It should not have passed?
It passed because it deserved to pass.”
My hands were steady on my knees.
I made sure of that.
“Thank you,” I said.
“Don’t thank me,” she said.
“I’m correcting a record.”
I walked back across campus afterward.
Students moved around me in both directions — young people with backpacks and coffee cups and somewhere to be.
I had been one of them, in my way, for four years.
I had sat in the same lecture halls, written the same exams, handed in papers to the same department office.
And somewhere in that building, a man had taken my work and used it to teach others what failure looked like.
My phone buzzed.
A text from Paul: *Lily wants to know if you’ll video call her tonight to talk about the books.*
I stopped walking.
Stood in the middle of the quad.
I typed back: *Tell her seven o’clock.
