The lamp in the library stayed on when I left. I checked it twice on the walk down, like it might follow me.
It didn't. But Cormac had smiled at me, and my brain had already built a whole personality out of it.
Tilda: You sat at his table. In the library. People saw.
Nell: People see everything here. It's their main hobby.
Tilda: I'm not being mean. I'm the only person here who'll tell you straight.
Tilda: Cormac hurt someone. Years ago. A girl from this school.
I'd heard that sentence before, in pieces, from different mouths. All of it at once was worse.
Tilda: She nearly died. That's not a rumor, that's the part everyone agrees on.
So I asked the dumb, honest question, because that's my whole brand.
Nell: What did he actually do?
Tilda: Nobody says. That's the thing. Nobody says and everybody knows.
Tilda: There was blood on the floor of the east hall. She was in the infirmary for weeks.
Tilda: And he came back the next year like nothing happened. What does that tell you?
Nell: Did you see it happen?
Tilda: No. But I believe it.
She said it like belief was homework. Like everyone had done theirs and I was behind.
Tilda: Please just sit with me. Not back there.
I thought about it for forty whole minutes. With my coat still on, like I was going somewhere.
Then my stomach growled and made the decision for me, the way it always does.
The hall was loud and warm and full. Every table had its crowd, its noise, its people leaning in.
And at the back, one guy eating alone with an empty ring of chairs around him.
He wasn't doing anything. He was just eating with his head down, taking up as little room as a person that size can.
Sable: Look. The blank's found her pet.
Sable: Sit with the fucking animal and you're the one cleaning up his scraps. That's all you get.
I didn't turn around. Turning around tells them they got you, and I've learned that the hard way.
So I picked up my tray and I walked.
Every step had a sound. The sound was other people stopping mid-sentence.
Bram's table went quiet first. Then the next one. It spread like a dropped tray.
He looked up when my shadow hit his table. His fork stopped.
And there it was again. That braced look, like he was waiting for me to laugh and leave.
I've been looked at like a problem before. That's not what this was.
This was somebody bracing for a punch they'd already taken a hundred times.
I didn't say anything clever. My brain had gone completely blank, which is honestly its favorite move.
I just put my hand on the back of the chair.
The whole hall was watching now. Nobody was eating. Nobody was even pretending to.
Good. Let them watch me be polite.