“I swear to God I can’t wait until this class is over. What the hell does Campsey want us to say about this. I cannot...” The taller of the two unhooked her arm from her friend’s and went over to examine the display, getting so close Rainy swore her nose brushed against the rope.

“It says nothing. I hate it.” The girl backed up, joining her friend, who was draped over her phone, not even looking.

Rainy couldn’t disagree with her more. Both the rope and the linen had been created from the same fabric, yet each was woven into a distinct texture, and then they had been wound around each other. She’d gone back to the room she rented and Googled Professor Campsey on her laptop as she ate pickle chips from a bag. Daniel Campsey taught at NYU. In his photo on the college website, he had a round face with two rosy spots high on his cheeks that made it look like he was wearing blush. He looked like a shaved Santa Claus, and she wanted to take one of his classes. It was a gut feeling, and since she was living on those lately, she licked her fingers clean of pickle crumbs and filled out an online application.

When Rainy found out that she was accepted, there was no one to tell. She wrote a letter to Taured detailing her life after the loss of her mother. The letter was six pages long; she burned it in the kitchen sink after she reread it, ashamed both of how weak she sounded and that her first instinct had been to write him at all. She didn’t want to send Taured a letter detailing her hurt; she wanted to make him hurt back.

There had indeed been an investigation into her mother’s death, but Taured’s people had protected him, backing up the story that her mother was mentally ill and had overdosed on drugs, either accidentally or on purpose. There was no way to prove that she had been injected against her will. The community was asked why they hadn’t contacted anyone for help about Lorraine’s drug addition, and Taured had said that they hadn’t known; Lorraine had taken great pains to hide it from everyone. Her death had been ruled an accident, and Taured got away with it—all of it. The only thing he didn’t get was Rainy herself: the courts had ruled that she would stay with her grandparents. He’d never gotten her back. She knew how enraged that would make him.