People out there waking up to forehead kisses and good morning texts like they're the protagonists of some soft, Pinterest-filtered romance.

People getting head pats, breakfast in bed, warm fucking sunlight landing on their skin like angels are hand-delivering their serotonin.

And me?

I'm standing in the middle of class like a criminal in a courtroom. My knees locked. Spine stiff. Head down like I'm mourning my dignity.

Because apparently, being the class coordinator means shit when you've got a GPA that's actively committing suicide and a professor who looks like she eats failing students for pre-lunch snacks.

"Miss Arshila Eshaal Mirza," Professor Dr. Vaughn says my full name like she's about to recite an execution order. Her accent is crisp, her tone colder than my mother's side of the family during wedding arguments. "Do you know what a coordinator is supposed to do?"

I bite my tongue. Hard. Because what I want to say is:

Yeah, someone who ruins their life to make sure yours goes smoothly.

But I'm not trying to get buried alive today, so I stare at the floor tiles instead. One of them's chipped. Wish it would open up and drag me into hell.

"Well?" she demands.

I mumble something that sounds like a mix between a yes and a dying pigeon.

"Speak up, Miss Mirza. Or has your voice also started bunking classes like you?"

Laughter ripples through the room, and I swear on Shakespeare's grave, I imagine stabbing every single one of them with a fountain pen. Repeatedly. In iambic fucking pentameter.

"If your goal," Dr. Vaughn continues, walking toward me with the grace of a serial killer, "is to sleep through every single lecture while texting under the desk and passing notes like it's 2003-then congratulations. You're thriving."

Okay, now she's being dramatic.

"You are the coordinator. You are supposed to be a bridge between me and the students, and yet somehow, you're the one leading them into the damn river."

More laughter. My hands are curled into fists at my sides, nails digging into skin, and I'm mentally writing her eulogy. It's got metaphors. And fire.

"I told you two weeks ago," she says, turning to face the class now, arms crossed like she's about to go full TED Talk, "to submit your comparative literature projects. Due date was last Friday. It is now Wednesday. Miss Mirza-have you submitted yours?"

I lift my head half an inch. "No, ma'am."

She smirks. Oh, bitch is glowing. "Of course you haven't."

I want to say: I had a plan. I even opened the Word document. Then I got distracted arguing with Ruby over whether Shakespeare was hot or not, and then Ifrah pulled me into some weird psychological breakdown she found on Reddit, and somehow-boom-five hours passed.

And now I'm standing here like a half-cooked egg.

"This entire class," she announces, sweeping her gaze across everyone like the queen of academic disappointment, "will have exactly until Monday morning, 8AM sharp to submit their projects, or you can kiss twenty percent of your final grade goodbye."

I feel Ruby shift beside me. Ifrah's probably vibrating in stress. Shaiza? Dead silent. She knows better than to poke the angry professor-dragon.

Dr. Vaughn turns back to me with the look of a woman who's waited her whole career for this moment. "And let's not even start on your sleeping schedule."

Oh no.

"You have what I would call a Ph.D. in Napping Through Education."

The class loses it. Even Ifrah's trying not to snort.

"You've got the form down. Head tilted to the left, jaw slack, sometimes even drooling depending on the day. Truly, a master at work. Should I give you attendance for existing in the classroom or haunting it like a lazy ghost?"

I close my eyes. Let it end. Just end me.

She paces in front of the board now. "And the way she talks through my lectures-like I'm some background noise in her sitcom of a life. Whispering, laughing, doodling-one day I looked down and she was drawing a battle between Hamlet and Naruto."

That was a masterpiece.

"And let's not forget her sidekicks," she says, pointing her dry erase marker like a sword. "Ifrah-top student, yes, but even toppers fall when they start orbiting chaos like this one." She jabs it toward me.

Ifrah lowers her eyes. Ruby is giggling like she's watching a roast on Comedy Central. Shaiza mouths, you're dead, which-accurate.

Dr. Vaughn takes a breath. "You are not stupid, Miss Mirza. Which is why this is even more disappointing. You've got the brain. You just refuse to use it."

I lift my head a little more. Her tone has shifted. Just slightly. Less executioner, more exhausted war veteran.

"You think this is a joke. You think these years are a throwaway. But life doesn't hand out participation trophies. You will either burn yourself alive trying to keep up later, or you'll get your shit together now. That's your choice."

She lets it hang in the air.

Then she claps her hands once. "Everyone, sit down. And open your notes to the second section of Woolf's A Room of One's Own."

I sit. My legs feel like noodles. Ruby leans over and mouths, "RIP."

Ifrah passes me a mint and whispers, "Want my notes?"

I nod and rest my face on the desk, biting the inside of my cheek so I don't fucking scream.

I hate being the coordinator.

I hate projects.

I hate that cracked floor tile.

And I really fucking hate Dr. Vaughn's accurate psychoanalysis of my life.

I don't say anything for the next twenty minutes.

No wisecracks. No muttering under my breath. No passing stupid comments to Ruby about how Woolf could've used a good orgasm and maybe then she wouldn't be so obsessed with rooms and independence.

Just silence. The kind that sticks to your ribs.

I sit there, pen between my fingers, eyes on the board, scribbling down notes like my life depends on it. My handwriting's messier than usual-angled, aggressive, sharp slashes across the page like each word is a goddamn stab.

Every sentence Dr. Vaughn throws at the class lands heavy, but I keep my face blank. Stoic. Bored, even.

Fake it. Mask on.

Because if I let anything real slip-if I let even one crack show-someone like Ruby might try to cheer me up with her stupid candy voice, or Ifrah will drop a motivational quote like I'm a Pinterest board in distress, or worse: Dr. Vaughn will think she got to me.

And no. Fuck no. She doesn't get that.

So I sit straight, chin up, jaw locked so tight it's starting to hurt.

I'm listening now. Every word of the lecture is burning its way into my skull. I don't know if it's to prove a point or punish myself or maybe both.

Virginia Woolf said a woman needs a room of her own and money to write fiction.

Cool. What I need is a goddamn bunker, a time machine, and maybe a second soul to carry the damage.

Shaiza shifts beside me.

She doesn't look at me directly-smart girl. Just a little nudge to my elbow, soft like she's testing if I'm made of glass today. "You okay?" she mumbles, voice low so it doesn't carry.

I don't turn. Don't even blink. Just go: "Mmm."

That's it.

Not a yes. Not a no. Just that useless, shitty syllable people use when their throat's blocked with something they'll never say out loud.

She doesn't say anything back.

Doesn't press.

That's why she's my favorite. She knows. There's a kind of silence only your real people respect. The kind where they can see the storm behind your eyes and they don't throw you an umbrella-they just stand near enough to catch the same rain, but not so close that you feel cornered.

I keep taking notes. Don't know what half of them mean. Doesn't matter. I need something to do with my hands. Something to drown the leftover burn of Dr. Vaughn's voice digging into my ribs.

I still feel it. That lecture? That roast? That wasn't just a public humiliation. That was a scalpel dressed as words. Precise. Brutal. And goddamn accurate.

Because yeah-I do sleep in class.

Yeah-I joke too much, talk too loud, care too little.

Yeah-I've been a fucking disaster of a coordinator.

But hearing her say it like that, in front of everyone? Like I'm some train wreck spiraling through a syllabus with no brakes?

That did something.

And I hate that it did.

Because I don't cry in class. I don't spiral in public. I don't let a room full of classmates-half of whom can't even spell 'Woolf'-see me bend.

So I keep the mask on. Eyes on the board. Notes flying. And when the ink smears a little on the edge of the page from where my hand slipped, I wipe it off fast, like it never happened.

The lecture drones on. Dr. Vaughn is deep into feminist theory now, voice steady, posture stiff. I wonder if she knows. If she meant it to hurt. Or if she thinks she's helping. She probably thinks that was a wake-up call. Like she's the strict mentor in some coming-of-age novel, dragging the troubled genius back to greatness with a single harsh truth.

But I'm not in a fucking novel.

I'm in a cramped classroom that smells like cheap cologne and broken dreams, and I'm trying not to scream.

Bell rings forty-five minutes later.

People start packing up. Chairs screech. Bags zip. Laughter returns.

I move slow.

Still taking notes even after she's stopped talking. Still pretending the world around me doesn't exist. I can feel Shaiza watching me from the corner of her eye, but she doesn't say anything. She just sits there, waiting.

And I'm thankful. Because I don't know what I'd say back.

"Mmm," is all I've got right now.

And maybe that's enough.

"Stand up," Shaiza says, nudging me with her elbow. Her voice is soft but sure, like she already knows the answer and is just being polite. "Class is over. We have to go."

I don't even lift my head.

"I need a break," I mumble. "You guys go ahead. I'll catch up."

I can feel her hesitate. I know that silence. It's her calculating how much I mean it, how much she should argue.

"Arshila..."

"I said go," I cut her off. Not yelling. Just flat. Cold. Like I'm pressing a mute button on the whole damn world.

Shaiza sighs and doesn't try again. She knows better. There are moods of mine she can read from a mile away-the ones with blood under the fingernails and barbed wire in the voice. This is one of them.

Footsteps shuffle. Bags zip. Her voice, low and reluctant, "We'll be in the courtyard."

Then silence.

The room empties. Chairs stop squeaking. Lights buzz quietly overhead like they're the only ones left with something to say.

And I rest my head on the desk.

Hard.

Eyes closed. Breathing slow.

My own pulse is loud inside my skull. Throbbing behind my temples like it's trying to remind me I'm still alive even when I feel fucking hollow.

God, I hate this.

I hate that she got to me. That Vaughn's voice still echoes like a shitty loop. I hate the eyes that watched, the smirks, the silence afterward, the way people never say what they're thinking but you know exactly what they're thinking anyway.

I hate that I felt small for even a second.

Because I'm not.

I'm not fucking small. I'm not weak. I'm not lost.

I'm her.

I'm me.

A fucking disaster, yes. But I've built hurricanes out of worse days than this. I don't fall apart just because someone finally called me out on the mess I already know I am.

Fuck 'em.

Fuck her PhD.

Fuck this classroom.

Fuck the idea that I need to be palatable to be worth something.

I press my forehead harder against the cold wood and whisper under my breath, "I'm still gonna be her. I'm always gonna be her. No matter what the fuck they think."

And then I feel it.

A presence.

Not footsteps. Not sound.

Just weight in the air. A quiet shift of gravity. Like the oxygen tilted.

I glance up, just a little-and freeze.

Shadin.

He's sitting beside me now. Not across. Next to. Like he's always been there.

Long legs stretched. One arm lazily on the desk. The other curled under his head.

His face is tilted toward mine. Calm. Casual. That kind of stillness that's too deliberate to be natural.

And then he lowers his head, resting it on the desk beside mine-fucking mirroring me-and now we're two idiots with our heads on the same scarred table like it's some kind of confessional altar and neither of us knows what the hell we're doing.

His dark eyes slide over to mine. Calm. Careful.

"Moody?" he says. Voice low. A little too soft. A little too fucking knowing.

I stare at him.

And I mean stare. Dead in the eyes. Because he's not supposed to see this. This side. This mess. He's not supposed to walk into the battlefield after the bullets stopped and just lay there next to the dead like he belongs there.

I narrow my eyes. Let my mouth curl into that signature venom-tipped smile I keep for moments exactly like this.

"Fuck off," I whisper. Slow. Sharp. Controlled.

His lips twitch. Not a smile. Just... amusement. Like he expected that answer and somehow still finds it interesting.

He doesn't move. Doesn't speak for a beat.

Then, "That bad, huh?"

I roll my eyes. "You wanna play therapist now? Go find someone who cries on Instagram and sells sad poetry on Etsy."

He chuckles. Soft. Barely-there.

"You are moody," he says, like it's an observation and not a judgment. "But it's cute."

I lift my head just slightly, eyes narrowing into blades. "Say that again and I'll stab you with this pen and tell the cops you fell on it."

His eyes flick to the pen in my hand. "Wouldn't be the worst way to die."

God. He's annoying. Always this calm, composed shit with a hint of mystery like he was raised in a goddamn noir film.

"Don't you have something better to do?" I mutter, shifting my head back down.

He mirrors me again. "Nope."

I breathe in. Exhale slow. "You're seriously just gonna sit here? With me? After that whole show?"

"Yep."

I hate that it... helps.

Even just a little.

Even if I don't want to admit it.

Even if I want to stab him and myself.

Because right now-right here-I don't feel entirely alone. And it pisses me off.

I close my eyes again.

And for a minute, we don't say anything.

Just two heads on one desk. Two moods that don't make sense. Two people who probably shouldn't be in the same scene but somehow always end up side by side.

And I don't know what that means.

I don't want to know.

So I say nothing.

And neither does he.

The silence hangs between us, soft but heavy.

My cheek is still pressed to the desk. His too. Like we're lying on opposite sides of the same battlefield, waiting to see who flinches first.

The overhead light flickers slightly-just once. One of those old-ass fluorescent tantrums. I blink. He doesn't.

"You know," Shadin says suddenly, voice low like he's thinking out loud, "I like you."

I blink again. "Excuse me?"