Chapter 2

EVELYN'S POV

Anya worked at the small bookstore café I had walked into just to rest my feet.

I wasn't even reading the book in my hands. Just holding it and staring at the page like I was doing something useful.

"You're not from here are you?" she asked as she set a mug in front of me.

Her voice was warm. Really warm.

"No," I said. "Just arrived."

"Looking for a place? Or work?"

"Looking for both right now "

She studied me for a second then smiled. "You look like you need more than coffee."

I don't know what it was about her. I just felt it. Something loosened in my chest and before I knew what I was doing I was talking.

"I'm trying to start over," I said quietly.

She didn't ask questions. Just nodded like people said that to her every day. "My roommate moved out last month. Small spare room. Nothing fancy but it's safe."

Safe.

That one word was enough.

"You don't even know me," I said.

"Sometimes you just know," she shrugged simply.

I don't know why I trusted her. Maybe because she looked at me without suspicion. Without judgment. Maybe it was just the warmth in her voice that did it.

That evening I followed her home. It was a small apartment, clean, narrow bed, window facing the street.

"It's yours for now," she said. "We'll sort the rent later."

I sat on the bed and cried again. But this time I was grateful.

---

Over the next few weeks Anya became more than just a housemate. She became my friend.

She helped me fix my resume, sat with me at the kitchen table going through job applications, practiced interview questions with me until we both knew the answers by heart.

"You have impressive qualifications" she said one afternoon, adjusting her glasses and looking at my CV like it personally offended her. "Why is your masters degree listed third?"

"I don't know, I just—"

"Move it up. Lead with your strongest thing Evelyn." She slid the paper back across the table. "You're not applying for a favor. You're applying for a job you deserve."

I looked at her. "You sound like a career coach."

"I sound like someone who has been watching you undersell yourself for three weeks" she said simply and went back to her tea.

I picked up the paper and moved it up.

She was right. She usually was.

"You have to stop apologizing for being qualified," she said one afternoon, not looking up from her book. "You shouldn't hide that."

"I'm not hiding," I said. "I just forgot my worth for a while."

She looked up then. Squeezed my hand across the table. "Then remember it."

Crestwood College called two weeks later.

My hands shook just holding the phone. Prestigious institution, wealthy students, high standards. The kind of place I used to dream about working at before Melvin made me forget I had dreams.

"Go" Anya said from across the room before I even finished telling her about it. "Obviously go."

"What if they—"

"Go Evelyn."

I went.

The campus was a lot. Like a lot. It had wide lawns and tall buildings and students in designer clothes who walked like the ground owed them something. I felt completely out of place just standing at the gate with my folder of documents and my one good blazer.

But when I stepped into the lecture hall for the teaching demonstration something in me settled.

This was my space. Always had been.

I didn't fumble or even second guess. I just taught and it felt really good. Like putting on clothes that actually fit after years of wearing the wrong size.

A week later the offer came.

I stared at it for a long time. Then I picked up my phone.

"Anya."

"Did you get it?"

"I got it."

She screamed so loud I had to pull the phone away from my ear and even then I was smiling, the real kind, the kind that starts somewhere deep and comes up whether you want it to or not.

---

First week at Crestwood I walked in stiff and nervous with a smile I kept having to remind myself to wear.

There were a lot of buildings with ivy, luxury cars lined up in the parking lot like a showroom, students who talked about holidays in other countries the same way normal people talked about going to the market.

And then there was me. Two suitcases. One small shared apartment. A contract I absolutely could not afford to lose.

Professor Evelyn Reed. It still felt strange saying it.

The students showed me quickly where I stood.

In my third week a girl with diamond earrings and glossy hair tripped beside me in the cafeteria. Her iced coffee went all over my skirt.

"Oh my God" she gasped, not looking sorry at all. "I'm so clumsy."

Her friends laughed. Just enough for me to hear every bit of it.

"It's fine" I said, though it really wasn't.

She looked me up and down once, the way people do when they've already decided what they think of you, then turned back to her friends without another word.

I went to the bathroom and dried my skirt with paper towels and told myself it was fine again until I almost believed it.

Another day two boys in the back row were talking about my jacket.

"Vintage?" one said.

"More like thrift store chic," the other replied.

They didn't even bother lowering their voices.

I pretended not to hear because honestly they annoyed me. All of them.

The ease, the carelessness, the way they moved through life like nothing could ever really touch them. They had never counted coins before buying food or even had to fight for a single thing they had.

My classroom felt like a battlefield most days. I'd walk in with my notes ready to discuss symbolism and character arcs and within minutes someone would find a way to test me.

But none of them got to me the way Elroy Vans did.