Page 38 of Marrying My Professor

"What do you want me to do?" she asks finally.

"Talk to him," I say. "Please. Convince him to drop out of the initiation. I know he probably thinks this is his only shot at success, at belonging, but it's not worth it. It's not worth what they're going to take from him."

I can hear her breathing on the other end of the line, can practically feel her wrestling with the decision.

"There's a final initiation event," I add. "Next Friday. March 15th. At an address off campus. If he goes to that..." I trail off, letting the implication hang.

"I'll talk to him," she says finally, and her voice is shaking. "Tonight. I'll call him tonight."

"Thank you," I breathe. "Thank you, Mrs. Jackson."

"No," she says quietly. "Thank you. For caring enough to call. For looking out for him when he doesn't even know you."

We say our goodbyes, and I end the call, staring at the screen until it goes dark.

One down. Six to go.

I'm scrolling through the photos I took of the other initiates' files when my bedroom door flies open with enough force to rattle the frame.

Georgia appears in the doorway like a hurricane made flesh—mascara smudged, honey-blonde hair in disarray, her expression somewhere between devastation and rage. She throws herself onto my bed with the drama of a Victorian heroine, face-down in my duvet, and lets out a muffled scream that probably disturbs the neighbors.

I set my phone aside. "That bad, huh?"

"Worse," she moans into the fabric. "So much worse."

"Did someone die?"

"My GPA did." She rolls onto her back, one arm flung dramatically over her eyes. "I failed my midterm. Failed it, Elara. A forty-three. Do you know what you have to do to get a forty-three on a multiple-choice test? You have to actively try to be wrong."

Despite everything—despite the weight of Brandon's death and the Veritas investigation and Alexander's mouth still burning on my lips from this afternoon—I feel my mouth curve into a smile. "What class?"

"Statistics," she says miserably. "Which I need to graduate. Which means I have to retake it next semester. Which means I'm going to be a super-senior. Do you know what my daddy's going to say when he finds out his baby girl is a super-senior?"

"That he loves you anyway?"

"That he's wasted a hundred and sixty thousand dollars on my education and I can't even pass a math class." She sits up abruptly, her cat-eye liner smudged into something more raccoon than feline. "I need a bestie day. Right now. Immediately. Before I do something drastic like transfer to a school that doesn't have a math requirement."

I raise an eyebrow. "Are we best friends?"

Georgia's head snaps toward me, eyes narrowing. "Watch your mouth, Elara Marie Cross. We have been best friends since you wrote me that letter in seventh grade about how your brother taught you to hotwire a car. Don't you dare try to friend-zone me now."

"My middle name isn't Marie."

"I don't care. I'm giving you one. You need more syllables for when I'm mad at you." She grabs my hands, pulling me toward her with surprising strength for someone currently in the throes of academic despair. "Please. I need retail therapy. I need to buy things I don't need with money I shouldn't spend. I need to feel something other than the crushing weight of mathematical inadequacy."

I hesitate. The seventy thousand sitting in my savings account—the remains of Alexander's payment plus what I've saved from other jobs—burns like a secret. But that money has a purpose. Tuition. Living expenses. The investigation into Brandon's death. I can't risk it on a shopping trip, no matter how much Georgia needs me.

"Georgia, I don't think⁠—"

"On me," she interrupts, squeezing my hands. "Please. It's on me. Daddy's credit card has no limit and significantly fewer feelings than I do right now. Let me buy you something pretty. Let me pretend for a few hours that life is about more than standard deviations and confidence intervals."

The desperation in her voice does it. That and the way she's looking at me, like I'm the only thing standing between her and a complete breakdown.

"Fine," I relent. "But I'm buying lunch."

"Deal." She springs off the bed with renewed energy, already pulling me toward the door. "And we're getting our hair done. I've been telling you for months that you need a change, and today feels like the perfect day for reinvention."

Three hours later, I'm sitting in a chair at a salon that definitely costs more than my monthly rent, watching my hair fall in long, auburn sheets to the floor.