“Don’t be a prude. I’m trying to explain something here,” she says, rolling her eyes. “Sharing magic—it’s, like, the closest you can feel to someone, right? You get that. You’re so strong and connected, and you can feel what they’re feeling. And with him, all I could feel was this guilt. Like, he hated himself so much.” She swallows hard. “I was so excited to be helpful. His asshole dad had cut off his access to his family’s magic-sharing pool, so he was going through withdrawals. After everything he’s done for me, this was a thing I could do for him.”

Oh. That’s why he’s looked so exhausted lately.

“And I thought he wanted to do it with me,” she continues. “He just kept telling me how special I was, and it felt like he was really seeing me as me. You know? Not as just another one of his students. I know it’s ridiculous, thinking he would like me.”

I sit there, still and unmoving, as the words spill out of her. She’s fixating on some point on the wall behind me, like I’m not really here. The more she talks, the more I feel sick to my stomach.

“I told him I liked him a few weeks ago, and he just looked so sad. God, it’s pathetic. I know.” She laughs, a short and joyless sound. “He told me that it wasn’t true, that I didn’t like him, but I just couldn’t let it go. I acted like such a loser, I couldn’t even wait to tell him until after I graduated.” She spits the words out with utter disdain. “And then, when he was going to drive me home, I pushed myself on him. I knew he was upset that day because his dad had threatened to never let him access their magic-sharing pool again if he didn’t do some work for the family business. But I didn’t care, I just—I just wanted him.

“You’re going to ruin his life,” she says, her focus now on me. I almost flinch under the intensity of her stare. “He just wants to help students. He’s such a friggin’ bleeding heart, he can’t leave people alone when he knows they need help. I was always so pissed off that he couldn’t see that you were just pretending to be incompetent to get his attention.”