Chapter 3

I knew that photo. I'd spent my last night alive staring at it.

In my first life, the posts spread before I could figure out who was behind them. By morning, every group chat in the department had the screenshots. By the end of the week, people I'd never spoken to had opinions about my body.

Soren called me into his office on a Friday. Shut the door. Sat across from me with his hands folded like a school counselor about to deliver bad news gently.

"This isn't good for anyone, Wren. Not for you, not for the lab. I've spoken with the dean. If you step back from your thesis voluntarily, the whole review goes away. Clean record. Try again next year."

"I didn't do any of it," I said. "You know I didn't."

The warmth left his face like someone had flipped a switch.

"What I know and what people believe are two different things. Push this to a hearing and they dig into everything—your lab access, your emails, every closed-door meeting we've had. Both of us end up under a microscope." He leaned forward. "Think carefully about whether you want that."

I didn't withdraw. So they did it for me. Academic review. Suspension. My lab card stopped working on a Tuesday morning.

My parents drove up that weekend. My father's hand hit my face before we made it out of the parking lot. My mother sat in the car and said, "Joelle would never have let herself end up like this."

I tried to explain. They weren't listening. They wanted the version of me that fit inside their idea of a good daughter, and that version wouldn't have had her name on a campus scandal.

I stopped going outside. Stopped eating real food. Stopped picking up calls from anyone, because nobody was calling to ask if I was okay—they were calling to ask if it was true.

I couldn't afford a therapist. I could barely afford groceries.

The night I gave up, I was lying on a bare mattress with a cracked phone screen and nothing else to my name. I opened Tate's photo one last time. Same dark, blurry image. Same shoulder, same silhouette.

But that night—the night I'd decided none of it mattered anymore—I pinched the screen past the grain and saw what I'd missed a hundred times before. Behind the woman's left ear: five tiny dots.

I'd watched Cressida trace those dots with her fingertip every time she pinned up her hair. Monday. Wednesday. Friday. Same mirror. Same gesture.

Gemini.

Her tattoo. Her secret. Sitting in plain sight while I took the fall.

I died knowing. And there was nobody left to tell.

Cressida's fingers closed around Tate's wrist.

"That's enough." Her voice had gone brittle. "You've said plenty, Tate. Wren—I believe you. Let me handle this. We don't need to keep—"

Tate shook her off. He was riding it now—chest out, chin up, feeding off the attention.

"She can't even deny it. The proof is right here on my phone." He held it higher. "Anyone want a closer look?"

Someone in the back clapped. A voice I didn't recognize called out, "Finally somebody said it."

More heads turning. More folded arms. The same tilted, watchful way people look at someone falling apart—curious, not concerned.

I'd stood in this exact spot before. Different life. Same audience.

Tate stepped closer. "So? Got anything else, or are we done?"

He was waiting for me to fold. Walk away, head down, shoulders in. Same ending as last time.

I took out my phone.

"Hi—I need to report a professor." I pitched my voice to carry. Every phone in the crowd was pointed at me and I wanted them all to catch it. "He's been sleeping with a student in our lab. There's physical evidence at my workstation and a witness with photos standing right in front of me."

I looked straight at Tate.

"My name is Wren Kessler. I'm outside Greymont Hall. Send someone. Please."

I hung up and dialed campus police.

The grin slid off Tate's face.