A few other people had started drifting over, curious about what had Simon so worked up.
"What's going on?" someone asked.
"Elodie finished Yale's entire workload in one day," Simon said, still staring at his screen. "And she improved on it."
The gathered crowd went silent.
Then someone laughed nervously. "You're joking."
"I'm not joking. Look at this." Simon turned his monitor so they could see.
One by one, their skeptical expressions melted into disbelief.
Simon looked at me like he was seeing me for the first time. "You're really just an undergrad? You didn't go to grad school?"
The question made my chest tighten.
"No," I said quietly. "I didn't attend graduate school."
"But—*how*?" someone else asked. "We're all PhDs here. Top universities. And you—"
They didn't finish the s
