Dallas showed up at my door on a Wednesday evening without calling first. That alone told me something was wrong. Dallas always called.

She stood in the hallway holding a bottle of wine, her usual brightness dimmed to something flat and careful. 'Hey,' she said. 'Thought you could use company.'

I stepped aside to let her in. Quinn was already asleep. The apartment was quiet except for the distant hum of traffic below.

'What happened?' I asked, closing the door.

'Nothing happened.' She set the wine on the counter, not meeting my eyes. 'Can't I just visit my best friend?'

I crossed my arms and waited.

Dallas busied herself opening the wine, pulling glasses from my cabinet with the ease of someone who'd been here a hundred times. She poured two generous measures, slid one toward me, then took a long drink from her own.

'Dallas.'

'It's fine,' she said quickly. 'Really. Just department politics. Nothing I can't handle.'

I picked up my glass but didn't drink. I watched her instead—the way she gripped the stem too tightly, the tension in her shoulders, the forced casualness of her posture.

'The fellowship,' I said quietly.

Her jaw tightened. 'It's handled.'

'What did they do?'

She laughed, but there was no humor in it. 'You have enough on your plate, Mia. You don't need my problems too.'

'Tell me.'

For a long moment, she said nothing. Then she set down her glass and pressed both palms flat against the counter. 'Zaria went to the fellowship committee. Said there were concerns about my research methodology. Said another candidate—one of her little protégés—would be a better fit for the grant's objectives.' She looked up at me, and I saw the exhaustion there. 'Shane was copied on the email thread. He didn't say a word.'

Something cold and sharp settled in my chest. 'When?'

'Last week.' Dallas's voice was steady, but her hands weren't. 'I didn't want to tell you because I know what you're dealing with. I thought I could fix it myself. But the committee's already discussing reallocation. Two years of funding, Mia. Two years of work. And she's taking it because she can.'

I set down my glass very carefully. 'When is the next departmental mixer?'

Dallas blinked. 'What?'

'The graduate student mixer. The one the Faculty House hosts every month. When is it?'

'Friday,' she said slowly. 'Why?'

I smiled. It felt strange on my face, like a muscle I hadn't used in a while. 'Because you're going to get your fellowship back.'

'Mia—'

'Trust me.'

She studied me for a long moment, then nodded.

Friday evening, the Faculty House was warm and crowded, filled with the particular buzz of academics performing collegiality. I arrived with Dallas, both of us dressed for the occasion—professional but not trying too hard. I spotted Zaria almost immediately. She stood near the wine table, laughing at something a silver-haired professor was saying.

I waited. Patience was something I'd learned well over the past two years.

Twenty minutes in, I positioned myself near a cluster of faculty members, Dallas at my side. Zaria drifted closer, drawn by the presence of tenure-track professors the way moths seek light.

'Mia,' she said, her smile bright and empty. 'I didn't know you'd be here.'

'Last-minute decision,' I replied easily. I turned to the professor beside me—Dr. Helena Moss, chair of the environmental studies program. 'Dr. Moss, I was just telling Dallas that I've been thinking about what to do with my co-op in Tribeca.'

Helena raised her eyebrows politely. 'Oh?'

'Yes.' I took a sip of wine, my voice carrying just enough to reach the surrounding conversations. 'It's technically under marital assets, but Shane has no use for it. I've been considering transferring the deed to a deserving junior researcher. Someone doing important work who could use the stability of their own space in the city.'

I watched Zaria's face. The smile stayed fixed, but something flickered behind her eyes—calculation, sharp and immediate.

'That's incredibly generous,' Helena said warmly.

'I think so too,' I agreed. I turned slightly, including Zaria in the conversation now. 'Of course, I'd hate for such an arrangement to be complicated by any ongoing departmental disputes. It would be terrible if someone thought there were strings attached, or if the transfer became tangled in academic politics.'

Zaria's smile tightened almost imperceptibly.

'Departmental disputes?' Helena frowned. 'Is there something I should know about?'

'Oh, I'm sure it's nothing,' I said lightly. 'Just some confusion about fellowship allocations. I'm confident it will resolve itself quickly.' I met Zaria's gaze directly. 'Don't you think?'

For three seconds, nobody spoke. Then Zaria's smile widened, brittle and bright.

'Absolutely,' she said. 'These things always work themselves out.'

I raised my glass in a small toast. 'I'm so glad we agree.'

Two days later, Dallas called me. I could hear the disbelief in her voice.

'The committee reversed their decision,' she said. 'They're keeping my grant intact. Zaria's candidate withdrew her application this morning.'

'Good,' I said simply.

'Mia.' Dallas's voice cracked slightly. 'You didn't have to do that.'

'Yes,' I replied. 'I did.'

Because that's what Shane and his family had never understood. Loyalty wasn't a performance. It wasn't something you claimed with words and betrayed with actions.

It was showing up. It was protecting the people you loved, even when—especially when—it cost you something.

And I was done with people who didn't know the difference.

The gala was everything Avianna Austin excelled at. Crystal chandeliers. String quartet. Two hundred guests in evening wear, sipping champagne and discussing endowments. I stood near the dessert table in a borrowed black dress, watching Shane work the room with the practiced ease of someone who'd been doing this since childhood.

He hadn't come home last night. Another late meeting, he'd said via text. I'd added the timestamp to my file.

'Mia.' Avianna appeared at my elbow, her smile sharp and bright. 'So glad you could make it. Shane mentioned you almost stayed home with Quinn.'

'The sitter was available,' I said evenly.

Her gaze swept over my dress—borrowed from Dallas, slightly too loose at the waist. 'How lovely.' The words were warm. The dismissal underneath was not.

I excused myself and moved toward the rooftop terrace. The November air was cold enough to sting, but I needed distance from the performance inside. The terrace overlooked Central Park, dark and vast below the city lights. A few other guests stood near the heated lamps, smoking and laughing.

I heard her before I saw her.

'Mia Patterson.' Zaria's voice carried across the terrace. She wore red—a dress that probably cost more than my monthly stipend. 'I didn't know you'd be here.'

'Avianna invited me,' I said. I kept my voice neutral, my posture relaxed.

She moved closer, her heels clicking against the stone. 'Of course she did. You're still technically family.' She smiled. 'For now.'

I said nothing.

'I heard about the fellowship situation,' she continued. 'That was clever. The co-op thing. Very clever.' She tilted her head, studying me. 'But you should know—Shane and I have been discussing long-term plans. Real plans. Not just borrowed apartments and borrowed time.'

I met her gaze directly. 'Have you.'

'He's just waiting for the right moment.' She stepped closer, her voice dropping. 'You must know that. You're not stupid, Mia. You're just in the way.'

Something cold settled in my chest. Not anger. Something clearer.

'You're right,' I said quietly. 'I'm not stupid.'

Her smile widened. She moved to step past me—and her shoulder collided with mine, hard and deliberate. I stumbled backward. My heel caught the edge of the terrace step. For one suspended second, I saw the railing behind me, the dark gleam of the rooftop pool below.

Then I was falling.

The water hit like a wall of ice. It drove the air from my lungs, filled my mouth and nose, dragged at the borrowed dress. I surfaced gasping, my limbs already going numb. The pool was unheated. Decorative. Nobody swam here in November.

Shouts erupted above. Hands reached down—strangers, guests I didn't know, hauling me up onto the stone edge. Someone wrapped a coat around my shoulders. Someone else demanded to know what happened.

I looked up at the terrace. Zaria stood frozen, her face a careful mask of shock. And twenty feet behind her, half-hidden by a cluster of guests, Shane watched. Our eyes met across the distance.

He did not move.

He stood there, champagne glass in hand, and watched strangers pull his wife from freezing water. Then he turned smoothly and walked back inside.

I sat on the pool edge, shaking so hard my teeth rattled. A woman I didn't know pressed a towel into my hands. Another asked if I needed an ambulance.

'I'm fine,' I heard myself say. 'I just need to go home.'

Dallas arrived twenty minutes later—someone had called her, I didn't know who. She wrapped me in her coat, loaded me into a cab, and didn't ask questions until we were blocks away.

'He saw,' I said. My voice sounded strange, flat. 'He was right there. He saw it happen.'

Dallas's jaw tightened. 'I know.'

I was still wearing Dallas's coat and someone's borrowed sweatpants when my phone rang at midnight. Quinn's sitter. Her voice was tight with worry.

'He's burning up,' she said. 'I can't get the fever down.'

I was in a cab in under three minutes.

Quinn's skin was hot to the touch, his eyes glassy and unfocused. The thermometer read 104.2. I scooped him up, grabbed my purse, and ran for the door.

I called Shane from the cab. Voicemail. I called again from the ER waiting room. Voicemail. I called six more times while a nurse took Quinn's vitals, while a doctor examined him, while they hooked him up to an IV to bring the fever down.

Every call went unanswered.

I sat in a plastic chair under fluorescent lights, holding my son's small hand, and pulled out my phone one last time. Not to call Shane. To text Derek Huang.

*Expedite everything. I want to be gone in six weeks.*

The response came in under a minute: *Understood. I'll have papers ready Monday.*

Quinn's fever broke at three in the morning. He fell asleep against my chest, his breathing finally steady. I smoothed his hair back and stared at the hospital wall.

I didn't cry. There was nothing left to cry about.

Shane's phone stayed dark until seven the next morning. When he finally called, I let it ring through to voicemail. Then I listened to his message—breathless apologies, claims of a dead battery, promises to explain.

I deleted it without responding.

That evening, I sat at my kitchen table and opened a new document. At the top, I typed: *Evidence Log—Parental Neglect.* Below it, I added the date, the hospital, Quinn's diagnosis, and eight unanswered calls.

Then I saved the file and closed my laptop.

Six weeks. That's all I had left to endure.

And then I would be gone.