Hate Me Like You Love Me (Serena and Caleb) novel Chapter 88

Serena’s POV

The system only works if the people running it give a damn.

I'm on the phone before I've fully processed what I saw — Lucas Bennett standing in the middle of the quad like he has every right to breathe the same air as the girl he assaulted.

His smile is still burned into my retinas as I dial campus security with fingers that refuse to stay still.

"I need to report a no-contact order violation," I say, and my voice comes out steadier than my hands. "Lucas Bennett was on the south quad twenty minutes ago. There's an active restriction barring him from campus."

The officer asks me to spell the name. Asks for my student ID. Asks me to describe what I saw, as if a predator strolling across university grounds requires the same verification as a parking complaint.

Then I call William's attorneys. Then the Title IX office, where I leave a voicemail because apparently no one answers after four o'clock on a day when a girl's safety is at stake.

Three calls. Three points of contact. And the only person who seems alarmed is me.

By the time Mia finds me in the library, I've bitten through the skin on the inside of my cheek and tasted copper for the last half hour.

"Tell me everything." She drops into the seat across from me, her dark eyes already lit with the kind of fury that makes her terrifying in the best possible way. "I saw your text. How the hell is he on campus?"

"That's what I'm trying to figure out." I pull up the email chain on my phone — the confirmation from the Title IX coordinator, the language about interim protective measures, the no-contact directive that was supposed to keep Lucas Bennett at least five hundred feet from anywhere I exist.

"Either he violated the order, or he was never properly served. The coordinator's office said they'd look into it and get back to me within forty-eight hours."

"Forty-eight hours." Mia repeats the words like they've personally insulted her. "Your rapist is walking around campus, and they need two business days to figure out whether anyone bothered to tell him to stay away."

"That's the process, Mia."

"The process is broken." She leans forward, jaw tight. "This is the same institution that made your Title IX interview mandatory but can't manage to serve a piece of paper. They'll drag you into a room and make you relive the worst night of your life, but holding him accountable requires a committee meeting and a follow-up email."

She's not wrong. The frustration coils in my chest, hot and restless, but the pre-law student in me knows that escalation without strategy is just noise.

"I'm handling it through the proper channels," I tell her, and even I can hear how rehearsed it sounds.

"William's attorneys are already aware. If the order wasn't served, they can file an emergency motion. If it was violated, that's a separate legal issue with real consequences."

"And in the meantime, he walks free." Mia's voice is flat with disgust. "He stands in the quad and smiles at you like he's won, and you sit here trusting the same people who let him slip through every crack so far."

"What do you want me to do? Hold a press conference on the library steps?"

"Yes." She doesn't blink. "Go to the press. The student paper, local news, anyone with a platform and a conscience. Tell them this university issued a no-contact order it couldn't be bothered to enforce."

"Going public changes everything, Mia. There's no taking it back."

"Good." She reaches across the table and grabs my wrist, not hard, but with an urgency that demands I pay attention.

"You've been managing this quietly for months. You managed it quietly when he blackmailed you into an engagement. You managed it quietly when he controlled what you wore and who you talked to. You managed it quietly through every institution that promised to protect you and didn't."

‘Every time I chose silence, I handed him power. Every time I trusted the system to catch up, he moved three steps ahead.’

‘Terrifying is Lucas standing fifty yards away with a smile on his face. This is just overdue.’

***

The house is quiet when I get home. Catherine's reading light glows under the master bedroom door, and my father's study is dark. I climb the stairs on autopilot, my mind still cycling through Mia's words, through the statement we'll craft.

The bathroom door is open.

Caleb stands in the doorway between our rooms — our old meeting point, the threshold that has carried more weight than any other piece of architecture in this house.

He's leaning against the frame with his arms crossed, still dressed, and the overhead light catches the scar behind his ear.

"Hey." I stop in my doorway, reading his posture. His shoulders are pulled tight, his jaw set in that particular way that means he's holding back more than he's showing. "I was going to come find you. Lucas was on campus today. I've already reported it to —"

"They want me to testify." His voice is quiet, stripped of every defense he usually wraps around himself.

"About Simon. About what he did. William's attorney asked me today, and they need an answer by the end of the week."

He uncrosses his arms and lets them fall to his sides, and I notice his hands are trembling.

I've seen Caleb angry. I've seen him cruel, desperate, tender, and undone. But the expression on his face right now is none of those things.

His eyes hold the look of a boy who spent his childhood learning to survive in silence, now being asked to break that silence in front of strangers who will write down every word.

Terror. Raw and undisguised, standing in our bathroom doorway with nowhere left to hide.