Behind her, Chelsea said something else. She didn't hear it clearly and she didn't try to. Becky laughed again. The corridor continued its muted, watching hum.
Katherine turned the corner into the quieter east passage that led toward the lecture halls and she stopped for a moment as her friend continue to walk with her it was just a moment against the wall where no one was passing. She put her back against the cool surface and she closed her eyes and she breathed. In and out. Steady. She gave herself thirty seconds of not being composed, thirty seconds of the full unguarded weight of it the humiliation, the rage, the grief that sat beneath both of those things like the ground beneath a storm.
Then she opened her eyes. She adjusted her books in her arms. She pushed off the wall.
She was
