Chapter 82: Darcy Validates

POV: Georgia

He listens to my whole theory about the sabotage and makes me feel sane for the first time since the fall.

I don’t plan to tell him. That’s what I keep repeating to myself as I walk into the dining hall, my sneakers squeaking against the polished floor. I circled his name three times in my notebook, and I remember exactly why. I’m not stupid. The ink is still there, dark and deliberate, a warning I’m choosing to ignore.

But I’m so tired.

I’m tired of asking questions and getting a smile back. Mandi changes the subject so fast it leaves marks. Liam looks at me like he wants to say something and then physically can’t, his jaw working around words that never come. Puck carries my books and sits beside me and never explains a single thing, just hums under his breath like the silence doesn’t bother him at all. My therapist wrote *icing, twenty on, twenty off* on a clipboard rather than answer a joke, her pen barely pausing. Everyone here seems to know something, and every one of them has decided I don’t get to.

And then there’s Darcy.

He’s sitting at a table by the window, mostly alone, with a coffee going cold in front of him, steam long gone. When he sees me, he doesn’t wave or grin. He just pushes out the chair across from him with his foot, like he’s been saving it, like he already knew I’d come.

I stop at the edge of the table, my bag still on my shoulder. My notebook feels heavier than it should, pressing against my spine. I think about turning toward the door.

I sit down anyway.

"You look like you haven’t slept in a week," he says, his voice low and rough, edged with something close to concern.

"I haven’t," I say, and I sit down, the chair scraping against tile.

I tell myself the wear pattern thing was probably nothing. Maybe someone else mentioned it. Maybe I said it once and forgot. When I’m this tired, I can talk myself into almost anything, and I really, really want this to be a coincidence. Because if it isn’t, then the only person who has listened to me all semester is someone I shouldn’t trust.

"Talk to me," Darcy says, his tone gentle, coaxing. He leans forward, elbows on the table, the light from the window catching the sharp line of his jaw. "What’s going on?"

I look at my hands, at the raw edges of my nails where I’ve been picking at them. Then I look at him. His face is open and easy and kind, the kind of face that makes you forget to be careful.

"I don’t think my fall was an accident," I say, my voice barely above a whisper.

He doesn’t laugh. He doesn’t blink. He just nods slowly, like I’ve said something he’s been waiting to hear, patient as stone.

"Okay," he says, calm and even. "Tell me why."

So I do. It all comes out, faster than I planned, tumbling over itself. I tell him about the report that was forwarded to me by mistake, and how it was filed and quietly dismissed. I tell him about the technician who answered when I called, and how his voice changed the second I said the word *sabotage*. How the line went dead. How I called back three times, and on the fourth try the number didn’t exist anymore.

"Disconnected," Darcy repeats, his voice sharpening with focus. "Completely?"

"Completely."

"That’s not a coincidence." He says it softly, but with total certainty, each word landing like a stone dropped into still water. "People don’t just lose their phone number the same day they get asked a hard question."

I let out a breath I didn’t know I was holding, my shoulders dropping an inch. It’s such a small thing. But nobody has said it to me before. Nobody has said *that’s not a coincidence*. Everyone else acts like I’m being dramatic, or worse, like I’m being a poor loser.

"That’s what I keep thinking," I whisper, my throat tight.

"You should keep thinking it." He shakes his head, firm and resolute. "Georgia, you’re not crazy. What happened to you was wrong, and someone made sure nobody looked too closely. Of course you can’t let it go."

My eyes sting. I blink hard and look at the window until it passes.

"I’ve been going back and forth for weeks," I say, my fingers twisting in my lap. "I keep telling myself it’s grief. Or that I just need someone to blame because my knee is wrecked."

"Is that what you think?" he asks, his tone quiet, careful, like he’s setting something fragile on a shelf.

"No." The word comes out smaller than I mean it to. "No. I don’t."

"Then don’t let anyone tell you otherwise." He reaches over and taps the table near my hand, not touching it, his fingers lingering just close enough that I feel the heat of him. "Including yourself."

I laugh, shaky and wet, the sound catching in my chest. It’s the first time I’ve laughed in days.

He asks careful questions after that, his voice steady and unhurried. Who saw the report? Who else knew I’d been sent it? Did the technician sound scared, or angry, or guilty? I answer every one, and each time he nods like I’ve handed him something valuable, something worth holding onto. He never pushes. He never sounds hurried. Every time I stumble, he finds the exact right word to steady me, like he knows what I’m about to say before I finish, like he’s been rehearsing this conversation in his head for longer than I have.

At one point I stop, mid-sentence, and stare at him. "You’re really good at this."

"At what?" he asks, amused, one eyebrow lifting.

"Listening."

He smiles, a little crooked, the kind of smile that makes the corners of his eyes crease. "You’ve just been talking to the wrong people."

The words go right into me, and I don’t even notice how perfectly they fit.

We sit there until the dining hall is nearly empty, chairs scraping back one by one, trays clattering into the return. The sunlight slides across the floor in long gold streaks. My coffee, which I never touched, is completely cold, a thin skin forming on its surface. I feel lighter than I have since the ice, like something coiled in my chest has finally loosened.

"There has to be more," Darcy says, his voice dropping into something more serious, more deliberate. "If they went to this much trouble to bury the report, there’s a trail somewhere. Emails. Maintenance logs. Something. It wouldn’t be hard to find, if you knew where to look."

"I don’t know where to look," I admit, my voice small.

"I do, a little." He shrugs, like it’s no big deal. "Let me poke around. I’m not promising anything, but I can help you dig."

I hear the quiet voice at the back of my head. *Darcy. Three times on each list.* I hear it, and I decide not to listen.

Because it’s so quiet. And he’s so kind. And I’m so, so tired of doing this alone.

"You’d do that?" I ask, searching his face for any crack, any tell.

"Of course I would." He says it like it’s obvious, like I’ve asked if the sun will come up, his voice warm with certainty. "You shouldn’t have to carry this by yourself. Nobody should."

I think of everyone who has looked away from me since I arrived. All the people who knew something and said nothing, who let their silence answer for them. And here is the one person who sat down across from me and said, *I believe you.*

"Thank you," I say, and I mean it more than I’ve meant almost anything, the words thick in my throat.

Darcy’s eyes soften, the hard focus melting into something gentler. He reaches across the table, slowly, giving me every chance to pull back, and I don’t. He takes my hand in both of his, his palms warm against my cold fingers.

"We’ll figure this out together," he says, his voice quiet, sure, wrapping around me like a blanket.

His grip is warm, and steady, and it doesn’t shake at all. It’s exactly what a hand should feel like when someone is trying to comfort you.

And something about it is utterly wrong. I can’t say what. I only know that it is.