The drive to campus felt unbearably long that morning. It wasn’t just the traffic because the city moved in its usual sluggish rhythm. But Esther’s mind was a storm, drifting from one thought to another, heavy with guilt and exhaustion. Every red light seemed to last forever. Every turn of the wheel carried the echo of that moment back in her room.

She had never done that before. Never raised her voice to him, never hurled her pain like a weapon. But last night had stripped something raw ...