The rain hit Hollow Bay like it had somewhere to get to and no patience for small talk. It slashed against the taxi window in sheets, fractured neon turning the wet street into a moving painting of pink and green. Reed watched the city blur and felt none of the steady, luxurious boredom he'd expected. His father’s driver had smiled through the downpour and said, “You’ll get comfortable,” and then the car had vanished into traffic. There wasn't a Bentley idling at the dorm entrance; there was a cracked municipal sign, a bus that coughed its way by, and a student with a laundry basket muttering curses under a dripping hood. Google Maps sent him down a side street lined with shuttered takeout joints and a laundromat whose sign blinked half of L-A-U. The little blue dot hopped and recalibrated as if embarrassed. Reed jogged, suitcase bumping the back of his calf, umbrella bending under gusts that had nothing but contempt for umbrellas. He'd flown from the city with two bags, an unnecessary blazer, and a polite envelope of campus paperwork. His phone chirped, giving up trying to be precise. The directions took him into an alley with a graffiti-streaked wall and a neon noodle cart that smelled like ginger and oil. This was not the arrival he'd rehearsed. He had imagined a tidy dorm receptionist, someone to show him to his room, pretty campus map in hand. Instead a thin