"This is serious, Miss Valenti."
Dean Morrison sits behind his mahogany desk like a judge presiding over my academic execution, sliding printed photos across the surface with the careful precision of someone dealing cards in a game nobody wins. There I am in glorious high definition—Montreal hotel lobby, Victor's car in the rain, that desperate kiss in the empty classroom after Connor saw us.
"These arrived this morning via anonymous email," he continues, his voice carrying that specific tone of administrative disappointment. "Along with several concerned messages from faculty and students."
Victor sits in the chair beside me, his tenured armor cracking with every photo revealed. He hasn't looked at me once since we were summoned here twenty minutes ago.
"The university has strict policies regarding inappropriate relationships between faculty and students," Morrison continues, adjusting his glasses. "This appears to be a clear violation."
"It was consensual," Victor says, the words falling flat as yesterday's champagne.
"She's a student, Professor Larsen. Your student." Morrison's tone sharpens. "Consent doesn't negate the power imbalance or the violation of university policy."
"I understand the implications—"
"Do you? Because from where I'm sitting, you've compromised not only your position but Miss Valenti's academic standing." Morrison turns to me. "Expulsion is on the table, I'm afraid."
"Expulsion?" The word comes out strangled. "For what? Being nineteen and stupid?"
"For engaging in a relationship that violates our code of conduct. For compromising the integrity of the academic environment." He pulls out another paper—the student handbook, highlighted like a crime scene. "You're both equally culpable here."
"Equally?" I laugh, the sound bitter as black coffee. "He's forty-three with tenure and a PhD. I'm nineteen on scholarship. But sure, we're equals in this."
"Miss Valenti—"
My phone buzzes. Then Victor's. Then Morrison's desk phone rings.
"Excuse me," Morrison answers, his face shifting from bureaucratic concern to something closer to panic. "Yes, I see. The Tribune? No, no comment at this—"
He hangs up, pulling up his computer. The campus news site loads, and there it is in 72-point font: "PROFESSOR'S AFFAIR WITH TEENAGER RUINS DAUGHTER'S INHERITANCE."
"Jesus Christ," Victor breathes, all his philosophical composure finally shattering.
The article includes everything—photos, timeline, even quotes from "sources close to the family" about Clara filing for divorce that morning, deliberately making it public, deliberately making it messy, three months before Liv's trust fund would have matured.
"This changes things," Morrison says, suddenly looking older. "This is now a public relations disaster. Professor Larsen, you're suspended pending investigation. Miss Valenti, while we review your case, I suggest you consider whether continuing your education here is feasible given the circumstances."
"You mean given that I'm now the campus whore who destroyed a family?"
"I mean given that your presence may be disruptive to the academic environment." He stands, dismissing us. "You'll both receive formal letters within forty-eight hours."
Outside Morrison's office, Victor finally looks at me. "Clara timed this perfectly. She knew about the grandfather's will, about the three-month deadline. She chose maximum destruction."
"She chose honesty," I correct. "We chose destruction the moment you drove through that storm to get me."
My phone hasn't stopped buzzing. Jess: "Told you girls like you always end badly."
I try calling Liv for the twentieth time. Straight to voicemail.
"She'll never forgive us," Victor says, reading my screen over my shoulder. "Her inheritance is gone. Twenty-one years of waiting, destroyed because we couldn't keep our hands off each other for three more months."
"Because YOU couldn't," I snap. "You kissed me in that closet. You pulled me in there. Stop rewriting history to make yourself the victim."
"We're both victims. And both perpetrators. That's what makes this so perfectly destructive."
My phone rings—Mom's contact photo lighting up the screen. I answer against my better judgment.
"Saw the news," she slurs, drunk at two PM because that's her schedule now. "Always knew you'd follow in my footsteps. Fucking older men, ruining families. Like mother, like daughter."
"Thanks for the pep talk, Mom."
"At least I never pretended to be better than what I was. You went to college, got your scholarship, acted all superior. But look at you now—exactly where I was at your age, spreading your legs for men who'll never choose you."
I hang up, her words echoing anyway.
Another text, this time from Kilian: "Come back. I'll make it all disappear."
The offer sits there, tempting as forbidden fruit. He could fix this—his money, his connections, his ability to bury scandals like they're tulip bulbs. But his salvation comes with ownership papers, and I've already sold enough of myself.
Back at my dorm, the WHORE graffiti has been joined by additional commentary—"HOMEWRECKER" and "PROFESSOR FUCKER" completing the triptych of my shame.
I'm shoving clothes into boxes when Victor appears in my doorway.
"How did you get in?"
"The door was open. The lock's broken." He surveys my half-packed room. "You're leaving?"
"What's left for me here? I'm about to be expelled, my only friend hates me, and I'm literally branded on my own door."
"I'm sorry," he says, the words inadequate as a Band-Aid on a bullet wound.
"For which part? Fucking me or getting caught?"
Instead of answering, he crosses the room and kisses me. It tastes like endings and regret and three months we couldn't wait. My hands find his shirt automatically, muscle memory overriding logic.
"This is goodbye," he says against my mouth.
"I know."
We fuck one last time on my narrow dorm bed, boxes of my life scattered around us like witnesses. It's desperate and sad and somehow still the best thing I've felt in weeks. His hands shake as they undress me, like he's trying to memorize what he's losing.
"I loved you," he says afterward, still inside me, still pretending this present tense doesn't have an expiration date.
"No, you didn't. You loved the idea of me. Young, dangerous, worth destroying everything for." I push him off, already reaching for my clothes. "But when it came to choosing, you chose them. Every time."
"And now I've lost everything."
"Join the club. We have jackets. Mine says WHORE on the back."
He stands, dressing with the mechanical movements of someone who's already gone. "What will you do?"
"Survive. It's what girls like me do. We survive men like you and pretend it makes us stronger."
"Elisa—"
"Just go, Victor. Go home to your empty house and your ruined marriage and your daughter who'll never forgive you. At least you still have tenure."
He pauses at the door. "For what it's worth, you were the realest thing that ever happened to me."
"Yeah, well, you were just another older man who promised everything and delivered destruction. Turns out my mom was right—I followed in her footsteps after all."
He leaves, and I continue packing, each item a reminder of who I was before I became the girl who destroyed the Larsen family. My phone buzzes with Kilian's repeated offer, with Jess's continued gloating, with silence from Liv that screams louder than any accusation.
Tomorrow I'll make a choice—Kilian's golden cage or starting over somewhere that doesn't know my name. But tonight, I sit in my half-empty room with Victor's smell still on my sheets and the word WHORE bleeding through my door, finally understanding that some stories don't have redemption arcs.
Some stories just end.