. Not sharp. He said it the way a person sets something down they've been carrying too long—carefully, so it doesn't break on the way to the floor.
He left.
Dorian stood in the middle of the room. He flexed his hand once, testing for something—anger, shame, the hollow he was supposed to feel when someone who used to matter looked at him like that.
Nothing rose to meet the test. Beneath the nothing sat a small, curious itch—not guilt, exactly, but the feeling of watching himself fail to feel guilty. Strange enough to want to poke at it.
He grabbed his jacket and slung his backpack over one shoulder. Exams were close enough now that even he could feel the shape of the deadline pressing in, even though he hadn't opened a textbook in weeks that hadn't ended up abandoned mid-page. The dorm felt worse to sit in than the walk would be.
---
The coffee cart had someone ahead of him in line—a girl in a puffer jacket, waiting on a drink. Dorian got in behind her.
Maya spotted him over the girl's shoulder while she worked the steamer. Her expression didn't change, but something in her posture went a fraction more rigid, like she was choosing to finish the order in front of her before she'd let herself deal with what was behind it.
She capped the girl's cup, slid it across, and only then looked at him directly.
"She saw it," Maya said. No hello. "The video. Somebody sent it to her before you could."
"How is she."
"Don't." Maya picked up the rag, wiped a spot on the counter that didn't need it. Her knuckles were pale where she gripped it. "She'd stopped checking her phone every five minutes. Started eating lunch with us again. Then someone posts that video, and her name gets dragged back into it—not because of anything you did to her this time. Just because she's standing close enough to the wreckage that people remember to look at her too."
"That wasn't about Sarah."
"Nothing's ever about Sarah when you're the one doing it." Maya set the rag down and looked at him directly. "You don't even look like you're deciding anything anymore. You just move. Like it's automatic."
He didn't answer. There wasn't a version of the truth that sounded better than her guess.
She held his gaze another second, then jerked her chin at the machine behind her. "You want something or not? I've got a line."
"Usual," he said.
She made it without another word, set it on the counter hard enough that a little sloshed over the lid, and turned to the next person before he'd even picked it up.He cut through the student union—a shortcut toward the library, more people than usual for a Thursday this close to finals, half of them hunched over laptops at the tables by the windows. Kofi and Rachel were near the far doors, Kofi's voice carrying, one hand slicing the air mid-story.
Dorian angled to go around them.
Jenna spotted him first. She broke off and cut a straight line to intercept him, arms crossed by the time she reached him.
"You didn't reply."
"I've been busy."
"Right." The word came out clipped. "You know what's actually funny? I sent you one text. One. 'You okay?' That's it. And you couldn't manage two words back."
"I didn't know what to say."
"You never do." Her voice sharpened. "You know what's worse than you leaving that night? I sat there after, thinking maybe I'd scared you off. Actually saying something real for once instead of playing it cool." She laughed, short, no warmth in it. "Then I watched a video of you kissing another girl in front of her boyfriend, and I understood. It wasn't me. You don't do that for anyone."
"Jenna—"
"I'm not finished." Her hand came up, flat, between them. "I told you that night—if you stayed, I wasn't going to be able to pretend I didn't care anymore. I meant it. I stopped pretending. And you left, and then you couldn't even answer one text that wasn't about a job." She shook her head once. "I don't need you to explain it. I just needed you to know I noticed."
She turned and walked back toward Kofi and Rachel without waiting for anything else. Kofi's eyes flicked toward Dorian for a beat—no judgment in it, just a small, unreadable acknowledgment—before he said something that made Rachel laugh, and the three of them were absorbed back into their own afternoon.
---
The library was still fifteen minutes off across the quad, and the quad was worse than the union had been. A cluster of girls near the fountain went quiet as he passed, one of them not bothering to lower her voice enough: "That's him, right? From the video?"
"He's so much hotter in person," her friend said, and then flushed, like she hadn't meant to say the second half out loud.
A guy peeled off from a group near the steps and jogged alongside him. "Yo—you're the jawline guy, right? The one who kissed that girl in front of her man?" He had his phone half-raised. "Bro, is that actually you in the video?"
"Yeah," Dorian said, without slowing.
The guy laughed, delighted, like Dorian had confirmed something rare, and fell back toward his friends already narrating.
---
Near the philosophy building, Tristan was coming the other way—and Chloe was beside him, laughing at something one of the others in the group had said, her bag slung across her body, hair loose. Dorian hadn't expected to see them together. Tristan had his phone up, screen lit, thumb scrolling—and then he clocked the distance closing, thumbed the screen dark, and slid the phone into his pocket in one motion, quick and specific enough to not be casual at all.
He didn't say anything. Didn't nod. Just kept walking, gaze forward, like Dorian was a stretch of sidewalk he'd already accounted for.
Chloe glanced over, caught Dorian's eye for half a second, and looked away first—not unfriendly, just distracted, already turning back to whatever the group was laughing about.
Dorian kept walking too. He didn't need to ask what had been on the screen.
He also understood, distantly, that some part of him hadn't liked watching her walk next to Tristan's group like she belonged in it. That was new enough to be interesting. He turned the feeling over once, trying to decide if it was real or if he only wanted it to be, and it didn't hold still long enough to tell.
He pulled out his phone anyway, before he reached the library steps.
He typed: hey. it's dorian.
Looked at it. Deleted it.
Typed instead: some people are hanging out friday night. couple of my friends. you around? He sent it. No reply came before he reached the doors—she was still mid-conversation, phone probably still in her bag. He put his own phone away and went inside.
He found a table near the back and opened his textbook for the first time in longer than he wanted to think about. He got through half a page before his mind drifted—to the hallway, to Marcus's back at the door, to Maya's line about moving like it was automatic. He read the same paragraph twice. Started a third time. Made it four sentences before he lost the thread again and had to go back to the beginning.
Forty minutes in, he closed the book, dropped it into his bag, and pulled out a different one instead—a different subject, a fresh page, in case the problem had been the material and not him. He got a little further with that one before his phone buzzed against the table.
Chloe: sorry, was walking with people earlier
· i've got a paper due monday i haven't even started*
· so that's a no*
· i didn't say that. i said maybe. don't rush me, weirdly popular guy*
· okay*
· ...you're actually going to just say okay*
· yeah*
A pause.
· that's annoyingly refreshing. fine. maybe's a yes. don't make me regret it*
He read it twice. Something small moved in his chest—quick, faint, gone almost before he registered it, like a fish breaking the surface of still water and leaving only the ring of it behind.
Red flickered at the bottom edge of his vision.
[SUB-QUEST 5: TRIGGERED.]
[TARGET: CHLOE.]
It sat there a moment, then dissolved. No reward line. No countdown yet.
He put the phone away and pulled the second textbook back toward him.
---
His phone buzzed again a little after eight. Simone.
"Hey," he said.
"You're still coming home, right? For break?"
"Yeah. I told you I would."
"I know, I just—" She hesitated. "You've been short on texts lately. Mom noticed too. She keeps asking if you're okay and I don't know what to tell her."
"I've had exams."
"Okay." A beat. "I believe you. I just—you don't usually sound like this, even during exams."
He didn't have anything to put against that.
"You still there?" she asked.
"Yeah. I'm here."
"Anyway." She let it go, quick and light. "I'm just excited you're coming home. Mom's already talking about making the lasagna."
"She always says that."
"She means it this time. I think." Simone laughed. "Okay, I have to go, group project's blowing up my phone. Text me your bus time?"
"I will."
"Okay. I miss you."
"I miss you too."
He ended the call and set the phone face-down on the table. He exhaled—longer than he meant to—and pulled the textbook back toward him, trying to find the paragraph he'd left off on.
Something tapped his shoulder.
He turned.
---
END OF CHAPTER 55