Dr. Marion Whitley's office was the kind of space designed to intimidate through sheer institutional weight, dark wood shelving lined with decades of departmental history, framed degrees arranged with careful precision, a desk large enough to make anyone sitting across from it feel appropriately small.
Elena sat beside Adrian, both of them having agreed, after a tense debate the night before, that she would attend but let him speak first, a compromise that satisfied neither of their instincts but felt like the only reasonable middle ground. She'd barely slept, running through possible versions of this conversation in her head until the scenarios blurred together into a single, anxious hum she couldn't quiet.
"I'll be direct," Dr. Whitley said, once the door was closed, her expression car
