Hate Me Like You Love Me (Serena and Caleb) novel Chapter 86

Serena’s POV

The Title IX office sits on the third floor of the administration building, behind a door so ordinary it feels insulting—beige walls, a brass placard, the kind of place where lives get dissected under fluorescent lighting.

Mia walks beside me through the corridor, and I focus on the rhythm of our footsteps because if I think about what I'm about to do, my legs will stop working.

"I'll be right here." Mia plants herself in one of the plastic chairs lining the hallway, crossing her arms with the posture of a woman who has no intention of moving for anyone. "Right here the entire time. Not going anywhere."

"I know." My hand finds the door handle. "You've told me six times since we left the car."

"I'm telling you a seventh." Her eyes hold mine, steady and fierce. "You walk in, you say what happened, and you walk back out to me. That's the whole plan."

I open the door.

The room is smaller than I expected. A rectangular table, three chairs, a window overlooking the quad.

A woman sits on the far side—mid-forties, dark hair pinned neatly, reading glasses low on her nose. She stands when I enter.

"Serena Lakin? I'm Dr. Carolyn Voss. Thank you for coming in. Please, sit wherever you're comfortable."

I choose the chair facing the window. It feels important to see the sky.

"Before we begin, I want to explain the process," she says, folding her hands on a slim manila folder.

"Everything you share today is confidential within the scope of this investigation. You're not on trial. My role is to listen, ask clarifying questions, and document your account accurately. You can pause at any time."

"I understand."

"Good." She clicks her pen. "In your own words, can you tell me what happened on the night of October thirty-first?"

In your own words. Three words no one has offered me before. Not the campus counselor who redirected toward what I'd been wearing.

Not the dean's assistant who lost my paperwork. Not the Bennett family attorneys who twisted every sentence until my experience became unrecognizable.

I take a breath that reaches down to the base of my spine.

"I went to the Halloween party at Sigma Chi with my friend Mia Chen. Around midnight, Lucas Bennett suggested we go somewhere quieter. He led me to a bedroom on the second floor. The door had a lock."

My hands rest flat on the table, palms down, grounding me. "He kissed me, and I kissed him back. When he moved beyond kissing, I told him to stop. I said no. He didn't stop."

Dr. Voss writes without looking up. She doesn't interrupt, doesn't raise an eyebrow, doesn't shift with the body language of someone who has already decided I'm exaggerating.

"He pushed me onto the bed. His weight pinned me, and he was pulling at my costume. I kept saying no, kept pushing against his chest, but he wasn't listening."

The memory unfolds with a clarity that still surprises me—every detail preserved in the amber of trauma. "My stepbrother, Caleb Thornton, broke through the door and pulled Lucas off me. If he hadn't arrived, I don't believe Lucas would have stopped."

"What happened after the intervention?"

"I reported it through standard campus channels the following day. The response was dismissive at every level. Within forty-eight hours, attorneys representing the Bennett family contacted the university. After that, the report effectively disappeared."

Saying it out loud—the full, unvarnished sequence—releases a pressure I didn't realize had been crushing against my ribs for months.

I press my forehead into her shoulder and let the shaking come. It moves through my body in waves—not grief, not fear, but the tremor of a system releasing tension it has held for so long the holding became invisible.

"I told her everything." My voice is barely a whisper against Mia's jacket. "And she listened. She actually listened."

"Of course she did." Mia's hand moves in slow circles across my back. "Because the truth doesn't need a PR team."

We stay like that until my breathing evens and my legs feel solid again. When I pull back, Mia swipes at her red-rimmed eyes with the back of her hand—a gesture so uncharacteristically vulnerable it nearly undoes me.

No one rescued me this time. The realization settles quietly, without fanfare. At the Halloween party, Caleb broke down a door. When the Bennetts silenced me, Mia raged on my behalf. Rachel built a case. Every time the truth tried to surface, someone else carried it for me.

But this was mine. My voice, my words, my choice to walk through that door alone. I saved myself.

"Let's get out of here," Mia says, threading her arm through mine. "I'm buying you the most disgusting amount of comfort food this campus has ever seen."

We push through the building's front doors into the late afternoon light. The quad stretches before us, green and ordinary, students scattered across the grass.

And then I see him.

Across the quad, near the stone bench beneath the old elm, standing perfectly still while the world moves around him. Lucas Bennett.

On campus, where a no-contact order should make his presence impossible. His hands rest casually in his jacket pockets, his posture relaxed, his golden hair catching the light.

He is looking directly at me.

And he is smiling.