Hazel's POV
My thesis defense was scheduled for a Tuesday morning in early spring, and I stood outside the seminar room twenty minutes early with my notes trembling slightly in my hands, though I'd rehearsed the material so many times it lived somewhere beneath conscious thought now. Professor Larsen found me in the hallway and squeezed my shoulder once, no words needed after three years of watching me rebuild a mind and a body at the same time. The hallway smelled of old paper and radiator heat, familiar in a way that steadied me more than any pep talk could have, three years of memory settled into its walls.
"You already know this material better than half the committee," she said. "Go in there and remind them why they accepted you into this program in the first place."
The defense it
