*Five months later*

Summer went by like a fever dream designed by someone who hated me personally. A hot, dragging, absolutely miserable blur of existing instead of living.

I didn’t hear anything from Adrian. Not a text. Not a letter. Not even a whisper of campus gossip. Nothing.

Radio silence was so complete it made me question whether he’d ever existed at all, or if I’d just had the world’s most elaborate psychological breakdown disguised as a semester.

No one knew where he went. No updates from the administration. No news from the investigation.

Like he’d been erased from reality with bureaucratic efficiency.

Like the entire thing—his class, the red room, the masked man I’d knelt for—was just some fucked-up fever dream I’d had during a particularly brutal heatwave.

But it wasn’t a dream. I had the emotional scars to prove it.

I had the worst summer of my life, and that’s saying something considering my family’s talent for creating memorable disasters. I barely left my childhood bedroom, which still had glow-in-the-dark stars on the ceiling like I was twelve.

I slept fourteen hours a day and ate like a bird with an eating disorder. I stared at the same four walls and wondered if I’d imagined the entire psychological clusterfuck.

The passion. The danger. The obsession that felt more real than anything I’d ever experienced.

The way he looked at me like I was simultaneously precious and breakable. The way he systematically dismantled every defense I’d spent twenty-one years building.

And the fucked-up part? I missed it. I missed being broken in exactly that way.

My sisters kept asking if I was okay. My dad suggested therapy approximately forty-seven times. He looked worried and bought a lot of ice cream and wine, like frozen dairy products and alcohol could fix whatever was clearly wrong with me.

But now it has fallen again. New semester, new classes, new books. Same heartache, just with better weather and the crushing weight of academic expectations.

At least Cleo was back.

I spotted her the moment I dragged my suitcase onto campus. She was literally glowing like she’d been dipped in liquid sunshine.

Sun-kissed skin with bikini tan lines, coral pink neon nails, oversized sunglasses perched on her head with long dark curls like a crown, and a giant iced coffee that looked like it had its own Instagram account.

“You look like a walking vacation advertisement,” I said, because subtlety has never been my strong suit.

She squealed and pulled me into a hug that smelled like expensive sunscreen and happiness. “Sophie! Oh my God, I missed you, you sad, pale little hermit.”

“I missed you too, you glowing goddess of summer privilege.”

She laughed, the kind of genuine sound I’d forgotten existed. “That’s what ten days in Antalya will do to a girl.”

“Ten days?” I blinked. “You were gone for a month.”

“Yeah, okay,” she grinned, not even pretending to be embarrassed. “But ten days were actual paradise. The rest was me trying to stop Ayden from flirting with every girl in a bikini like some kind of hormonal golden retriever.”

“You two are finally official?” I raised an eyebrow, because apparently I’d missed major relationship developments while spiraling into my summer depression.

“Define ‘official.'”

I gasped. “Cleo!”

Her hair was perfectly pinned, lipstick a cold, deep red that probably had a name like “Professional Revenge” or “Academic Betrayal.”

She looked like someone who hadn’t spent a single second regretting what she’d done. Like destroying my life had been just another Tuesday for her.

I stared at her without blinking, willing her to feel my hatred radiating across the room like toxic energy.

She didn’t look at me. Not once.

“Welcome to Gender and Power in Literary Canon,” she began, voice smooth and professional as poisoned honey. “This class will explore how identity intersects with authorship, desire, and influence across different periods—”

I tuned her out completely.

I hated her voice. Hated how calm it was, how it didn’t shake or crack under the weight of what she’d done. She was the reason no one would even say his name anymore.

She was the reason I’d spent the summer feeling like half of myself had been surgically removed.

To her, I wasn’t a person. I was a reminder of her own failure, a replacement she couldn’t tolerate.

My phone buzzed against my thigh.

I frowned and glanced down. Unknown number. Probably spam about student loans or campus dining plans.

I clicked it open anyway. Only one sentence that made my entire world tilt sideways:

Unknown: You didn’t forget me, Cinderella, won’t you?