"You missed class today—you missed her!" Frank shouted from the doorway.
I pushed through the crowd because ignoring Frank was harder than skipping class at K U. The lecture hall smelled like coffee and old paper. Students were clustered around the podium, phones up, eyes fixed on the front.
"Shut up and move," Buck said, elbowing a freshman aside. He sounded like he'd rehearsed that line.
"Who's 'her'?" I asked. My voice came out flat because my head was already picturing someone impossible.
"You don't even know yet?" Frank grinned. "You really live in a bubble, Lennox."
We squeezed into the aisle. The professor's desk was empty. A woman stood where the professor should be. She wore a lab coat over black jeans and a calm that made the chatter quiet down. People leaned forward.
"Good afternoon," she said. "Today we'll go over the microfluidic chip design—no, not the textbook theory; the one that fails in lab when students think shortcuts work."
Her voice wasn't soft. It cut through noise and nonsense and settled everything. I stopped moving.
"Hey," Buck said, then hit my shoulder. "You good?"
"Fine." I wasn't fine. My palms got warm. I tried to keep my face steady.
She clicked a slide. Her hand was steady. Her words were precise. She didn't try to perform; she taught. Students scribbled like they were trying to catch her falling knowledge.
"Make sure your welds are continuous," she said
