The memory of the library was a physical weight in my chest, a dense, suffocating anchor that refused to let me drift into normalcy. Only hours ago, in the quiet, charged air of that room, the boundary between "stepfather" and "the man I wanted" had dissolved entirely. Nicholas’s hand had held mine with a terrifying certainty, a promise of total destruction that felt, in that moment, like the only honest thing I had ever experienced in this house of mirrors.
But now, standing in the sprawling, indifferent landscape of the university, that reality felt like a fever dream. The morning sun was relentless, baking the concrete walkways and bleaching the color out of the campus buildings. I adjusted the strap of my bag on my shoulder, trying to focus on the syllabus in my hand, but the words sw
