"You need me to walk you up?" Kilian's driver asks through the partition, his voice carrying that specific brand of professional concern reserved for people who clean up rich men's messes.
"I can manage walking to my own door, thanks," I tell him, even though my legs feel like someone replaced my bones with overcooked linguine. "Tell your boss his Uber service needs work. The kidnapping feature really kills the star rating."
"He wants to make sure you're safe."
"Yeah, because nothing says safety like being grabbed off the street at dawn." I push open the door, my body protesting every movement. "But thanks for not zip-tying my wrists, I guess. Really appreciated the small mercies."
"Miss Valenti—"
"Tell Kilian I'll be ready Sunday. Now stop pretending you care about my wellbeing and go report back like the good little spy you are."
The Town Car pulls away, leaving me standing outside my dorm at seven AM looking like I've been through a blender set to 'destroy all evidence of good decisions.'
My room greets me with the kind of silence that feels accusatory. Like even the furniture knows what I've done and judges me for it. The bed's still made from yesterday, back when I was just a struggling student with one inappropriate professor situation. Now I'm Victor's secret mistress, Kilian's drug mule, and Liv's future heartbreak all rolled into one efficient package of self-destruction.
"Shower first, existential crisis second," I announce to no one, peeling off clothes that smell like sex, leather, warehouse dust, and moral bankruptcy—basically the cologne of terrible choices.
The hot water hits me like judgment day, and I stand there letting it burn, hoping maybe if the temperature's high enough it'll cauterize whatever part of me keeps making these decisions. But Victor's bruises just throb harder under the heat, purple testimonies that won't wash away. Kilian's spit might be gone, but the feeling of his mouth on me lingers like a curse.
"This is fine," I tell my reflection through the steam. "Everything's totally fine. You're not a complete disaster. You're just diversifying your portfolio of bad decisions."
My reflection doesn't look convinced.
I scrub harder, like maybe if I use enough dollar store body wash I can erase the last twenty-four hours. But some stains are internal. Some dirt lives under your skin where no amount of soap can reach. The places where your mother's lessons took root and grew into something poisonous.
"Smart girls use what they have while they have it," I mimic her voice, that cigarette-roughened wisdom she'd dispense between boyfriends. "Your body's just another asset, baby. Might as well get some return on investment before the market crashes."
The water runs cold before I'm ready, which feels metaphorical as fuck.
I wrap myself in a towel that's seen better decades and stumble back to my room. That's when I notice the roll of hundreds Kilian stuffed in my pocket—guilt money or down payment, depending on how you look at it. Five thousand dollars in cash, more money than I've ever held at once.
"Pizza it is," I decide, because if you're going to eat your feelings, might as well use your shame-money to pay for it.
The delivery guy looks about twelve and deeply confused by the girl in a towel ordering pizza at 8 AM, paying with a hundred-dollar bill.
"Keep the change," I tell him, taking the box.
"That's like an eighty-dollar tip."
"Consider it hazard pay for delivering to the dorms of the morally bankrupt."
He takes the money and runs, probably thinking I'm either crazy or a sex worker. He's not wrong on either count.
The pizza tastes like cardboard soaked in regret, but I eat it anyway, mechanically, the way you take medicine you know you need but don't want.
"You know what your problem is?" I ask myself, because apparently I'm having full conversations with myself now. "You think you're different, but you're not. You're exactly who Mom raised you to be."
My phone sits silent on the desk. No texts from Victor. Nothing from Liv. Even Kilian's gone quiet now that he's got what he wanted.
"Let me tell you about men, sweetheart," Mom's voice echoes from memory, from that night she caught me crying over some boy in ninth grade. "They're all the same program running different skins. Stepfather number one taught me they like ownership. Number two taught me they'll pay for the illusion of it. Number three taught me to run before they realize you're not actually property."
"And what did my father teach you?" I'd asked.
"To always get the money up front," she'd laughed, but it was the kind of laugh that meant we weren't talking about it anymore.
I stand, face myself in the full-length mirror some previous student left behind. Bruises on my throat like a necklace. Hickeys on my inner thighs like signatures. My body is a document of transactions, each mark a receipt for services rendered.
"I'm exactly what you raised me to be, Mom," I tell the empty room, the words coming out steady as a thesis statement. "A whore with a scholarship."
The word should hurt. It used to hurt. The first time someone called me that—Kilian, during one of his jealous fits—I'd cried for hours. But now? Now it just sits there, accurate as any other descriptor. Brunette. Freshman. Fucked. Whore. They're all just words for things that are true.
"Tomorrow you're going to smile at Liv," I tell my reflection, practicing the expression. "You're going to sit through Victor's lecture and pretend your thighs aren't sore from fucking him in his car. You're going to make Kilian's delivery like a good little drug mule."
The smile looks convincing. I've gotten good at the performance.
"But tonight," I continue, dropping the smile, "tonight you're going to admit what you really are. Not a victim—victims don't orchestrate their own destruction this methodically. Not a villain—villains at least have interesting motivations."
I sit back down, another slice of pizza turning to ash in my mouth.
"You're just your mother's daughter," I conclude, the truth settling over me like a blanket made of other people's expectations. "Using your body as currency because it's the only economy you understand. The only one where you know the exchange rates by heart."
My phone buzzes. Victor's name lights up the screen.
"Oh, now you want to talk?" I tell his contact photo—the one from his faculty page where he looks professionally constipated. "Where was this energy when you were supposed to be taking me home instead of taking me in your Volvo?"
The message preview shows: "Elisa, we need to discuss..."
"We need to discuss?" I laugh at the screen. "That's what you're going with? Not 'sorry for fucking you in my car while my family ate pot roast' or 'hey, my wife knows' or even 'great night, let's destroy our lives again Tuesday'?"
I swipe the notification away without reading the rest.
"Tomorrow, Professor. Tomorrow I'll answer and pretend my thighs aren't screaming your name every time I sit down. Tomorrow I'll play student, friend, mistress, drug mule—the full set." I toss the phone aside. "Tonight I'm just a nineteen-year-old eating pizza paid for with money I earned on my knees, wearing your bruises like they're Cartier, pretending this is empowerment instead of exactly what my mother warned me about becoming."
Or maybe she didn't warn me. Maybe she was preparing me.
The distinction doesn't matter anymore.