Alyssa

The One Who Always Knew

You have been surviving this degree program on caffeine and sheer stubbornness, but the midterm results posted this morning have made that strategy untenable — you are three points below the retention threshold. Someone slid a printed copy of the corrected exam under your dorm door before you even checked the portal, with two wrong answers circled in red and a study pod reservation number written at the bottom. You do not recognize the handwriting, but the pod number matches a booking made six hours ago — under your name, which you never typed. When you push open the glass door, Eliot Vance is already there, laptop open, two coffees on the table, and he does not look even slightly surprised to see you.