"You've been weird lately," Liv announces, stirring her latte with the kind of aggressive precision usually reserved for performing surgery or stabbing enemies.
The student union coffee shop buzzes with the desperate energy of undergrads pretending their GPAs aren't currently on life support. I shift in my seat, hyperaware that Victor's cum is still inside me from an hour ago, a biological reminder that I'm the worst friend in the documented history of friendship.
"Weird how?" I take a sip of my coffee. It tastes like burnt anxiety with undertones of moral bankruptcy.
"I don't know, you're just... different. Distracted. You keep checking your phone like you're waiting for nuclear launch codes." Liv leans forward, her concern genuine enough to make my organs rearrange themselves from guilt. "Is it the Kilian situation? Because I can have my dad look into restraining orders—"
"God, no," I say too quickly, imagining that conversation. Hey Victor, can you legally protect me from my ex while you're illegally inside me? Thanks, you're the best.
"Then what is it? You've been spacing out in Chen's class, you missed movie night last week, and you keep showing up to things looking like you've been..." She pauses, studying my face. "Actually, you look thoroughly fucked. In a good way. Oh my God, are you seeing someone?"
Before I can craft a lie sophisticated enough to navigate this minefield, a familiar voice cuts through the coffee shop chatter like a designer knife through organic butter.
"Well, well. The dynamic duo, solving world hunger one overpriced latte at a time."
Jess appears at our table like she's been summoned by the patron saint of bad timing. Her smile could strip paint off a Bentley, and she's wearing the kind of outfit that costs more than my scholarship but somehow makes it look effortless.
"Jess," Liv sighs. "What do you want?"
"Just being friendly." Her eyes land on me with laser precision. "Elisa, you look... different. Glowing, almost. New skincare routine?" She tilts her head, predator recognizing prey. "Or just getting properly fucked for once?"
The coffee turns to acid in my throat. Liv's already standing, ready to defend my honor like I deserve it.
"Jesus, Jess, what is wrong with you?"
"I'm just making observations." Jess's smile widens, and I see it in her eyes—she knows something. Maybe not the whole truth, but enough. "Some of us can recognize that post-orgasmic glow. It's quite distinctive. Especially when it's that thorough."
"You need to leave," Liv says, her voice dropping into that register that means someone's about to get their hair pulled in the good bathroom.
"Relax, Olivia. I'm happy for her. Everyone needs a good fuck now and then." Jess adjusts her bag, eyes still on me. "Though I do wonder what kind of man leaves those kinds of marks. Very... enthusiastic. Almost professorial in their attention to detail."
My blood turns to permafrost. She definitely knows something.
"Goodbye, Jess," Liv says firmly.
"See you at the Whitmore benefit next week. Both of you, I hope." She walks away, her heels clicking out a morse code that probably spells 'I know your secret and I'm going to destroy you with it.'
Liv drops back into her chair. "God, she's such a bitch. Don't let her get to you. She's probably just jealous that someone's actually touching you while she's stuck hate-fucking her personal trainer who definitely has a wife in Connecticut."
"It's fine," I manage, even though nothing has ever been less fine in the history of fine.
"It's not fine. She had no right to—" Liv stops, running her hands through her hair. "Sorry. I'm projecting. It's just, with everything happening at home, I'm a little on edge about people attacking the people I care about."
"What's happening at home?"
"Oh, just the usual Larsen family circus." She laughs, but it sounds like glass in a blender. "Mom's getting worse with the affairs. Like, she's not even trying to hide it anymore. Yesterday she had two different guys over. At the same time. Dad was in his study the whole time, and I know he could hear them."
"That's..." I search for words that aren't 'yeah, your dad was too busy fucking me against his office door to care.' "That's horrible."
"And Dad's just... absent. Even when he's home, he's not really there. He keeps staying late at the office, coming home at weird hours. Sometimes I think they're waiting for me to graduate before officially divorcing." She stirs her coffee like she's trying to divine the future from foam art. "They think they're protecting me, but honestly, watching them slowly murder each other with affairs and silence is worse than any divorce could be."
"Maybe they're trying to work through things?" I offer, knowing Victor's currently working through how many times he can make me come before Thursday's office hours.
"No, they're done. Have been for years. They're just too stubborn or scared to admit it." Liv looks at me with those earnest eyes that make me want to confess everything and also disappear into witness protection. "At least your parents stayed together, right? That must be nice, having that stability."
The lie comes out smooth as Victor's hand on my throat. "Yeah. Lucky me."
If by together you mean my mom's on husband number four and counting. But sure, let's pretend I come from stability instead of a long line of women who treat men like ATMs with occasional orgasm features.
"Sorry, I'm being such a downer." Liv forces a smile. "Tell me something good. Anything. Distract me from my dysfunctional family drama."
All I can think about is Tuesday, Thursday, Victor's hands spreading me open on his desk, his mouth between my thighs while his wife fucks the help, the way he says my name when he comes like it's both prayer and curse.
"I'm thinking about changing my major," I lie, because that's easier than saying 'I'm fucking your father with the kind of enthusiasm usually reserved for Black Friday sales.'
"To what?"
"Psychology, maybe. I'm getting really interested in understanding why people make terrible decisions repeatedly."
"That's amazing! Maybe you can psychoanalyze my parents and figure out why they insist on this elaborate performance of marriage when they clearly despise each other."
The guilt sits in my stomach like a rock covered in thorns. Here's Liv, treating me like a sister, confiding her family's pain, while I'm literally fucking the family dysfunction deeper with every Tuesday and Thursday appointment. I'm not her friend; I'm another affair in her father's collection, another secret that'll eventually explode and take everyone down with it.
"Families are complicated," I say, the understatement of the century burning my tongue.
"Yeah, but at least with friends you choose your disasters." She reaches across the table, squeezing my hand. "I'm really glad I have you, Elisa. You're like the sister I never had. Someone I can trust completely."
The coffee shop continues its capitalist hymn around us, but all I can taste is guilt. It tastes like burnt coffee and necessary lies, like Victor's kiss and Liv's trust, like everything I'm about to destroy.
The guilt tastes like the coffee—burnt and necessary.