Madeline agreed with Nye on that. But the stuff in her thesis. The stuff she wrote down in detail. When she wrote it, she felt certain about it, certain she was writing down the truth. She still did. She just felt less certain about sharing it with the world.

With the community in the English Department. With others who might hear about it.

She felt her hand going up to her eyebrow and caught herself. She scratched her nose instead, hoping Dr. Nye hadn’t noticed. Had he seen her annoying tic in class?

“Is there something sordid in the book?” he asked.

“No. It’s kind of violent. A woman gets killed.”

“Lots of books are violent. I can handle it.”

“I know. . . .”

“I’m pretty surprised you turned in a mostly handwritten draft,” Connor said. “What happened? Did your feather quill run out of ink?”

“Yeah, I meant to tell you about that.” Connor had a way of jabbing at his students. He could playfully kid them but also let them know he disapproved. “I struggled to get this thesis going. I had about five thousand words done, and then my computer died. I mean, it just croaked. Nothing could be saved. It cost me a hundred dollars to go to the shop and have them tell me they couldn’t save it.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Yeah. So I started writing by hand for a while. And . . . I don’t know. It felt more organic or something. It connected me more to the words and the rhythm. Does that make sense?”

“It does. Sure. But I don’t have to accept the thesis that way.”

Madeline felt sick when he said that. Her stomach dropped to the floor.

He went on. “A lot of professors wouldn’t take handwritten work at all. Maybe you should find a way to get it typed—”

“I can’t afford a new computer. I mean, I really can’t, not with all the loans and things I have. I need to bite the bullet and buy one, but the debt scares me. And my mom can’t help at all.” She looked away and swallowed hard. Why couldn’t she have a parent with enough money to pay for basic shit? “I have to write at night because I’m working forty hours a week at the grocery store to pay for school. Sometimes more than forty. I write during downtime at the job. By the time I’m off work, it’s dark. Sometimes you can be the only student in a lab at night, and that’s kind of weird.”

“You really don’t have another way to do it? Even a friend’s computer?”