She wished she hadn’t written about things that were so real and raw, even though that was exactly what Nye always told them to do.

But Madeline feared she’d been just a little too real and raw. . . .

And it was going to bite her in the ass. Hard. And she was doing what she always did, what she’d been taught to do since she was a child—look for the exit. Find the fastest way out. Don’t wait for trouble to pin you down.

No, she told herself. Try to stay for a change. Try not to run. . . .

Someone slipped up next to her, a guy she’d taken a few classes with over the years, Isaac Frank. Isaac wrote science fiction stories riddled with grammatical errors. Madeline wanted to pull her hair out when she read them. But he was a nice enough guy, someone she liked to talk to before class. Isaac was trying to convince his parents to pay for him to travel abroad over the summer before he went to graduate school. Not study abroad. Travel abroad. Travel. As in . . . just for fun. But Isaac had told her just the other day his parents were willing to pay for only three weeks of travel instead of the four he wanted. Madeline listened, pretending she could in any way relate to Isaac’s first-world problems.

She hoped summer plans weren’t on Isaac’s mind in Dubliners. He leaned in close to Madeline at the bar, sipping from a Guinness, and she decided if he started complaining about not going to Prague she was going to dump a beer on his head. She just couldn’t listen.

“Hey, Madeline,” he said.

“What’s up, Isaac?” she asked.

Madeline didn’t listen to Isaac’s response. She stared down the length of the bar where Connor stood with the sycophants. One of them, a sorority girl named Hannah, was going on and on about something, and Madeline watched Connor listening and occasionally smiling. But the smile looked forced. His mouth moved. His teeth showed. But his eyes remained flat.

“Should we go rescue Dr. Nye?” Madeline asked. “Hannah won’t shut up. She literally hasn’t taken a breath in five minutes.”

“He’s on, like, his fourth drink.”

“He’s a writer. What do you expect?”

“We’ve only been here an hour or so,” Isaac said.

She started tapping her index fingernail against her glass. Ping. Ping. Ping.

“Nervous much?” Isaac asked.

“What?”

“You seem kind of stressed. Or something.”

“I’m fine, Isaac.” She realized she’d snapped at him. And he looked like a hurt puppy. Isaac was clearly one of those guys who couldn’t handle a woman speaking harshly to him. “I’m sorry. No. I mean, I just turned my thesis in yesterday. It’s a novel.”

“Oh. Sweet. One step closer to graduation.”