His Cruel Friends Bullied Me, So The Star Quarterback Made Me His Fake Girlfriend

The bitter scent of over-roasted coffee beans was a smell Stacey had come to associate with survival. It clung to the air in The Daily Grind, a permanent fixture like the low hum of the espresso machine and the muffled chatter of students who were better at socializing than studying. She sat at her usual table, a small two-top tucked into a corner far from the door, a position chosen for its strategic advantage: minimal foot traffic and maximum anonymity.

Her world had shrunk to the glossy, nine-by-eleven-inch page of her anatomy textbook. The brachial plexus stared back at her, a terrifyingly complex web of nerves rendered in clinical shades of yellow and blue. Roots, trunks, divisions, cords, branches. The mnemonic she’d devised, Really Tired? Drink Coffee Black, circled in her head on a relentless loop. For anyone else, it was just a diagram. For Stacey, it was a map of the territory she had to conquer, a landscape of biological wiring that would determine her grade, her future, her entire life’s trajectory as dictated by a long line of decorated surgeons.

She leaned closer, the spine of the heavy book digging into the edge of the table. A strand of her plain brown hair fell across her face, and she impatiently tucked it behind her ear, her fingers smudged with graphite. Her own notebook lay open next to the text, its pages a testament to her obsessive precision. She had redrawn the plexus three times, her lines clean and exact, her labels printed in tiny, perfect block letters. Different colored pens delineated the five terminal branches—musculocutaneous, axillary, radial, median, ulnar. It wasn't just about memorization; it was about understanding the system so completely that she could visualize it in three dimensions, could imagine it pulsing beneath the skin of the person sitting three tables away, the one laughing too loudly into his phone.

The outside world was a distraction she couldn't afford. The pressure from her parents was a physical weight in her chest, a constant, low-grade ache. An A- wasn't acceptable. A B+ was a catastrophe. Anything less was unthinkable. So she shut it all out. The pop music filtering through the cafe's speakers, the scrape of chairs, the barista calling out names. It all became white noise, a blurry periphery around the sharp, clear focus of her work.

She wore her invisibility like armor. An oversized university sweatshirt, faded jeans, and a pair of functional, unflattering glasses. She kept her head down when she walked across campus, her gaze fixed on the pavement in front of her. It was easier that way. If no one saw her, no one could judge her. No one could find her lacking. Here, in the corner of the coffee shop, she wasn't the awkward girl who never knew what to say at mandatory dorm meetings; she was a future doctor, a scholar dissecting the very machinery of life.

Her pen hovered over the diagram of the axillary nerve. She mouthed the words silently, tracing its path with the tip of her finger. Deltoid, teres minor. Abduction of the arm at the shoulder. The knowledge settled into her brain, slotting neatly into place. A small, quiet thrill went through her—the pure, uncomplicated satisfaction of understanding. For a moment, the pressure receded. It was just her and the beautiful, logical complexity of the human body. She was safe here, hidden behind a fortress of textbooks and diagrams, completely oblivious to the bell that chimed above the coffee shop door.

The bubble of her concentration didn't just pop; it was obliterated. A wave of sound crashed through the coffee shop's quiet hum as the door swung open, admitting a wall of male bodies clad in varsity jackets. They moved as a unit, loud and entitled, their laughter booming in the small space and making the ceramic mugs on the shelves vibrate. The football team. Stacey didn't need to look up to know. Their presence sucked the air out of a room, replacing it with a thick, cloying arrogance.

She hunched her shoulders, trying to make herself smaller, her focus desperately scrabbling to find its hold again on the page. Axillary nerve, C5, C6. Innervates the deltoid. It was useless. The words blurred. The quiet sanctuary she had built in her corner was gone, bulldozed by their arrival.

"Hey, Mark, check this out," a voice cut through the noise, sharp and mocking.

Stacey’s blood went cold. She knew that voice. Mark, a wide-shouldered linebacker with a cruel smirk she’d seen directed at other students in the dining hall. She kept her eyes glued to her textbook, praying they were talking about something, anything, else.

Heavy footsteps approached her table, stopping right beside her. A large shadow fell over her book, eclipsing the diagram of the brachial plexus. She could smell him—a cloying mix of cheap deodorant and sweat.

"Well, well, what do we have here?" Mark’s voice was right above her head. He leaned down, his face uncomfortably close. "It's the library ghost. Didn't know you were allowed out in the daylight."

A chorus of snickers erupted from his friends, who now crowded around her small table, hemming her in. She felt like an animal in a cage, surrounded by predators. Her heart hammered against her ribs, a frantic, trapped bird. She refused to look up, her knuckles white where she gripped her pen.

Mark tapped a thick finger on her textbook. "Human Anatomy. Heavy stuff. You planning on building your own boyfriend out of spare parts? Might be your only chance."

The laughter was louder this time, raw and ugly. Heat flooded Stacey’s face, a painful, prickling burn that spread down her neck and chest. She wanted to disappear. She wanted the floor to swallow her whole. Her careful armor of invisibility had been stripped away, leaving her raw and exposed under the harsh fluorescent lights.

"Look at these notes," another player said, leaning over Mark's shoulder to peer at her notebook. "Jesus, it's color-coded. What are you, some kind of robot?"

"Leave her alone," she whispered, the words barely audible, directed at the page in front of her. It was a mistake. Acknowledging them only fed the fire.

"What was that, sweetheart?" Mark drawled, leaning even closer. He reached out and flicked the corner of her glasses with his finger. The plastic frame jumped on her nose, and she flinched violently. "You say something? You gotta speak up. We can't hear you all the way up here in the real world."

The condescending 'sweetheart' was like a slap. Humiliation coiled in her stomach, hot and acidic. She could feel the eyes of everyone in the coffee shop on her. The barista was suddenly very busy wiping down a perfectly clean counter. The couple in the corner was staring intently into their empty cups. No one would help. No one ever did.

Mark straightened up, addressing his audience of teammates. "Nah, guys, she's busy. She's got important work to do. Right? All this studying… it's gonna make you real popular one day." He let the sentence hang in the air, dripping with sarcasm. "Real popular."

His friends howled with laughter. The sound was deafening, a physical force that pressed in on her from all sides. Her meticulously drawn diagrams, her neat handwriting, her hours of painstaking work—they had twisted it all into something pathetic and laughable. Her fortress had become her prison, and they were the gleeful wardens, rattling the bars for sport.

Tom stood by the counter, waiting for his black coffee, the noise of his teammates washing over him like background static. He’d followed them in out of habit, a post-practice ritual that was more about team cohesion than any real desire for caffeine. He heard Mark’s voice rise above the others, singling someone out. He glanced over, mildly curious, and saw the pack descending on a small corner table.

He didn't know the girl, but he recognized the type. He saw them all over campus, heads buried in books, moving between the library and the science buildings like ghosts. This one had brown hair and glasses and was trying to make herself invisible behind a textbook big enough to stop a bullet.

"It's the library ghost," Mark crowed, and Tom felt the first prickle of unease. It was Mark’s go-to move: find the quietest person in the room and put a spotlight on them. Tom usually tuned it out. It was just Mark being Mark. But today, something about the girl’s rigid posture, the way her shoulders hunched as if bracing for a physical blow, made it impossible to ignore.

He watched as his friends formed a wall of muscle and varsity blue around her, trapping her in her seat. The space felt smaller, hotter. Tom’s coffee was ready, but he didn’t move to get it. He leaned against the counter, his arms crossed over his chest, a spectator at an event he hadn't bought a ticket for.

"You planning on building your own boyfriend out of spare parts?"

The laughter that followed was jarring. Tom didn't join in. He saw the girl flinch. He saw the dark blush creep up the back of her neck. It wasn't funny. It was just mean. A voice in the back of his head, one that sounded suspiciously like his dad's, told him to step in. You're the captain. You're supposed to be the leader. But what would that even look like? Telling Mark to back off in front of everyone? Mark’s ego was as wide as his shoulders; a public challenge would turn this small-scale harassment into a full-blown confrontation. Tom needed Mark on Saturday. He needed him focused and loyal, not pissed off and looking to prove a point. So he stayed quiet, the guilt a bitter taste in his mouth that had nothing to do with the coffee.

Then Mark flicked her glasses.

Tom’s jaw tightened. A line had been crossed. Mocking someone's notes was one thing; putting your hands on them, even that lightly, was another. The girl recoiled, a sharp, jerky movement that spoke of pure fear. And in that moment, Tom felt a hot flash of anger. Not just at Mark for his casual cruelty, but at himself. For standing here. For doing nothing. For weighing team dynamics against basic human decency and finding decency lacking.

He looked at his friends, really looked at them. He saw the eager, predatory grins, the way they fed off the girl’s humiliation. They weren't just a team; they were a pack. And right now, he was ashamed to be a part of it. The camaraderie he valued so highly suddenly felt cheap, built on the shared amusement of tormenting someone who couldn't fight back.

He should say something. Just walk over and say, "Alright, guys, that's enough. Let's go." Simple. Direct. The captain taking charge. But the words caught in his throat. The moment for easy intervention had passed. Now it would be a statement. It would be him choosing her, a total stranger, over them. Over his friends. The social calculus was too complicated, the potential fallout too messy.

So he remained silent, a coward in a quarterback's body. The laughter of his teammates echoed in the too-bright coffee shop, but for Tom, the loudest sound was his own inaction. The knot in his stomach tightened, a feeling of deep, profound disappointment in himself. He watched, helpless and complicit, as the last of her dignity was stripped away for a cheap laugh.

The final peal of laughter was the breaking point. It wasn't just sound; it was a physical blow that shattered the last of her composure. A switch flipped inside her head, from freeze to flight. She had to get out. Now.

Her movements were clumsy, frantic. With shaking hands, she shoved her massive anatomy textbook into her messenger bag. The corners caught on the fabric. Her fingers fumbled with the slick covers of her other books. She didn't look up. She couldn't bear to see their smug, triumphant faces. She just focused on the task, a desperate, singular goal of erasing herself from this space.

Tears pricked at the corners of her eyes, hot and sharp, blurring the edges of her vision. She blinked them back furiously, refusing to give them the satisfaction of seeing her cry. Her breath came in short, shallow gasps. She slammed her laptop shut, the click unnaturally loud in the sudden lull as the football players watched her frantic escape with amusement.

She grabbed for her stack of notebooks. Her favorite one, a thick, spiral-bound book filled with the meticulous, color-coded notes they had ridiculed, was on the bottom. Her fingers, slick with nervous sweat, failed to get a firm grip. As she shoved the pile into her bag, the notebook slipped free, sliding silently off the table. It landed with a soft thud on the worn carpet and skittered under the table, hidden from view. She didn't notice. Her mind was a roaring chaos of shame and adrenaline. All she registered was the need to be gone.

Slinging the heavy bag over her shoulder, she finally pushed her chair back. The legs scraped against the floor, a raw, grating sound that made her cringe. For a single, terrible second, she risked a glance up. Mark was watching her with a lazy, satisfied smirk. His friends flanked him, their expressions ranging from open mockery to bored indifference. And beyond them, leaning against the counter, was Tom. Their eyes met for a fraction of a second. She saw something flicker in his expression—not amusement, something else she couldn't decipher—but it didn't matter. He was one of them. He had stood there and watched. He had done nothing.

The look on his face was the final twist of the knife. Humiliation, sharp and absolute, burned through her. She tore her gaze away, turning and pushing through the small gap they'd left her. She half-walked, half-ran to the door, feeling their eyes on her back with every step. The cheerful chime of the bell as she burst out into the cool afternoon air sounded like a scream.

She didn't stop. She fled across the manicured lawn of the quad, her bag banging painfully against her hip. She ignored the students lounging on the grass, their curious glances sliding right off her. She was a raw nerve ending, exposed and screaming. She ducked behind the imposing brick facade of the chemistry building, finding a secluded alcove near a humming air conditioning unit that was mostly hidden by overgrown bushes.

Her back hit the rough brick wall and she slid down to the ground, the concrete cold and hard beneath her. The strength that had propelled her this far evaporated, leaving her limp and shaking. Here, in the relative privacy of the humming machinery and rustling leaves, the dam finally broke. A choked sob escaped her lips, then another. She wrapped her arms around her knees, pressing her forehead against her jeans as the tears she had refused to shed in the coffee shop came in a hot, silent, shuddering rush. Each gasp for air was a fresh wave of mortification. It wasn't just that they had mocked her; it was that they had seen her. They had looked right into the quiet, ordered world she had built to protect herself and declared it worthless. And no one, not a single person, had disagreed.

The coffee shop slowly emptied out. The boisterous, chaotic energy of Tom’s teammates had dissipated, leaving behind a hollow quiet and the lingering scent of burnt espresso. Tom remained at a small table near the window, his own coffee long since gone cold. He’d told the guys he’d catch up, that he needed to finish some reading. It was a weak lie, but they were too high on their own obnoxious energy to question it.

He couldn't shake the image of the girl—Stacey, he now knew her name was Stacey—fleeing the shop. He kept replaying the moment her eyes had met his. There was no anger in them, not yet. Just a raw, bottomless humiliation that he had helped inflict with his silence. The memory sat like a stone in his gut.

A barista with tired eyes began the closing routine, wiping down tables and sweeping the floor. Tom watched him work, his gaze drawn back to the corner where she had been sitting. The empty chair, pushed askew, looked accusatory. As the barista swept under the table, the bristles of the broom nudged something into the open. A thick, black spiral notebook.

The barista bent down, picked it up, and glanced at it without interest before turning toward the lost-and-found box behind the counter.

A sudden, sharp impulse shot through Tom. "Hey," he called out, his voice rougher than he intended. The barista looked over. "I think that's my friend's."

The lie came easily, a well-practiced social lubricant. The barista, clearly past the point of caring, just shrugged and handed it over. "Whatever, man. Just glad it's not my problem."

The notebook felt heavy in Tom’s hands, far heavier than it should. It was just paper and wire, but it was weighted with the afternoon's ugliness. He ran a thumb over the plain black cover before flipping it open.

He was met with a page of impossibly neat handwriting, the ink a crisp, dark blue. The heading read Cranial Nerves: Anatomy and Function. Below it, a series of diagrams were rendered with an artist’s precision, labeling the olfactory, optic, and oculomotor nerves. Every available space was filled with color-coded annotations and mnemonics written in a tiny, perfect script. This wasn’t just studying; it was a craft.

He remembered Mark’s idiotic joke about building a boyfriend from spare parts. The memory made his jaw clench. She wasn't playing with dolls; she was mapping the human brain. The sheer intelligence on the page was humbling. He was a smart guy—he had to be to manage his classes and memorize a playbook with hundreds of variations—but this was a different language altogether. It was the language of someone who was going to save lives one day, and they had treated her like she was dirt on their shoes. The shame from earlier twisted into something sharper, more acute. They hadn't just been cruel; they had been profoundly stupid.

He turned the page. The brachial plexus, a complex network of nerves, was drawn out like an intricate circuit board. He kept flipping, past detailed cross-sections of the heart and diagrams of cellular respiration. He didn't understand most of it, but he understood the effort. He understood the hours and the discipline it represented.

He turned back to the inside front cover, searching for a name. There, in the same small, careful script, he found it.

Stacey Miller
Bio-Chem Building, Room 312

Stacey. The name made her real. She wasn't the "library ghost" or some anonymous nerd. She was Stacey Miller, and she lived in the Bio-Chem dorm. And he had her notebook, a book that was clearly the product of countless hours of work.

He closed it, the spiral wire pressing into his palm. The easy path was clear: drop it at the front desk of her dorm. Anonymous. Clean. He wouldn't have to face her, wouldn't have to see the accusation in her eyes. It would be a simple, detached transaction. A problem solved with minimal effort.

But the image of her face flashed in his mind again. That final look before she turned and ran. It wasn’t just about returning her property. This was about the fact that he had stood there, a silent pillar of the group that had cornered her. His inaction had been a vote of approval. Leaving the notebook with a stranger at a desk felt like another form of cowardice, a way to wash his hands of it without ever getting them dirty.

He owed her an apology. Not a grand, public one, but a direct one. He had to look her in the eye and take responsibility for his part in it. The thought made his stomach tighten. She probably hated him. He wouldn't blame her if she slammed the door in his face or told him to get lost. He deserved it. But the alternative—doing nothing, again—was no longer an option.

He pushed his chair back and stood, leaving the cold coffee untouched. He tucked the notebook under his arm, the metal spiral digging into his ribs. It was a small, insistent discomfort, and it felt right. He walked to the door, the bell chiming softly as he stepped out into the evening air. The campus was quiet, the sky fading from orange to deep indigo. He knew her name. He knew where she lived. And for the first time all day, he knew exactly what he had to do.

The third floor of the library was Stacey’s sanctuary. It was the quietest floor, reserved for graduate students and the truly dedicated, a place where the loudest sound was the rustle of a turning page or the soft click of a keyboard. She had claimed a carrel in the deepest corner, her back to the entrance, facing a window that looked out on nothing but a dark brick wall. It felt safe. It felt anonymous.

She’d spent the last two hours trying to recreate her cranial nerve diagrams from memory. The work was slow, her hand unsteady. The pristine pages in her new notebook felt like a mockery of the one she had lost. Every time the main doors on the first floor opened, a distant whoosh of air would travel up the central staircase, and she would flinch, her shoulders hunching. She felt hunted. The focused calm that usually accompanied her studies was gone, replaced by a jittery, raw-nerved anxiety.

A shadow fell over her desk.

Her entire body went rigid. Her breath caught in her throat. No. Not here. This was her one safe place. She squeezed her eyes shut for a second, bracing for the inevitable sneer, the condescending comment.

“Stacey?”

The voice was low, hesitant. Not Mark’s arrogant drawl. She knew that voice. It was the one that had been conspicuously silent in the coffee shop. Slowly, she turned her head, her heart hammering against her ribs.

Tom stood there, looking massive and out of place among the narrow stacks of books. He held her lost notebook in his hand. He wasn’t smirking. He looked… uncomfortable. His broad shoulders were tense, and he shifted his weight from one foot to the other, as if the library’s profound silence was a physical pressure.

Her eyes darted to the notebook. A wave of pure, unadulterated relief washed over her, so potent it almost made her dizzy. It was followed immediately by a surge of defensive anger. She reached out, snatching the notebook from his hand without a word. Her fingers brushed his, and the contact was like a mild electric shock. She pulled her hand back as if burned, clutching the familiar, worn cover to her chest.

“Thanks,” she said, her voice clipped and cold. She turned back to her desk, a clear dismissal. Her body language screamed: You’ve done your part. Now leave.

He didn’t. He remained standing there, a solid, unmoving presence at her shoulder. She could feel his gaze on the back of her head.

“Look,” he started, his voice even quieter now, forcing her to strain to hear him. “About this afternoon. At the coffee shop.”

Stacey’s spine stiffened. She kept her eyes fixed on the half-finished diagram of the trigeminal nerve on her page. “There’s nothing to talk about.”

“No, there is,” he insisted. She could hear the frustration in his tone, though it didn't seem directed at her. “What Mark… what they did… it was bullshit. Complete bullshit. And I’m sorry.”

The apology hung in the silent air between them, so unexpected it felt like a trick. She finally turned in her chair to face him fully, her expression guarded, her eyes narrowed with suspicion. She scanned his face, searching for the punchline. There was none. He just looked earnest and deeply uneasy, his gaze direct and unwavering.

“You just stood there,” she stated, the words flat and accusatory. It wasn’t a question.

He winced, a brief, sharp tightening of his jaw. “I know,” he said, his voice dropping to a rough murmur. “I should have said something. I didn’t. There’s no excuse for it.”

She stared at him, utterly thrown. She had prepared for more mockery, for confrontation, for being ignored. She had no script for this—for a sincere apology from the star quarterback, the king of the very social circle that had just ripped her world apart. The silence stretched, becoming more awkward with every second. He wasn't leaving. He was waiting for a response, an absolution she had no intention of giving.

“Fine,” she said finally, the word coming out harsher than she intended. “You’ve apologized.” She turned back to her desk, picking up her pen. The message was unmistakable this time. Get out.

She heard him take a breath, as if to say something more, but he let it out in a quiet sigh. “Right,” he said. “Okay.”

She didn't look up as she heard his footsteps retreat, their soft echo absorbed by the carpet and the rows of books. Only when she was sure he was gone, when the oppressive weight of his presence had lifted, did she allow herself to relax. Her grip on her pen was so tight her knuckles were white.

She looked down at her old notebook, her thumb tracing the familiar indentations on the cover. His apology didn’t fix anything. It didn’t erase the burning humiliation or the fear that now clung to her like a second skin. It just made everything more complicated. She opened the notebook to the page she’d been trying to replicate. Her own neat, precise diagrams stared back at her. For a moment, she felt a flicker of something other than anger or fear. It was confusion, a deep and unsettling uncertainty that left her feeling more exposed than ever before.

Tom’s apology, it turned out, was not a solution. It was gasoline on a fire she hadn’t even realized was burning so hot. The next day, walking to her chemistry lecture, Stacey saw Mark and two other players from the football team up ahead. They were tossing a football back and forth across the main quad, their laughter loud in the crisp autumn air. She ducked her head, altering her path to give them a wide berth, but it was useless.

As she drew parallel to them, the football sailed wildly, landing with a thud on the grass just a few feet in front of her. She jumped, her books slipping in her arms.

“Whoa there!” Mark called out, jogging over. He wasn't looking at the ball; he was looking right at her, a wide, insincere grin on his face. “Sorry about that. Almost didn’t see you. You’re so quiet, you just blend right in.”

His friends snickered. Stacey’s face burned. She clutched her books tighter and hurried past without a word, the sound of their laughter following her all the way to the science building. It was a declaration. Tom’s apology hadn’t earned her a reprieve; it had painted a fresh target on her back.

The encounters became a daily gauntlet. They never touched her, but their presence was a constant, looming threat. If she was in the student union, they would take the table next to hers, speaking just loud enough for her to hear their jokes about "try-hards" and "bookworms." They’d walk down a crowded hallway in a solid line, forcing her to flatten herself against the lockers to let them pass. Once, one of them "accidentally" bumped her arm as she was drinking from a water fountain, soaking the front of her shirt. The apology was always the same—a lazy, mocking drawl that made it clear the act was entirely intentional.

Her world began to shrink. She stopped going to the coffee shop. She mapped out convoluted, indirect routes to her classes, adding ten minutes to her travel time just to avoid the athletic center and the main quad. She ate granola bars in empty classrooms instead of facing the cafeteria. But they were persistent. They seemed to enjoy the hunt.

The worst of it came on a Thursday. Exhausted and hungry after a three-hour lab, she risked the main dining hall, hoping to grab a quick salad and retreat to the library. She found a small, two-person table in a far corner, positioning herself so she could see the entire room. For fifteen minutes, there was peace. She began to relax, her shoulders lowering as she focused on her food.

Then they arrived. It was Mark, of course, with three of his biggest teammates in tow. They descended on her small table like vultures, pulling up chairs and crowding around her.

“Mind if we join you?” Mark asked, though he was already sitting down, his tray clattering against the table. They hemmed her in, their large bodies creating an impenetrable wall.

Stacey’s throat closed up. She stared down at her salad, her fork frozen in her hand. The chatter from the rest of the dining hall seemed to fade away, leaving only the suffocating bubble of their presence.

They didn’t speak to her directly. Instead, they spoke at her, a performance for her benefit.

“Did you guys see Tom in the gym yesterday?” one of them asked. “He was pissed about something. Said we needed to ‘back off.’” He made air quotes with his thick fingers.

Mark laughed, a short, ugly sound. “Yeah, I heard. Our boy Tommy’s got a soft spot for charity cases, I guess. He was probably just trying to be a nice guy. You know, returning a lost book to some poor, pathetic nerd.” He said the word "nerd" with a sneer, pushing his fork into a piece of lasagna. “Guess he doesn’t realize some people are a lost cause.”

Every word was a physical blow. Stacey felt hundreds of eyes on them, on her. She was a spectacle. The girl being tormented by the football team. The heat rose in her cheeks, a painful, prickling blush that spread down her neck. She wanted to disappear. She wanted to stand up and scream at them, but her voice was gone, trapped in her chest along with her breath. All she could do was sit there, captive, as they dissected her, belittled her, and mocked the one person who had shown her a sliver of kindness.

She couldn’t take another second. Pushing her chair back abruptly, the legs scraping loudly against the floor, she stood up. She didn't look at any of them. She kept her eyes on the exit, a distant beacon of escape. Leaving her full tray, her half-eaten salad, and her dignity on the table, she walked away. Their laughter followed her, a wave of triumphant cruelty that washed over her as she pushed through the doors and fled into the anonymous safety of the campus crowds.

The escape was temporary. The shame was not. It followed her back to her dorm room, seeped into the pages of her textbooks, and echoed in the quiet hum of her desk lamp. For the first time in her life, studying, her one true sanctuary, felt like a chore. The intricate pathways of cellular metabolism, which usually fascinated her, now seemed like an insurmountable tangle of meaningless words. She would read the same paragraph five, six, seven times, and at the end of it, have no idea what she had just read.

Her mind, once a sharp and orderly tool, was now a traitor. It kept replaying the scene in the dining hall. The scrape of the chairs. The wall of their bodies boxing her in. Mark’s voice, dripping with casual contempt, saying pathetic nerd. The words circled in her head, a vicious mantra that drowned out everything else. She’d close her eyes and see the blurred faces of other students, their expressions a mixture of pity and morbid curiosity.

Sleep offered little respite. She’d jolt awake in the dark, her heart pounding, a phantom laugh ringing in her ears. The constant vigilance of her days—scanning every hallway, mapping out escape routes, tensing at the sound of loud male voices—carried over into the night. She was exhausted, a deep, bone-weary fatigue that no amount of caffeine could penetrate. A persistent, dull headache settled behind her eyes.

The first real casualty was a pop quiz in her advanced biology seminar. It was on mitochondrial function, a topic she knew so well she could have lectured on it herself a week ago. But as she stared at the single sheet of paper, her mind was a cavernous empty space. The questions seemed to be written in a foreign language. Her pulse throbbed in her ears, loud and frantic. All she could think about was the possibility of Mark and his friends waiting for her outside the lecture hall. She could feel the phantom weight of their stares, even in a room full of strangers. She scribbled down fragmented answers, her handwriting shaky and unfamiliar. When the professor called time, her page was still half-blank. She handed it in, her face burning with a shame that was entirely new to her—the shame of failure.

A few days later, the grade for her first major organic chemistry paper was posted online. She clicked the link with a trembling finger, her stomach twisting into a tight, painful knot.

B-minus.

Stacey stared at the two characters on the screen as if they were a death sentence. She had never gotten a B-minus in her life, not even in high school gym class. Her academic record was a pristine, unbroken string of A’s, a testament to her discipline and the singular focus of her ambition. This grade wasn't just a number; it was a crack in the very foundation of her identity.

She leaned back in her desk chair, the breath leaving her lungs in a shaky exhale. It was happening. They were winning. The constant, low-grade terror was doing more damage than any single, overt act of cruelty ever could. It was a poison, seeping into her concentration, clouding her memory, and sabotaging the one thing she thought they could never touch: her mind. The fear was no longer just about humiliation. It was about her future. The path to medical school was a razor’s edge, demanding perfection. A B-minus felt like a catastrophic stumble, and she knew, with a certainty that chilled her to the bone, that it was only the beginning. They were dismantling her, piece by piece, and she had no idea how to make them stop.

The clank and thud of iron weights echoed off the concrete walls of the gym. Tom racked his own weights, his movements sharp and angry. He’d heard about the dining hall incident from a couple of guys on the basketball team who’d described it with a mixture of amusement and pity. He’d seen Stacey himself earlier that day, scurrying across the quad like a frightened mouse, her shoulders hunched and her eyes darting around as if expecting an attack at any moment. The sight had coiled something hard and ugly in his gut.

He spotted Mark by the bench press, laughing with two other linemen as they took turns spotting each other. The easy camaraderie, the casual cruelty of it all, made Tom’s jaw tighten. He walked over, his shadow falling over them.

“Mark,” Tom said, his voice low and even. “A word.”

Mark finished his set, grunting as he pushed the heavy bar up one last time and slammed it into the cradle. He sat up, breathing hard, a sheen of sweat on his forehead. “What’s up, QB1? Need a spot?”

“No. I need you to leave Stacey alone.”

The easy grin on Mark’s face faltered for a fraction of a second before returning, wider and more mocking. “Stacey? Who’s—oh, you mean the bookworm. Library Girl.” He chuckled and looked at the other guys, who snickered along with him. “What about her?”

“Don’t play dumb,” Tom snapped, his patience gone. “I know what you’ve been doing. The cafeteria, the hallways. All of it. I want it to stop. Now.”

Mark stood up, wiping his hands on his shorts. He was nearly as tall as Tom and twice as wide, a wall of muscle and condescension. “Whoa, easy there. We were just messing with her. It’s harmless fun.”

“It’s not harmless,” Tom said, his voice rising. “Look at her. She’s terrified to even walk across campus. You’re harassing her.”

“Harassing,” Mark repeated the word, tasting it. He laughed, a short, barking sound. “Dude, you’re being dramatic. We haven’t laid a hand on her. It’s just jokes. She needs to lighten up. It’s college.”

“It’s not a joke to her,” Tom insisted, stepping closer. He could feel the eyes of other players in the weight room turning towards them, sensing the shift in atmosphere. “I told her I’d handle it. I told her you guys were decent. You’re making me a liar.”

“So what?” Mark shot back, his good-natured facade crumbling completely. “Why do you even care? You returned her little notebook, you did your good deed for the year. What is she, your secret charity project?”

“She’s a person, you asshole,” Tom said, his fists clenching at his sides. “And you’re treating her like she’s some kind of game.”

“She is weird,” one of the other linemen chimed in, emboldened by Mark’s defiance. “Walks around with her nose in a book all day, doesn’t talk to anyone. It’s like she wants people to make fun of her.”

Tom felt a surge of raw fury. He looked from the lineman’s smug face to Mark’s dismissive sneer and realized he was talking to a brick wall. They didn’t see it. They didn’t want to see it. In their world, a world of popularity and physical prowess, someone like Stacey was an anomaly, an 'other' who existed only for their amusement. She wasn’t real to them.

“I’m not asking you again, Mark,” Tom said, his voice dropping to a dangerous quiet. “Leave. Her. Alone.”

Mark just stared at him for a long moment, a flicker of something—annoyance, maybe even resentment—in his eyes. Then he shrugged, a deliberate, theatrical gesture of indifference. “Whatever, man. You’re the captain.” He turned his back on Tom, grabbing the bar for another set. “It’s just a bit of fun. Don’t get your panties in a twist over it.”

The dismissal was as absolute as a slap in the face. The other players turned away, the tension broken, the conversation over. Tom was left standing there, his authority, his friendship, his anger, all rendered completely impotent. He watched Mark lift the weight, his friends cheering him on, their pack mentality solid and impenetrable.

He knew then, with a sickening certainty, that his words meant nothing. They wouldn't stop. Why would they? He hadn’t given them a reason that they could understand or respect. To them, his defense of Stacey was a weakness, a bizarre and temporary lapse in judgment. As long as she was just a "weirdo," a "charity case," she would always be a target. His words couldn’t protect her. He needed to do something else. Something drastic. Something that would reframe the entire situation in a language they couldn’t possibly ignore.

Tom turned and walked away, the sound of Mark’s grunts and the clank of iron plates echoing behind him. It was a sound of dismissal, of absolute victory. He pushed through the gym doors into the blinding afternoon sun, his fists still tight at his sides. The anger was a hot, useless thing in his chest. He could go back in there, grab Mark by the collar of his sweat-soaked shirt, and use the only language he seemed to understand. But a brawl wouldn’t solve anything. It would just prove Mark’s point—that this was all just some dramatic, emotional outburst. It wouldn’t earn Stacey any safety. It would only make Tom look unhinged.

He walked, not heading anywhere in particular, just moving across the manicured lawns of the quad, past laughing groups of students throwing frisbees and lounging on blankets. The ordinary, cheerful campus scene felt alien. He was trapped in the ugly logic of the weight room.

Why do you even care?

Mark’s question circled in his head. Why did he? It wasn't just guilt over his friends’ behavior anymore. It was the image of Stacey in the coffee shop, so completely absorbed in her work, a concentration so total it was almost a physical shield. And it was the image of her later, her face pale and her eyes wide with fear as she navigated the hallways. They weren’t just teasing her; they were chipping away at the very thing that made her who she was. They were trying to break her focus, to shatter her sanctuary. He’d seen the B-minus on her chemistry paper when she’d been studying in the library, the paper clutched in her hand like a verdict. He knew what that grade meant to someone like her. It was a wound. And his friends were the ones holding the knife.

He had miscalculated completely. He thought his word, his status as captain, would be enough. He had approached the problem like a team captain talking to his players. But he wasn't their captain in this. He was an obstacle to their 'fun'. They didn't see Stacey as a person. She was a thing. A target. A weirdo.

And his defense of her? To them, it made no sense. It violated the simple, brutal code they lived by. You stick with your own. You don’t defend an outsider against the pack, not unless that outsider belongs to you.

The thought landed with sudden, jarring clarity.

Belongs to you.

It was a repulsive concept, archaic and possessive. But it was the only currency they traded in. They wouldn’t mess with another guy’s car. They wouldn’t mess with another guy’s gear. And they wouldn’t mess with another guy’s girlfriend. To do so would be a direct challenge, a violation of territory. It was primitive, it was stupid, but it was their language.

If Stacey were his girlfriend, Mark would have to back off. The whole team would. The teasing wouldn't be 'harmless fun' anymore; it would be a sign of disrespect toward him, the quarterback. The entire dynamic would shift in an instant. She would no longer be a lone, vulnerable target. She would be under his protection, not because he asked for it, but because the unspoken rules of their social world demanded it.

The idea was insane. Utterly, ridiculously insane.

He imagined walking up to her, this serious, brilliant girl who was probably terrified of him and his entire species of loud, thoughtless jocks. ‘Hey, I know my friends are making your life a living hell and ruining your academic career, so how about we pretend to be in a relationship so they’ll leave you alone?’ She’d laugh in his face. Or worse, she’d look at him with the same contempt she had for Mark, seeing him as just another arrogant football player trying to manipulate her for his own reasons. She would think he was making a joke of her misery.

And yet… what was the alternative? He’d tried talking to them. He’d tried reasoning. It had failed spectacularly. He could do nothing and watch as they systematically dismantled her confidence and her grades, all for their own sick amusement. He couldn't stomach that. He had told her he would handle it. He had made a promise, and the failure of it burned in his gut more than the dismissal from Mark.

He stopped walking, standing in the middle of a path near the science building. The plan was crazy. It was manipulative and deceitful. But it was also the only thing he could think of that might actually work. It was a drastic measure, a social Hail Mary. It required reframing the entire situation in a way that his thick-headed friends could understand. It wasn't about protecting Stacey, the person. It was about claiming Stacey, the girlfriend.

He hated that it had come to this. He hated the world that made this seem like a viable solution. But most of all, he hated the thought of doing nothing. He took a deep breath, the decision solidifying from a crazy idea into a concrete, if terrifying, plan. He had to find her. He had to convince her. It was the only move he had left to play.

He checked the library first, scanning the quiet carrels and long tables where she usually sat, a fortress of textbooks around her. She wasn’t there. Of course she wasn’t. The library was public, exposed. If she was hiding, she’d go somewhere she felt safe, somewhere they wouldn’t think to look.

The science building.

He pushed through the heavy glass doors, the air inside immediately cooler and smelling faintly of chemicals and old paper. The main hallways were mostly empty, classes having let out for the day. He walked past labs with their lights off, the complex diagrams on the whiteboards looking like an alien language. He felt out of place here, a trespasser in her world. He checked a few of the smaller lecture halls, then started down a long, quiet corridor on the third floor that he knew led to professors’ offices. At the very end was a small alcove with a single wooden bench, tucked away next to a window that looked out over a forgotten corner of campus.

And there she was.

She was curled into the corner of the bench, making herself as small as possible. Her knees were drawn up to her chest, her arms wrapped around them, her forehead resting on her kneecaps. Her backpack was on the floor beside her, a thick anatomy book sticking out of the unzipped top. She wasn't sobbing loudly, but he could see the slight, rhythmic tremor in her shoulders that told him she was crying. A deep, silent, hopeless kind of crying.

His anger at Mark and the others flared again, hot and sharp, but it was quickly replaced by a heavy, aching feeling in his chest. This was the result of their 'harmless fun'. This small, crumpled figure trying to disappear into a wall.

He took a step forward, and his sneaker squeaked on the polished linoleum.

Her head snapped up. Her eyes, wide and red-rimmed, fixed on him. Fear flashed across her face first, raw and immediate, followed by a wave of pure humiliation. She scrambled to her feet, swiping at her wet cheeks with the back of her hand as if trying to erase the evidence. Her glasses were crooked on her face.

“What do you want?” she asked, her voice thick and rough. It was meant to sound defiant, but it just sounded broken.

She clutched the strap of her backpack, ready to flee. He saw the motion and held up a hand, palm out, a universal gesture for stop.

“Stacey, wait,” he said. His voice was lower than he intended, softer. He was afraid if he spoke too loudly, she’d shatter.

“Leave me alone,” she said, her chin trembling. She wouldn’t look at him, her gaze fixed on a point somewhere over his shoulder, desperate for an escape route. “Haven’t you and your friends done enough for one day?”

The accusation hit him squarely in the gut. You and your friends. She saw no distinction between them, and why would she? He was one of them. He’d stood by and let it happen before. His apology in the library a week ago was meaningless now, just empty words.

“I saw what happened in the dining hall,” he said, keeping his voice steady. “I’m sorry.”

“Sorry?” She finally looked at him, and the raw pain in her eyes made him flinch. A bitter, incredulous laugh escaped her lips. “You’re sorry? That’s great. Tell that to Mark. I’m sure he’ll be very moved.” She slung her backpack over her shoulder and took a step to go around him.

He moved instinctively, blocking her path. Not by grabbing her, but just by shifting his body, putting himself in her way. It was a risk. It could easily be interpreted as intimidation, the very thing he was trying to stop.

She froze, her body going rigid. “Get out of my way.”

“Just listen to me for one minute,” he pleaded, his frustration making his voice tight. “Please. I tried talking to them. It didn’t work. They’re not going to stop.”

“Then why are you here?” she demanded, her voice rising with a frantic edge. “To give me a report on the situation? To watch me fall apart? Is this part of the entertainment?”

“No,” he said, shaking his head. “No. I’m here because… I have an idea. A way to make them stop. For good.”

She stared at him, her expression a mixture of suspicion and exhaustion. The fight was draining out of her, leaving only a hollowed-out weariness. She didn’t believe him. He could see it in the slight sag of her shoulders, the way she looked at him as if he were speaking a language she couldn’t comprehend. He had to make her listen. He had to make her understand that, as insane as it was, he was her only way out of this.

He took a deep breath, the air in the sterile hallway feeling thin. "Okay," he began, his voice low and serious. "This is going to sound completely insane. But it's the only thing I can think of that will actually work."

She watched him, her arms crossed tightly over her chest, a shield against whatever was coming next. Her expression was a hard mask of distrust.

"What if," he said, forcing the words out, each one feeling more ridiculous than the last. "What if we told them we were dating?"

Silence.

The only sound was the faint hum of the overhead lights. Stacey just stared at him, her head tilted slightly. For a long, stretched-out moment, she didn't react at all, her face a perfect blank. He thought maybe she hadn't processed it, that the words were so absurd they hadn't registered.

Then her expression cracked. A slow, cold fury burned away the shock. Her lips twisted into a humorless smile. "You want me to pretend to be your girlfriend?" she asked, her voice dangerously quiet. "Is that it? Is that your brilliant idea?"

"Listen, just hear me out—"

"No," she cut him off, her voice gaining strength, sharpened by indignation. "I've heard enough. You think this is a solution? To turn my life into some kind of public performance? To make me a character in your little high school drama? First, I'm the weird, pathetic nerd your friends get to torture for fun, and now you want to promote me to the role of the fake girlfriend for their entertainment? Is that supposed to be an upgrade?"

Every word was a perfectly aimed dart, and they all hit their mark. He felt a flush of shame creep up his neck. She was right. From her perspective, it was insulting. It was humiliating.

"It's not like that," he insisted, taking a half-step closer, his hands raised slightly in a gesture of placation. "This isn't a game. This is about speaking their language. It's the only one they understand."

"And what language is that?" she shot back, her eyes flashing. "Grunts and body slams?"

"The language of boundaries," he said, his voice tight with frustration. "Look, they see you as an easy target because you're on your own. They don't respect you, and they don't respect me telling them to stop. But they have this stupid, caveman code. You don't mess with another guy's girlfriend. Ever. To them, that's not just teasing you; it's disrespecting me. It's a direct challenge. They wouldn't dare."

He watched her face, searching for any sign that she understood, that she could see the twisted logic in it. He hated explaining it, hated giving voice to the primitive social hierarchy he lived in. It made him sound as brutish as them.

"If they think you're with me," he continued, pressing his point, "you're not a target anymore. You're… off-limits. The harassment would stop. Not just slow down. It would stop. Instantly. Mark would have to back the hell off, or he'd have to answer to me and the rest of the team."

He let the words hang in the air between them. He had laid it all out—the problem, the players, and his insane, last-ditch solution. He was offering her a shield, forged from the very thing she despised: his social status. It was a lie, a carefully constructed deception designed to manipulate the bullies into leaving her alone. It was ugly and transactional, but he was convinced it was the only thing that would work.

Stacey stood frozen, her mind visibly racing behind her intelligent, wounded eyes. The anger was still there, but now it was warring with something else. He could see her processing the mechanics of it, the cold, awful strategy. She was looking at him not as a person, but as a tactical option, a piece on a board she never wanted to play on. The silence stretched on, thick with the weight of his proposal, a ridiculous, offensive, and terrifyingly plausible plan.

Finally, she laughed. It wasn't a real laugh; it was a short, sharp, ugly sound that echoed in the quiet hallway. It was the sound of disbelief curdling into contempt.

“Off-limits,” she repeated, the words tasting like poison in her mouth. She looked him up and down, a slow, deliberate assessment that made him shift his weight. For the first time, she wasn’t looking at him like he was a threat, but like he was a particularly baffling and distasteful specimen under a microscope. “So let me see if I understand this. You and your Neanderthal friends operate on a system of property rights. I’m currently public property, free for anyone to kick around. But if I become your property, then I’ll be safe? Is that the brilliant plan?”

“Stacey, that’s not what I meant—”

“Isn’t it?” she snapped, taking a step toward him, her entire posture radiating a furious energy he’d never seen before. The timid, tear-stained girl from a moment ago was gone, replaced by someone sharp and formidable. “You want to slap your brand on me like I’m a piece of livestock so the other wolves in your pack will keep their teeth to themselves. You don’t see how that is just a different, more elaborate form of humiliation?”

He was speechless. The way she broke it down, so clinically, so brutally, stripped all the well-meaning intention from his plan and left it looking exactly as she described: primitive and insulting.

“I would become a walking billboard for your magnanimity,” she continued, her voice low and seething. “Look everyone, it’s Tom, the noble hero, dating the pathetic little nerd to save her from his own friends. How charitable. How kind. Do you have any idea what they would say about me behind my back? That I’m some desperate, social-climbing charity case you took on as a project? You think the whispers and the stares would stop? No. They’d just change their tune. And I would have to stand there and smile and pretend to be grateful for it.”

She was pacing now, a tight, two-step motion in the small alcove, her hands clenched into fists at her sides. “This isn’t about protecting me. This is about your ego. You can’t control your friends, so you try to control the situation with this… this ridiculous social experiment. You get to play the savior, and all it costs me is what’s left of my dignity.”

“That’s not true,” he said, his voice strained. “I’m trying to help.”

“Help?” She stopped and faced him, her eyes blazing. “You want to help? Go back in time and don’t stand by silently while your friend calls me a freak in the library. You want to help? Tell your friends that harassing people is wrong, not because the person is someone’s property, but because they’re a human being. But you can’t do that, can you? That would require a spine. This is easier. This is a game. And I am not a pawn.”

The finality in her voice was absolute. She saw his plan for exactly what it was—a shortcut through a world whose rules she refused to accept. He was offering her a shield, but the shield was made of the very thing that was crushing her. It was a trade she wasn't willing to make. The cost was too high.

“I would rather be miserable on my own terms than be 'safe' on yours,” she said, her voice dropping to a near-whisper, but it was heavier than any shout. “I would rather have them throw food at me every single day than enter into some pathetic, dishonest arrangement with you.”

Her words hung in the sterile air, sharp and absolute. They hit him with more force than any tackle. He opened his mouth to argue, to defend himself, but the arguments died on his tongue. What could he say? She had dissected his plan and laid its ugly insides bare for him to see. She was right. From her perspective, it was just a prettier cage.

“So you’ll just let them keep doing this to you?” he finally managed, his voice sounding hollow to his own ears. “You’ll just let them ruin your life here?”

“They’re not ruining my life,” she said, her voice dropping to a low, steady calm that was more intimidating than her shouting. She looked at him, and for the first time, there was no fear in her eyes. There was no pleading. There was only a cold, hard resolve. “They’re making it difficult. There’s a difference. What you’re proposing… that would ruin it. It would make me someone I don’t recognize. Someone who barters her self-respect for a little peace and quiet.”

She bent down and picked up her bookbag, slinging it over one shoulder with a decisive movement. The simple action felt like a judgment.

“I get good grades,” she said, her voice methodical, as if she were reciting facts from a textbook. “I work hard. I show up. I do what I’m supposed to do. That is who I am. I will not let them take that from me, and I certainly won’t trade it away for the privilege of being seen on your arm.”

He flinched. The sting of her words was sharp, personal. He had come here thinking he was offering a lifeline, and she was looking at him as if he were offering poison.

“My problems are my own,” she continued, her gaze unwavering. “I’ll deal with them. Maybe I’ll fail. Maybe this entire year will be a disaster and I’ll have to go home with my tail between my legs. But it will be my failure. Not some footnote in your campus legacy.”

She zipped her jacket, the sound loud in the quiet hallway. It was a sound of finality. She was closing herself off from him, from his world, from his ridiculous proposal.

“So, thank you for the offer,” she said, and the politeness was the most insulting thing she could have uttered. It dismissed him completely. “But I’m not interested. Stay away from me. Tell your friends to stay away from me. Just… leave me alone. All of you.”

Without another word, she turned and walked away. She didn’t run. Her steps were measured and even, echoing down the long, empty corridor until she turned a corner and was gone.

Tom just stood there, rooted to the spot in the alcove that still seemed to hold the furious energy of their conversation. The silence she left behind was deafening. He felt stripped bare, his good intentions revealed as clumsy and arrogant. He had seen her as a victim to be saved, and in doing so, had completely overlooked the person she actually was: someone with more integrity and fight in her than his entire circle of friends combined.

He leaned his head back against the cool, tiled wall, closing his eyes. I am not a pawn.

Her voice replayed in his head, clear and cutting. He had wanted to fix her problem, but he’d only succeeded in becoming a part of it. He had offered her the only solution he knew, a solution based on the shallow rules of his world. And she had flatly, unequivocally, refused to play the game. He felt the burn of rejection, a deep and unfamiliar ache in his chest. It was a feeling he wasn’t used to, and it was tangled up with something else, something he couldn’t quite name. A grudging, infuriating, and undeniable flicker of respect.

He didn't move for a long time. The hallway was silent except for the low hum of the building's ventilation system. Each word she had thrown at him seemed to be physically embedded in the walls, the floor, his own skin. Pawn. Property. A footnote in your campus legacy. She had taken his plan, his one good idea, and held it up to the light until he could see every ugly crack in it. He felt like an idiot. Worse, he felt seen in a way that was deeply uncomfortable, his motivations and his world dissected and dismissed as pathetic.

And she was right. On every single point, she was right. It was a primitive, transactional solution. It was about his ego, his inability to control his friends. It was a game.

But it would have worked.

That one, stubborn fact remained, lodged in his gut like a stone. She could have all the integrity in the world, she could stand on her principles until she graduated, but Mark and the others wouldn't care. They wouldn’t be impressed by her resolve. They would see it as a weakness to be exploited further. They would break her, not because they were stronger, but because they were crueler and they had nothing to lose.

Her failure wouldn't be hers alone. It would be his, too. Because he had stood by and let it happen.

The thought propelled him forward. He didn’t run, but his long strides ate up the distance of the hallway quickly. He rounded the corner she had disappeared around and saw her at the far end, stabbing the button for the elevator, her back rigid.

She heard his footsteps and tensed, but she didn’t turn around. He stopped a few feet behind her.

“You’re right,” he said, and the admission cost him a significant piece of his pride. Her shoulders tightened, but she remained silent, facing the closed elevator doors.

“Everything you said. It’s insulting. It’s messed up that this is what it would take. I get it.” He took a breath, forcing the words out. “But you’re wrong about one thing. They are ruining your life here. You’re hiding in hallways. You can’t focus. You look over your shoulder every five seconds. How long until your grades start to slip? How long until you can’t take it anymore and you just… stop coming out of your dorm room?”

The elevator chimed, its doors sliding open with a soft whoosh. She didn’t move.

“You can have all the integrity you want,” Tom said, his voice dropping lower, more urgent. “And you can be miserable. Or you can swallow your pride, use me and my stupid reputation, and get them off your back so you can actually do what you came here to do. Your principles are not going to protect you from them. But I can.”

She finally turned her head, just enough to look at him over her shoulder. Her face was pale, her eyes filled with a weary, burning anger. He saw the war happening within her—the fierce pride fighting against the exhausting reality of her situation.

“This isn’t a game to me, Stacey,” he said, and he was surprised by the raw honesty in his own voice. “I don’t want to see them do this to you anymore. I don’t care if you hate me for it. I don’t care if you think I’m an asshole. The offer stands.”

The elevator doors began to slide shut. At the last second, she stepped inside, her back to him. The doors closed, leaving him alone in the hallway once again.

He hadn’t convinced her. He knew that. He had just given her an impossible choice. He had laid out the ugly truth: in the world they lived in, her dignity was pitted against her survival. And now, the decision was hers. He turned and walked back the way he came, the weight of his offer hanging in the air, a final, desperate move in a game she never wanted to play. He just hoped, for both their sakes, that she would eventually choose to play it.