I opened the closet and started packing.
At the very bottom, my fingers brushed against a box.
Inside was a white dress shirt, stiff with dark, rust-colored bloodstains.
Jesse's.
Five years ago, that monster of a professor had cornered me in his office. Jesse burst in like a man possessed.
He beat the professor until bones cracked, and took five knife wounds himself. He nearly died.
I'd kept this shirt all these years, a reminder that he had once loved me enough to die for me.
Now it just looked like a joke.
My phone rang, cutting through the silence. Jesse.
His voice was brimming with excitement.
"Lucretia! The investor roadshow was a massive success! We landed the biggest deal yet!"
"I'm reaching out to specialists overseas right away. Your dad's surgery is going to happen!"
I listened to the triumph pouring through the speaker and let out a quiet, bitter laugh.
Then I hung up without saying a word.
The phone slipped from my hand. The screen stayed lit, and a livestream notification popped up.
The profile picture showed a woman's side profile. I would have recognized that face anywhere. Edith Walker.
Something compelled me to tap on it.
The account was called "Edith & A's Secret Garden." Five years of hidden love between her and a man, documented for the world to see.
No faces shown directly, but the details were everywhere.
In one photo, the watch on the man's wrist was the anniversary gift I'd given Jesse.
In one video, the man's low, quiet laugh was the same one I'd fallen asleep to for five years.
Hundreds of thousands of followers flooded the comments, gushing about their fairy-tale romance.
So a man who spent nearly every waking hour by my side had still found the time to build another love story, one blessed and celebrated by strangers.
I was about to swipe away when Edith's voice drifted out from the livestream.
"I saw this news story recently about a college girl who got harassed by a professor, and it reminded me of what happened at our school back in the day."
My fingertips went rigid.
"Come to think of it, that older student was pretty pathetic too. I heard she tried to seduce a professor just for five hundred dollars in living expenses."
"Ended up getting used and thrown away. Destroyed her uterus. Can never have children."
"But honestly, she had it coming. A woman that loose? What kind of ending did she expect?"