Chapter 1
Three weeks before my thesis defense, someone left a used condom and a pair of lace panties on my lab bench.
Tate Holloway had photos up before midnight. A woman walking out of Professor Soren's building at two in the morning—face blurred, hair pulled back. He tagged my name. The campus board ran with it.
Soren sat me down the next morning. Door closed. Voice gentle. He said pulling my thesis was "the mature decision." When I refused, the gentle part went away.
My parents drove up that weekend. My father's hand found my face before his mouth found a greeting. My mother said Joelle's name before she said mine.
I stopped sleeping. Stopped eating. Stopped picking up my phone.
The night I quit, I was staring at Tate's photo on a cracked screen. I pinched and zoomed past the blur, past the grain, and there it was—behind the woman's left ear. Five tiny dots.
Gemini.
Cressida traced that tattoo with her fingertip every morning when she pinned her hair up. I'd watched her do it a hundred times in our shared mirror.
I died knowing the truth. I came back with it.
My alarm went off at 7:15 on a Tuesday. The board was empty. My defense was twenty-one days out.
My thesis nomination hit the campus board around noon.
Somebody had screenshotted the department email—my name, the title of my paper, and the words "Outstanding Thesis Award Nominee" circled in red. The caption underneath called me "the whole package" and asked if I was seeing anyone.
Comments stacked up fast.
[Wren Kessler is literally the smartest person in our program. And gorgeous?? Life isn't fair lol]
[Does she have a boyfriend? Asking for myself tbh]
[She earned that spot. I've seen her in the lab past midnight more times than I can count.]
I lay on my bed scrolling through every one of them. My face stayed flat. Fourteen notifications in two minutes and my pulse didn't budge.
The first time around, I dropped my phone and sat there shaking for twenty minutes.
Then Tate's comment showed up—anonymous handle, but the tone was unmistakable.
[An "Outstanding Thesis" built on late-night office visits and borrowed data. Funny how Station 4B smells like Soren's cologne on Monday mornings. Ask the senior guys who "helped" with her datasets. That award should go to someone who actually earned it. 🎉]
Someone shot back: [What kind of loser posts this? Get a life]
That just set him off. A second comment landed within the minute, twice as long.
[Loser? I've got proof. Photos, timestamps, all of it. But go ahead—keep worshipping a girl who got her thesis approved on her back.]
My phone buzzed against the mattress. I turned it face-down and kept reading.
Cressida sat up on her bed across the room. She'd been watching me.
"That's Tate's account—I know how he types." She was already standing, phone in hand. "Give me ten minutes. I'll make him take it down."
She headed for the door without waiting for my answer.
In my first life, I let her go. She came back forty minutes later with smudged makeup and a hug and said it was handled. The posts stayed up. Three days later, the photos dropped.
Nothing got handled. Nothing ever did.
"Don't bother," I said.
I pulled on my sneakers and walked out past her.
She called my name twice on the stairs. I let the distance answer.
She was texting him already—I was sure of it. Not "take it down" messages. Warnings.
Tate had a 2 p.m. class in Greymont Hall on Tuesdays. I caught him coming out the east entrance with his backpack slung over one shoulder and a coffee in his hand.
He spotted me and his stride broke.
"You wrote that I traded sex for my thesis." I held my phone up, his comment filling the screen. "You said you've got proof. I want specifics. What nights? What data? What exactly did you see?"
He stared at the screen, then at me. "Come on—everybody in the department talks about—"
"I didn't ask about everybody. I asked what you saw. Your own eyes. Did you actually witness something, or did someone hand you a story?"
His mouth opened. Closed. Opened again. Nothing useful came out.
Behind me, quick footsteps on the concrete. Cressida, breathing hard, finally catching up. She grabbed Tate's elbow and hissed something I was clearly meant to hear.
"Just say sorry."
Tate cleared his throat. "Fine. I was out of line. I shouldn't have posted any of that. My bad."
He didn't look at me when he said it. His eyes were on Cressida.
