She was not going to let her own mind be the thing that beat her. Wednesday morning came gray and close. The sky the color of old concrete. The air sitting heavy and still over the campus. Like it couldn't be bothered to move.
Zoe checked her email before she was fully awake. Which had become a habit she didn't like and couldn't stop. The message from Takahashi was there. Sent at 7:12 a.m. Before most of campus had stirred.
She sat up in bed and read it twice. It was a good email. Careful and specific. He had witnessed the events of Friday afternoon from start to finish. He was prepared to provide a formal written statement confirming that Brody Walter had issued the invitation publicly and voluntarily.
That Zoe had not misrepresented herself in any actionable sense. And that the characterization of her as an aggressor was not consistent with what he had observed. He wrote clearly and without hedging. He signed it with his full name and his faculty title. Zoe read it a third time.
And something in her chest loosened by a fraction. She got up. Showed. Dressed. Ate half a granola bar standing at her desk.
And went to her 9:00 a.m. Class. She took notes. She paid attention. She did the ordinary things because the ordinary things still needed doing and because Grandpa Robert had told her once that the moment you let your trouble become your whole life, you've already handed your opponent the first point.
She got back to the dorm at 11:30. Avery was sitting on her bed with her laptop open and an expression that Zoe had learned to read in the past week. Careful, braced, delivering something bad in the gentlest available packaging. Takahashi sent another email, Avery said. He forwarded it to you and CC'd me since I'm involved in the documentation.
I think he wanted witnesses to the fact that he sent it. Zoe sat down and opened her phone. The second email was shorter than the first. Takahashi wrote that he had received a private communication from a member of the athletic department advising him to, he quoted the phrase directly, remain within his professional boundaries regarding matters currently under administrative review. He wrote that he needed time to consider his position.
He wrote that he was sorry. He signed it the same way, full name and title, but something about it felt different. Smaller somehow, like a door closing quietly rather than slamming. Zoe set her phone face down on the bed. Avery said, "He's scared. " "I know. " "That's not okay. " "I know that, too. " She stared at the ceiling for a moment, jaw tight, and then sat back up because there was no version of lying on her back that fixed anything.