ifeanyionyekachi322 的作品

Ivy didn't say anything about the photo.Not the next morning, when she passed Callum in the kitchen and he handed her a coffee without asking how she took it, because he already knew. Not that weekend, when they ended up on the porch again, shoulders almost touching, talking about nothing important until the streetlights came on. She carried the knowledge of it everywhere she went, heavy and quiet, waiting for the right moment, and the right moment never seemed to arrive on its own.Priya noticed first, the way she noticed everything."You've been weird for a week," she said, dropping onto Ivy's bed uninvited, the way she always did when she'd decided a conversation was happening whether Ivy wanted it or not. "Weird good or weird bad. I genuinely cannot tell.""I'm not weird.""You've reread the same page of that textbook four times in the last ten minutes. I've been counting." Priya propped herself up on one elbow. "Something happened. Spill."Ivy hesitated, then told her. The study

Callum sat in his father's study long after everyone else in the house had gone to bed, boxes of family photos spread across the desk in the mess Marcus had left behind after digging through them for wedding slideshow material. He wasn't looking for anything in particular. He was looking for a reason not to go up to his room yet, not to lie awake again running the last two weeks over in his head, Ivy's name on his phone screen, the sound of her voice when she thanked him outside the department office like he'd done something remarkable instead of the bare minimum.He almost missed it. A manila envelope, unlabeled, wedged between two photo albums his father hadn't opened in years. He pulled it out mostly out of habit, the same restless curiosity that had made him a mediocre student and a decent researcher, and tipped the contents onto the desk.Class photos. Ashford Hills High, junior year homeroom, the kind every student got herded into once a year and then forgot existed.He almost s

The email hit Ivy's inbox on a Tuesday morning, subject line flat and clinical: Regarding your enrollment in ENGL 214.She read it twice standing in the hallway outside her lecture hall, backpack still on one shoulder, coffee going cold in her other hand.Dear Ms. Bennett, this is to inform you that a concern has been raised regarding academic integrity in your submitted essay for Unit 3. Please schedule a meeting with the department chair at your earliest convenience.Her stomach dropped."What?" Priya's voice cut in. Ivy hadn't even noticed her walk up. "You've gone completely white. What happened?"Ivy turned her phone toward her, hands not quite steady. "Someone's saying I cheated on my last essay.""That's insane. You wrote that thing in the library until two in the morning, I watched you do it.""I know that. Does the department chair?"Priya read the email again, jaw tightening. "This has to be a mistake. Right? Who would even flag something like this?"Ivy didn't answer right

The invitation came from Priya, who slid into the seat across from Ivy in the dining hall with the particular energy of someone about to propose something she already knew would get an argument."Delta Row's doing a welcome mixer Friday," Priya said. "Open to non-members. Free food, decent music, and it's basically the only way to get invited to anything good for the rest of the semester if you go to at least one.""Absolutely not.""Ivy.""You want me to willingly walk into Reagan Cole's house.""I want you to stop letting Reagan Cole own an entire building on this campus." Priya stole a fry off Ivy's tray without asking, the way she always did. "Look, I get it. She's awful. But if you skip every single thing she's connected to, you're going to spend the next three years hiding in your dorm room, and that's not a plan, that's just losing slower."Ivy chewed on that along with her food for a minute. Priya wasn't wrong, exactly. Reagan ran wide enough through the social ecosystem here

Ivy didn't tell Callum about Reagan.She told herself it wasn't worth mentioning, that it was a five-minute encounter with a girl she'd probably never see again, that making it into a story would only make it bigger than it deserved to be. She almost believed that for three whole days.Then he texted her.Callum: Heard Reagan cornered you on the quad. You okay?Ivy sat with the message a moment before typing back.Ivy: How did you even hear about that.Callum: This campus is smaller than it looks. People talk.Ivy: I'm fine. It wasn't a big deal.Callum: It was a big deal. I know how she gets when she's decided someone's a threat.Ivy's thumb hovered over the screen. A threat. Either that meant what she wanted it to mean, or she was building a house out of nothing again, the way she'd done for three years with every small thing he'd ever said or done around her.Ivy: Why would I be a threat to her? We just met.The reply took longer this time. Long enough that Ivy set the phone down o

Ashford State's quad was loud with the first-week energy of a new semester, tables set up for club recruitment, music drifting from someone's speaker, the smell of coffee carts working overtime. Ivy cut through the middle of it with her bag strap cutting into her shoulder, already running through her schedule in her head."You look like someone who needs caffeine and a distraction," Priya said, falling into step beside her out of nowhere, the way she always did. "In that order.""I look that bad?""You look like you spent your whole winter break somewhere your body was but your brain wasn't." Priya squinted at her. "Also you're doing the thing where you chew your lip when you're thinking hard about something you don't want to talk about."Ivy stopped chewing her lip immediately, which only made Priya grin."It's nothing," Ivy said."Sure. Nothing. Great. Coffee's on you then, since nothing's bothering you and you clearly have room in your budget for guilt spending."They got in line a