Taming My Bully

Vespera

I was wearing a silk robe that felt cool against my skin, the way the water is cool before your body gives up and decides it's fine.

My reflection in the floor-to-ceiling bathroom mirror was completely flawless.... tanned, glowing, and effortlessly rested. I tapped a dot of thousand dollar eye cream under my lashes, massaging it in with a cool jade roller before smoothing a layer of sunscreen over my cheeks. My hair... blow-dried into soft, glossy waves that looked like they belonged in a French perfume commercial, cascaded over my shoulders.

Downstairs, Phoebe was leaning on the quartz island in a linen shirt three sizes too big, holding a tray of orange juice she'd clearly just squeezed herself, because of course she had to, and my Sturbucks order.

"You're five minutes late," Phoebe said, looking at me like I was a visiting monarch. "Your driver is waiting downstairs, but honestly? You look so good I don't think anyone would dare complain."

I smiled, taking a sip of a iced oat milk lavender latte—custom order, zero bitterness, perfect temperature—and stretched out my arm to reach for my leather bag—

Splat

A cold, heavy, wet bath towel slammed directly across my face.

"Get your *ss up, Vesper!"

The silk robe vanished. The marble kitchen dissolved into grey, peeling wallpaper.

I gagged, ripping the damp towel off my head. The freezing water was soaking through my cotton t-shirt. The smell of cheap laundry detergent and mold hit my nostrils instantly.

Phoebe stood over my narrow twin bed in our six-by-eight-foot Founders Hall dorm room, her arms crossed, her red curls tied up in a messy knot, looking at me like I was a raccoon that had gotten into the trash.

"Eww! Phoebe, what the hell?" I sat up, sputtering, wiping damp hair out of my mouth. "Did you seriously just throw a wet towel on my face?"

"I threw your alarm clock at your head," Phoebe deadpanned, holding up my plastic digital clock, which was currently blinking 7:12 AM with a cracked screen. "You didn't even twitch. You were making weird little happy sighs in your sleep. At least now you'll actually take a shower. We have twenty minutes before Macroeconomics."

"I was having the best dream of my life," I groaned, rubbing my eyes and throwing my legs over the edge of the squeaky bed frame.

"I'm thrilled for you."

"I had a ten-step skincare routine. I had a driver. I was rich, Phoebe. I was so f*ck*ng rich."

"Well, welcome back to poverty," she said, tossing a plastic bottle of drugstore sunscreen onto my lap, and it bounced off my knee onto the floor. "The water in the communal shower on the third floor is lukewarm at best today. Move it."

Ten minutes later, reality had fully reasserted itself.

Ten minutes later the dream was gone the way dreams go, fast and total, and I was standing at the cracked mirror in the shared bathroom slapping on five-dollar moisturizer, then SPF 30, which leaves a white cast on my nose no matter how long I rub it in, then two swipes of mascara, top lashes only. Dark hair back in a clip, pulled on a thrifted grey knit sweater, and shoved my feet into my worn leather boots.

While Phoebe strapped her messenger bag over her shoulder, I pulled a jar of instant coffee out of our mini-fridge, dumped two spoonfuls into a mug of hot tap water, and stirred it with a plastic pen until it turned a dark, bitter brown.

It tasted like burnt dirt. But it was caffeine, and caffeine meant survival.

"Ready?" Phoebe asked, adjusting her coat.

"Ready to pretend I'm fully awake," I muttered, taking another swallow of the lukewarm sludge and locking our door behind us.

Outside, the air had that wet-leaf, wet-pavement smell that I actually like, and the cobblestones were slick and shining under a sun that seemed to be doing its best. As we walked toward Vanguard Hall, the campus was already waking up. Students in oversized university hoodies were rushing past with paper cups from the local cafe, backpacks slung over their shoulders.

"Did you see the group chat last night?" Phoebe asked, nudging my arm as we cut across the main quad.

"No, I was asleep by eleven after my archive shift," I said, pulling my coat tighter against the wind. "What happened?"

"Gossip desk says Inara Roy finally threw a glass of champagne at Dorian Vance on Saturday night," Phoebe said, her eyes gleaming with journalism-major excitement.

"At him, or near him?"

"At him. Apparently he was seen flirting with some junior from the hockey team at the frat house. Word is Inara walked out and told her driver to drop his suit at the dry cleaners and lose his number. People are saying they're officially done this time."

"They're never done," I said dryly, dodging a girl on a vintage bicycle nearly took my elbow off and I didn't even get an apology.

"I don't know, Vesper. Inara looked furious at the student union yesterday."

"People like Dorian Vance don't get dumped," I said softly, stepping up the stone stairs of Vanguard Hall. "They just rebrand."

Inside the vaulted lecture hall, the air was warm and smelled like old wood and coffee. We took our usual seats in row six—close enough to see the projector board, far enough back to stay out of the professor's direct line of sight.

Three minutes before the eight o'clock bell, the double doors at the front clicked open.

The room didn't go silent. This wasn't a movie. But the chatter dropped a notch, the way it does.

Dorian Vance walked in.

He was wearing a black wool coat over a charcoal crewneck sweater, his dark hair slightly windswept, a leather bag slung over one shoulder. He looked entirely unimpressed by the world around him—the same quiet, heavy aura he carried every single day.

And on his arm, hand tucked into the crook of his elbow like it had a reserved seat there, Inara Roy.

She looked — and I hate this word, but there isn't another one — immaculate.. Blonde hair in a low bun with not one strand out of place. Cream cashmere that probably cost more than my textbooks for the entire semester, and I'm counting the used ones. She leaned up and whispered something in his ear, smiling.

Phoebe leaned over to me, her mouth slightly open. "Okay, so the group chat is full of liars."

I watched them casually, the same way I watched every other legacy couple on campus—like observing a completely different species through a thick glass partition. When they reached the front row, he paused, leaned down, and pressed a brief, lingering kiss directly onto her lips.

Inara flushed, smiling brightly as she sat down with her friends in row one. Dorian didn't say another word, he just walked three seats over, unzipped his bag, and sat down next to Cassel Hayes.

"Rebrand," I murmured to Phoebe.

"Disgusting," Phoebe fake-gagged, opening her laptop. "Must be nice to be untouchable."

At the podium, Professor Sterling cleared his throat, tapping a stack of graded papers against the wooden desk. The room quieted down.

"Before we begin today's lecture on trade deficits," Sterling said, adjusting his glasses, "I have the results for last week's mid-term examination."

The groan that went through that hall was almost musical.

"I will be honest," Sterling continued, picking up the top pile. "The average for this exam was... dismal. More than half the class scored below a C minus. The analytical section on international currency fluctuation seems to have stumped almost everyone."

My stomach did a violent, sickening flip.

My hands went cold. I sat up straight, clutching the edge of my wooden desk. I had spent six hours studying for that exam in the library basement. I needed a 3.5 GPA to keep my academic scholarship. If my GPA dropped below that threshold, my financial aid was gone. I couldn't afford a single hit.

Sterling walked down the aisles, dropping papers face-down on desks.

When he reached row six, he slid a paper onto my table.

I hesitated for three excruciating seconds before flipping the corner up.

In big, violent red ink at the top of the page: **B- (81%)**

My breath hitched in my throat. An 81. A B-minus.

A wave of heat rushed to my face, my pulse hammering in my ears. A B-minus in a four-credit core class was enough to drag my term average down to a 3.2. My mind immediately raced into overdrive— How many archive shifts do I need to pick up? Can I petition for extra credit? Do I drop my second major?

Beside me, Phoebe winced, looking at her own paper. "I got a C. I'm literally going to fail out of the honors program."

"I got a B-minus," I whispered, my voice tight, my chest feeling like a tight vice was closing around it. "Phoebe, my scholarship..."

"Quiet down, please," Sterling called out, walking back to the podium. He held up his hands to quell the rising chorus of groans and complaints echoing across the hall. "Listen to me. Because the class average was so extraordinarily low, I have decided not to count this exam toward your final grade."

I froze. My head snapped up.

"Instead," Sterling announced, "this grade will be replaced by a comprehensive research thesis. You will work in assigned pairs to produce a twenty-page market analysis report. Because I want these papers to be balanced, I have paired the highest-scoring students with the lowest-scoring students on this exam."

Relief flooded through my veins so fast I felt dizzy.

Not counted. The B-minus was gone. Erased. It was a second chance—a complete reset.

"I will post the official partner pairings on the course portal by four o'clock tomorrow," Sterling concluded, picking up his dry-erase marker. "I suggest you contact your partner to set up your research schedule. Now, turn to page ninety-four."

I let out a long, trembling breath, leaning back against my chair. I didn't care who my partner was. I didn't care if they were lazy, arrogant, or completely hopeless. I was going to carry the entire project on my back if I had to. I was going to get an A on this thesis, save my GPA, and keep my scholarship. Nothing else mattered.

---

By eight that night the rain was back, running down the tall narrow windows of the archives in the basement of the library.

The archives were located in the subterranean level of the main library—a quiet, dimly lit labyrinth of high oak shelves, ancient leather-bound ledgers, and rolling metal ladders. It was my favorite shift of the week. It paid twelve dollars an hour, nobody bothered me, and I spent most of the time organizing historical donor records while listening to music in one earbud.

I was wearing my official navy library lanyard over my sweater, pushing a heavy wooden cart loaded with oversized historical directories down Row 14.

The air down here smelled like old paper, mahogany stain, and dust. The fluorescent lights overhead flickered quietly, casting long shadows between the tall shelves.

I pulled a thick, gold-embossed ledger from the cart— Oakhaven Guild Board of Trustees Minutes, 1974 —and stepped into the narrow aisle between Row 16 and Row 17 to slide it back into its assigned slot.

As I pushed the heavy book onto the shelf, a sound echoed from the far end of the aisle.

It was a sharp, strangled gasp—followed by a gagging noise.

My heart instantly spiked. Panic flared in my chest. Is someone choking? Having an asthma attack?

The archives were supposed to be completely empty after 7:30 PM. The front desk was unmanned, and the subterranean levels were strictly restricted to staff and senior research fellows.

"Hey! Are you okay?" I called out, dropping the book back onto the cart and rushing blindly around the corner into Row 19 to help them.

"Hold on, I'm—"

I rounded the edge of the tall mahogany shelf and skidded to a dead stop.

The words died in my throat.

My eyes went wide.

Dorian was pinned against the dark wood of the historical collections desk. His dark hair was messy, his jaw tight, his black wool coat discarded on a chair nearby.

And kneeling on the cold floor directly between his legs was a girl with bright platinum blonde hair, her head moving rhythmically as she gagged on his c*ck. She was definitely not Inara.

My brain completely short-circuited.

I don't remember deciding to scream. I just did — this high, horrified, entirely involuntary noise that came out of me like a smoke alarm.

I yanked the directory up over my face like a shield, spun on my heel, and ran.

"What the f*ck?!"

A belt buckle hit the floor. Boots came after me.

"Hey! Stop!"

I've never run that fast in my life. Past Row 12, boots slipping on the concrete, hard left into the back stacks where the compact shelving is, and I threw myself into the gap between two steel shelves and squeezed in behind a column of map drawers with my knees to my chest and both hands over my mouth.

My heart was going so hard I could hear it in my ears.

Footsteps. Slow now.

A silhouette filled the end of the aisle. Half-unbuttoned shirt. Breathing hard. Scanning the dark.

He hadn't seen my face. He didn't know who I was.

He took a step in.

Four feet.

Three.

His boots stopped right in front of the shelf I was behind, and his shadow came down over my knees, and his hand reached into the gap—

BZZZZ. BZZZZ.

His phone.

He froze. Pulled it out. Looked at the screen and swore, low and vicious, under his breath.

"Yeah. Yes, Father."

A pause. He stared into that dark aisle for one more second, and I swear I stopped existing.

"I'm on my way up right now."

He turned and walked off fast, and the glass doors hissed shut behind him.

I stayed in the gap for five minutes. Maybe more. Shaking, both hands still over my mouth, until the library went completely quiet again.

Vespera

I was back in the archives, running from boots that kept getting louder, and just as a hand grabbed my shoulder, someone screamed “UP UP UP” directly into my ear. I shot upright shrieking, “I am UP, I am up!” and immediately headbutted Phoebe.

"Aw!" She hissed rubbing her forehead.

"Geez, what do you think will happen" I said as I dragged myself out of bed, every muscle in my neck aching.

It was7"15 AM. I hadn’t slept more than two hours. Every time I closed my eyes, I was in Row 19 again, hearing a belt buckle hit the floor and boots coming after me.

I hadn't slept more than two consecutive hours. Every time I closed my eyes, I was back in the archives, hearing belt buckles clattering and heavy boots chasing me into the dark.

When I came back after bath, Phoebe was going through something.

"You look like a Victorian ghost," Phoebe remarked, pouring spoonfuls of instant oats into two bowls. She shoved o