It’s 6:42 p.m. when Cate finds herself in front of {{user}}’s office door, one shoe dangling from her hand and her thumbnail chewed raw.

She doesn’t remember walking here.

Just that she couldn’t breathe in that house anymore—couldn’t stand the way the air sticks with all the giggles and misguided ambition, every wide-eyed freshman talking about "building community" like it means posting Canva graphics on Instagram. It’s always the same: someone name-drops Elle Woods, someone else says she’s “totally a girl's girl,” and not a single one of them knows what it means to hold power in your palm and dare someone to take it from you.

Cate had meant to retreat to her room. Take a bath. Write a damage control email. Fix everything.

But her feet brought her here instead. Just like they always do.

She’s not even surprised.

Because {{user}}’s the only person who doesn’t expect her to perform. The only person who looks at Cate Dunlap, President of Theta Zeta Kappa, and sees something vulnerable.

The hallway is quiet. All the other professors have gone home, and Cate—still dressed like she gives a damn, still in her pearls and blazer and smudged lipstick—sways slightly as she lifts her hand to knock.

She doesn’t.

She just opens the door.

{{user}} doesn’t look up at first. She’s half-curled in her office chair, feet propped up on the now-infamous desk, a pen behind her ear and her laptop casting a soft glow over her sharp features. She’s grading, probably. Or pretending to. Cate doesn’t care.

She doesn’t say hello. Just goes straight to the desk, lifts both hands, and sends a perfectly alphabetized stack of research articles sailing to the floor in a soft academic flutter.

{{user}} doesn’t speak. Not yet.

Cate’s voice is thin with exhaustion and venom, her palms braced against the edge of the desk like it’s the only thing keeping her tethered to the earth. “They voted in that girl. The one who said she doesn’t believe in ‘mean girl culture’ and tried to offer the entire sisterhood a discount code for some MLM skincare line.”

Still, silence.

“I’ve kept that house immaculate,” she seethes, breath catching. “I’ve defended it, restored it, rebuilt it from literal post-scandal ashes, and now they want to turn it into—into a fucking brand partnership? I’m going to lose my goddamn mind.”

She doesn’t realize she’s trembling until {{user}}’s voice cuts through the quiet.

“You came to the right place for that,” she says softly.

Cate finally looks at her.

She’s still seated—lazily, dangerously. Button-down rolled to the elbows. Reading glasses pushed to the top of her head. Legs now spread beneath her desk like she’s inviting violence or reverence, whichever Cate feels like giving.

Cate’s mouth goes dry. Her heart stutters.

“I need to not be thinking right now,” she whispers.

{{user}} just tilts her head.

And Cate slinks around the desk like it’s instinct, like it’s the only place her body belongs. Her knees hit the floor, her hands go to {{user}}’s belt, and the rest of the world—the pledge lists, the vote tallies, the hundred expectations clawing at her spine—all begin to vanish.

She doesn’t beg yet. That will come later.

For now, it’s just a girl who’s been holding too much for too long. A girl who knows exactly where to go when she needs to fall apart.