Chapter 37: The Most You-ish Thing

I spent most of Sunday trying and failing to convince myself that Saturday night at The Blue Anchor had been nothing more than an unpleasant business transaction.

Every time I closed my eyes, my brain traitorously replayed the exact moment Knox Sheridan had leaned across the candlelit table.

I could still feel the lingering pressure of his calloused fingers sliding up the side of my neck, the firm resting grip against my jawline, and the intoxicating warmth of his mouth pressed against mine.

"Contract compliance, Bookworm. We do whatever it takes to win."

That was what he had said right after wiping every coherent thought out of my head in front of Harold Orwell.

He had played his part terrifyingly well. And yet, every time I touched my lower lip with the tip of my thumb, my heart did a stupid, erratic flip against my ribs.

To make matters worse, my phone had been vibrating continuously off my nightstand.

Knox’s social media post from our date had exploded across campus by midnight.

He truly hadn’t posted a single girl on his personal feed in three years.

The photo capturing me looking up at him with wide, laughing eyes after he whispered that terrible box springs joke into my ear, while he looked down at me with a slow, devastating smirk was being reposted across every student group chat and Briar gossip forum.

When I shuffled out of my bedroom on Monday morning pulling my tote bag over my shoulder, I found Priya standing at the kitchen island.

She was holding a travel mug of dark roast coffee in one hand and her phone in the other, staring at the screen with an expression of pure fascination.

"Morning, roommate," Priya said without looking up.

The second I reached the counter, she flipped the phone screen around, thrusting it directly into my face. "I promised myself I wouldn’t bring this up first thing in the morning, but... damn, Bennett."

I stopped, adjusting the strap of my tote bag. "Priya, please. It’s not even eight in the morning."

"No, seriously, look at it," Priya insisted, zooming in slightly on the photo. "I hate his arrogant, ice-chewing guts as much as any sensible human being should, but you two look absurdly good together here. Look at his hand on your shoulder. That isn’t ’fake dating’ body language, Nora. That’s ’I will physically dismantle anyone in this room who breathes near her’ body language."

"He was performing for Harold Orwell," I said flatly, reaching into the wire fruit basket on the counter to grab a green apple. "Contract clause four. Public visibility. He needed Orwell and the boosters to believe I was his priority so they’d back off about his focus."

"Right. Performance art," Priya scoffed dryly, setting her phone down on the granite counter.

She reached over to the bread box, grabbed a golden oats-and-honey granola bar, and slid it across the island like a sacred peace offering. "Anyway, moving past your fake-boyfriend’s Oscar-worthy acting: I have decided that this week is going to be fundamentally different. I am personally manifesting peace, prosperity, and zero academic scandals on your behalf."

I eyed the granola bar on the granite counter, a faint eyebrow twitching. "I don’t believe in manifesting, Priya."

"I know," Priya replied, taking a generous bite of her own bar with a bright, cheerful smile. "That’s why I’m doing it for you. It’s a roommate public service."

I picked up the granola bar, shoving it into the side pocket of my tote bag. "If it actually works, I’ll acknowledge it," I said, heading for the front door. "And if it doesn’t?"

"Then I will deny this conversation ever took place," she called out after me.

"That’s the most you-ish thing you’ve ever said," I muttered, pulling the heavy door closed behind me.

—

The morning air outside was cold, smelling of autumn leaves and wet pavement. I pulled my knit scarf tighter around my neck and shoved my hands deep into my jacket pocket as I joined the stream of students shuffling across the central quad toward the academic buildings.

I pulled one of my earbuds out, bracing myself for the usual gauntlet of whispered insults, the icy glares from the puck bunnies, or the mocking scoffs from Brad Orwell’s friends.

Instead, I noticed the shift almost immediately.

As I crossed the stone courtyard toward the Humanities building, two girls wearing Briar hockey hoodies... girls who usually gave me murderous, snide looks whenever I walked near the arena, turned their heads.

One of them actually gave me a small, polite nod of recognition.

A few yards further down the brick pathway, a guy from my microeconomics lecture rushed ahead to grab the heavy glass entrance door of the building, holding it open as I approached.

"Morning, Nora," he said, giving me an easy, friendly smile. "Great picture from Saturday."

"Uhm... Thanks," I stammered, stepping inside the warm lobby.

He didn’t make a sarcastic joke. He didn’t sneer or roll his eyes. He just held the door, nodded, and went on his way to his eight-thirty class.

It was staggering.

Knox’s single social media post had effectively rewritten my entire status on campus overnight. I was no longer the "nobodies’ tutor" getting dragged into viral video rumors on Briar Campus Buzz.

In the eyes of Briar University, Knox Sheridan had publicly claimed his territory. And by extension, his untouchable social armor had been extended over me.

I should have felt relieved. I should have been thrilled that the relentless harassment had suddenly ground to a halt.

Instead, it felt deeply unsettling. It felt less like a victory and more like wearing a heavy, expensive uniform I had never agreed to put on.

Every polite nod and held door was a reminder that my daily peace of mind was entirely dependent on a fake contract with the most arrogant athlete on campus.

I spent the next two hours in my advanced microeconomics seminar actually absorbing the lecture for once.

My brain wasn’t spinning in circles running four different emergency damage-control simulations. I took clean, structured notes, raised my hand, and answered Professor Cornell’s question on marginal utility without a single stumble.

By eleven o’clock, as I packed my laptop and notebooks into my tote bag, I felt a rare, quiet sense of lightness in my chest.

For one brief hour, I felt like an ordinary college student having an ordinary Monday.

I should have known better than to trust it.

I walked down the main corridor of the second floor, turning into the narrow alcove near the library wing to swap out my economics binder for my afternoon lecture at my assigned locker.

I noticed the crowd before I noticed what they were looking at.

A tight cluster of a dozen students had formed right in front of the locker bay, their phones raised high in the air. The hallway held that electric, sickening hush that always preceded a public execution on campus.

I didn’t think much of it at first. People gathered around lockers for stupid pranks all the time.

Then I recognized a couple of faces near the front of the cluster.

Chloe, the brunette puck bunny Knox had sent out of his bedroom the other day, and who had tried to corner me outside the SinBin after the party, was standing right at the edge of the hallway. Her phone was angled up as she recorded the metal bay with a smug, razor-sharp smile on her face.

My stomach dropped straight into my shoes before my brain could even process why.

"Excuse me," I said as I pushed through the outer ring of students.

Nobody moved out of the way willingly, but I forced my way to the front of the alcove until I was standing directly in front of the metal locker doors.

My locker door had been completely defaced.

Someone had taken a can of neon-red spray paint to the scuffed grey metal, scrawling two words across both panels:

SLUT.

BITCH.

The paint still looked a bit wet, glaring red and dripping down the locker doors like fresh blood.