Chapter 2

The next morning, I woke up before sunrise. The lump on my head was a tender, painful knot. I packed a small duffel bag with a change of clothes, my laptop, and my most important textbooks. I wasn' t sure where I was going, maybe a friend' s couch, but I knew I couldn' t stay another night in that apartment.

I was trying to be quiet, but when I crept into the kitchen to grab a water bottle, Tiffany was already there. She was sitting at the small kitchen table, a mug of tea in her hands, looking like she hadn't slept.

"Chloe," she said, her voice soft and fragile.

I didn' t answer. I just continued to the fridge, my back to her.

"I' m so sorry about last night," she said. "Brett... he gets so protective of me. He was way out of line. I told him that."

I closed the fridge door and turned to face her. I held her gaze. "He assaulted me, Tiffany."

"I know, I know," she said, her eyes welling up with tears. It was an impressive performance. "It was horrible. I feel awful. I yelled at him for hours after you went to bed. He feels terrible, too. He wants to apologize."

"I don' t want his apology," I said, my voice flat and cold. "I want to be left alone."

I turned to leave the kitchen.

"Are you leaving?" she asked, her voice cracking. "Please don' t leave. I need you here."

The emotional whiplash was staggering. One minute she' s orchestrating an attack on me, the next she' s begging me to stay.

"Why?" I asked, stopping at the doorway. "So you can have your boyfriend rough me up again? So you can play the victim on social media?"

"That' s not fair!" she cried, standing up. "That post wasn' t about you! It was about... some other people. From my past."

The lie was so blatant, so insulting to my intelligence, that all my fear turned into a hot, hard anger.

"I' m moving out, Tiffany. I' m going to the housing office this morning to request a transfer."

"No, you can' t!" she said, rushing toward me. "We' re roommates. We' re supposed to be friends."

"Friends don' t let their boyfriends shove their friends into walls," I shot back.

I pushed past her and walked to the front door, slinging my bag over my shoulder.

"Chloe, wait!" she pleaded, following me. "If you leave, it' ll look bad for me. People will talk. My parents will be upset."

That was it. That was the real reason. It wasn't about our non-existent friendship. It was about her image. My leaving would be an inconvenient crack in her perfect facade.

"That' s not my problem," I said, my hand on the doorknob.

"I' ll make it up to you," she said, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. "I can help you. With your internship. My father knows people at the New York Times, at the Post. I can make one phone call."

The offer hung in the air, a disgusting, glittering bribe. She thought she could buy my silence, buy my compliance.

"I' ll get my internship on my own merit," I said. "Thanks."

I opened the door and stepped out into the hallway, pulling it shut behind me. I didn' t look back.

The campus housing office was a bureaucratic nightmare. I waited for an hour just to speak to a student advisor, a tired-looking woman who barely looked up from her computer screen when I sat down.

I explained the situation as calmly as I could, leaving out the physical part for a moment. I just said we were incompatible, that the living situation was hostile.

"A personality conflict isn' t grounds for an emergency transfer, Ms. Miller," she said, her tone bored. "We have a waitlist for transfers that' s a semester long. You' ll have to wait your turn."

"It' s more than a personality conflict," I said, my frustration growing. "Her boyfriend assaulted me."

That got her attention. She finally looked at me. "Assaulted? Did you file a report with campus security?"

"No," I admitted. "He' s... his father is a trustee. And she was there, she' ll deny it happened."

The advisor sighed, a long, weary sound. "Ms. Miller, without a report, it' s just your word against theirs. There' s nothing I can do. My advice is to try mediation."

I left the office feeling more defeated than ever. The system was designed to protect people like Tiffany and Brett, not people like me.

I spent the day at the library, trying to figure out my next move. I called a few friends, but no one had a spare couch for more than a night or two. I was running out of options. As evening approached, I knew I had a choice: sleep in the library or go back to the apartment.

My phone buzzed. It was a text from Mark, my boyfriend.

"Hey, how was your day? Free for dinner?"

Mark was an intern at a local investigative news station. He was smart and steady, the complete opposite of the chaos that was my life right now. Just seeing his name on my screen made me feel a little bit better.

"Not a great day," I texted back. "Can we meet? I need to talk."

We met at a cheap diner near campus. The smell of greasy fries and burnt coffee was strangely comforting. As soon as I sat down across from him in the worn-out vinyl booth, the whole story came tumbling out. The socks, the lies, Brett' s hands on my arm, the shove, Tiffany' s social media post, the housing office.

Mark listened patiently, his expression growing more and more serious. He didn' t interrupt. When I was finished, he reached across the table and took my hand.

"Chloe, this is serious," he said. "This isn' t just a bad roommate. This is abuse."

"I know," I whispered. "But I don' t know what to do. The university won' t help me without a report, and a report is useless without a witness."

"So we make them witnesses," Mark said, his eyes glinting with a familiar journalistic fire. "We need to document everything. Every text, every interaction. If he ever touches you again, you call 911 immediately, not campus security. You create a paper trail they can' t ignore."

He made it sound so simple, so logical. For the first time all day, I felt a flicker of hope.

"But where do I stay tonight?" I asked. "I can' t go back there."

"You' re staying with me," he said, his tone leaving no room for argument. "My roommate' s out of town for the week. You can take his room."

Relief washed over me so intensely it almost made me dizzy.

But just as I was starting to relax, my phone started ringing. It was Tiffany. I ignored it. It rang again. And again. Then the texts started.

"Chloe, where are you? I' m worried."

"Please come home. I made dinner."

"I need to talk to you. It' s important."

"I' m scared to be here alone."

Mark glanced at my phone. "Don' t answer. You' re safe with me."

I knew he was right, but the messages were unsettling. Her manufactured concern felt like a trap.

I was gathering my things to leave when my phone buzzed with one last message. It wasn' t a text. It was a photo.

It was a picture of my bedroom door. A knife, one of the sharp steak knives from our kitchen block, was stabbed deep into the wood, right at eye level.

Underneath it, a single line of text.

"If you don' t come home, I might do something crazy. I can' t handle being abandoned again."