#offcampusxreader

You moved past them toward the pickup counter, eyes on the little cardboard sleeve around your iced coffee like it held state secrets instead of your name spelled wrong in black marker. Y/N had become something entirely different, which felt fitting. Half your life existed under a fake name anyway.

Behind you, the first girl lowered her voice.

“I’m telling you, it was Dean Di Laurentis.”

You reached for your drink and pretended your fingers did not pause around the plastic cup.

“No way,” her friend said. “Dean wouldn’t sneak out the back of a football party.”

“That’s exactly why it was him. He’d want people to think he wouldn’t.”

“He’d make a speech before leaving.”

“He probably did.”

You bit the inside of your cheek before a smile could get you arrested by your own conscience.

The episode had gone up at midnight, like it always did on Thursdays, when most of campus was either procrastinating, drinking, making questionable decisions, or all three in a sequence they would later try to blame on stress. By eight that morning, Briar Wire had been clipped, quoted, and misquoted across group chats, team texts, and whatever terrifying corner of student life existed inside private Snapchat stories.

You had not named Dean.

You never named names unless something was already public enough that pretending not to know would be insulting. The whole point of Briar Wire was not to ruin people. It was to take the ridiculous little disasters students willingly sent in and turn them into something funny enough to make everyone feel briefly less alone in their terrible choices.

A hockey player crashing a football party he had not been invited to, allegedly arguing with a wide receiver over a girl neither of them was dating, then allegedly leaving through a side door when someone’s ex showed up and started asking questions?

That was not life-ruining.

That was campus folklore.

And technically, all you had said was, I’m not naming names, but if the designer jacket fits, maybe stop wearing it to parties you weren’t invited to.

People had filled in the rest.

Briar loved filling in the rest.

By the time you stepped outside, the September air had already warmed enough to take the bite out of the morning. Students crossed the quad in clusters, carrying coffees, backpacks, protein shakes, and the haunted expressions of people who had scheduled Friday classes because they once believed in personal growth.

A guy in a Briar football hoodie held his phone out to his friend as they passed.

“She said designer jacket. That’s Dean.”

His friend snorted. “Half the hockey team dresses like they’re trying to marry into old money.”

“Yeah, but Dean already has old money.”

“Exactly. He doesn’t have to try.”

You looked straight ahead and took a long sip of coffee to hide your face.

The nice thing about being a student producer for Briar Athletics Media was that people saw the camera before they saw you. You were the girl with the lens, the media badge, the laptop covered in stickers from radio stations and campus events.

You were around enough to be familiar, but not enough to be suspicious. Athletes talked over you. Coaches forgot you were in corners. Girlfriends, ex-girlfriends, roommates, and team managers all seemed to assume that if you were adjusting audio levels, you had stopped having ears.

It was incredible what people said in front of someone holding equipment.

It was also incredible what they submitted anonymously at two in the morning after half a bottle of cheap vodka and one badly timed breakup.

You cut across the quad toward the student union, weaving through the usual Friday crowd. Someone had chalked Briar Wire knows in purple outside the library entrance. Beneath it, someone else had written Dean did it in green.

A third person, in smaller letters, had added, Dean does everything.

You had to give them that one.

Inside the student union, the noise hit you all at once. Chairs scraping, blenders whining from the smoothie counter, someone laughing too loudly near the vending machines, someone else cursing at a printer that had apparently chosen violence.

Mara was already at your usual table, one boot looped around the leg of the chair beside her to keep anyone else from taking it. Her laptop sat open in front of her, untouched, while her iced latte made a slow ring of condensation on the table. She was watching the room more than she was watching her screen, which told you everything you needed to know before she said a word.

The student union had that particular Friday morning buzz to it, loud enough to feel harmless until you started catching pieces of sentences. Dean’s name floated from the smoothie counter. Someone near the vending machines was replaying a clip too loudly from their phone. A girl in a Briar sweatshirt said, “No, but the designer jacket thing had to be him,” and three people around her immediately started arguing like they had been there themselves.

Mara looked up when you reached the table. Her gaze moved over your face, then to your coffee, then past your shoulder toward the girls still dissecting the episode near the counter.

She did not say the name of the podcast.

She did not have to.

You sat down in the chair she had saved for you and slipped your camera bag beneath the table, keeping your face arranged into something neutral. It was harder than it should have been. There was a strange feeling that came with hearing people repeat your own words back to each other, like walking through campus with a match hidden in your pocket while everyone searched for the source of smoke.

Mara nudged your drink closer when you forgot to reach for it.

“Big morning,” she said quietly.

You took the coffee mostly to have something to do with your hands. Across the room, someone laughed at a line you had recorded alone in your dorm at one in the morning, and your stomach pulled tight in a way that was not exactly fear, but lived close enough to it.

Mara’s expression softened just enough for you to notice. “No one knows anything,” she said, her voice low under the noise of the union. “They’re just bored and loud.”

That was probably supposed to help. In its own Mara way, it did. She was the only person at Briar who knew why your pulse had picked up, the only person who understood that this was not just campus drama to you. It was a secret with a microphone, a fake email inbox, and a growing number of strangers trying to give it a face.

Across the union, Camden appeared with his iced matcha in one hand and his phone in the other, already wearing the expression he got whenever a mystery had taken over his morning.

He wore a cream sweater even though the weather had not earned sweaters yet. His curls were loose around his forehead, his gold rings flashing as he typed something with his thumb. Camden got dressed for class the way other people got dressed for dinner reservations, which would have been annoying if he did not also lend you lip balm, chargers, and emotional support with no questions asked.

Mara saw him coming and sighed into her latte.

“He knows something,” she said.

You glanced over. “Does he?”

“No,” she said. “But he thinks he does.”

Camden slid into the chair across from you both and set his phone on the table, screen-up. There was a notes app open with a messy list of names, majors, arrows, and several question marks. You caught communications, athletics, and girl from North Hall? before he angled it away.

“I think I know who runs Briar Wire,” he announced.

Your hand tightened around your coffee.

Mara did not look at you. That was how you knew she was trying very hard not to.

Camden tapped the screen. “Not completely. I have categories.”

“Of course you do,” Mara said.

“I’m being realistic. The host knows too much about athletics to be random. She knew about the football party before half the people there decided what story they were going with. She knows hockey, but she knows football too. That means she either works near athletes, dates athletes, lives with someone who dates athletes, or has one of those terrifying friend groups where everyone knows everything before it happens.”

You opened your laptop mostly to give yourself something to look at. “Maybe people submit things.”

“They submit details,” Camden said. “She knows what to do with them.”

That landed closer than you wanted it to.

Your screen reflected your face for half a second before the login page loaded. You looked normal enough. A little tired, maybe, but not guilty. Not like someone who had spent the morning walking through campus while strangers repeated her own jokes back to her.

“Maybe she’s just good at guessing,” you said.

Camden gave you a look. “That is what people say when they like someone they don’t know how to defend.”

Mara reached for her drink. “Or when they’re trying to eat breakfast without becoming part of your investigation.”

“I’m not investigating,” Camden said, then looked down at his phone. “Not officially.”

You almost smiled, but Camden was still scrolling, still looking at names and majors like the answer might be sitting there if he arranged the evidence neatly enough. He was enjoying it. That was the thing. Not because he wanted to hurt anyone. Camden loved a secret the way some people loved crossword puzzles. He liked the chase. The possibility of being right.

But you were starting to understand that being the answer to the puzzle felt different from solving one.

Mara understood it too.

“You ever think maybe she stays anonymous because people act like this?” she asked.

Camden’s thumb stilled. “Like what?”

“Like she’s not a person,” Mara said. “Like she’s a game.”

He looked up fully then.

For a second, the noise of the student union filled the space between all three of you. Someone laughed near the vending machines. A blender shrieked behind the smoothie counter. A group of guys in football hoodies pushed through the doors, still arguing about whether the hockey player from the episode had climbed out a window or simply “left with strategy.”

Camden’s face shifted, just slightly.

“I don’t want her ruined,” he said. “I just want to know.”

“That’s how people get ruined,” Mara said.

You kept your eyes on the laptop screen, even though it had dimmed from lack of use. The reflection staring back at you looked composed enough to pass. Maybe that was the worst part. You had gotten good at looking normal while other people held your secret in their hands and turned it over like something they had found on the sidewalk.

Camden closed the notes app.

“I wouldn’t tell people,” he said after a moment. “If I figured it out.”

Mara looked at him over the rim of her cup, not challenging exactly, but not letting him off easy either.

“I wouldn’t,” he said again, quieter. “I like knowing things. I don’t need everyone else to know that I know.”

That was such a Camden answer, half sweet and half absurd, that it loosened something in your chest.

“Besides,” he added, picking up his matcha, “if everyone found out who she was, the whole thing would get weird. People would start performing for her on purpose. The podcast would be dead by midterms.”

“There it is,” Mara said, dry but fond. “A moral stance, almost.”

Camden pointed his straw at her. “Growth is rarely tidy.”

Your laptop chimed before Mara could answer.

A new email slid into view at the top of your inbox.

Elaine Porter: Athletics meeting moved up. Arena by 10. Bring camera. Hockey feature.

You read it once.

Then again, because your brain seemed to believe the words might become less threatening if you stared at them long enough.

Mara noticed your face before you could smooth it out.

“Elaine?” she asked.

You nodded and angled the laptop enough for her to see the subject line.

“Hockey feature,” Mara read.

Camden’s attention sharpened immediately. “What hockey feature?”

You shut your laptop.

He blinked. “Rude.”

“Confidential.”

“Y/N, I saw four words.”

“And those are all you’re getting,” you said, sliding the laptop into your bag before he could lean any closer.

He glanced toward the student union windows, where a few hockey players were passing outside in Briar sweatshirts. Even through the glass, you could hear one of them laugh.

“If the feature is about Dean,” Camden said, less teasing now, “you have to tell me.”

“I don’t.”

“So it is about Dean.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“You got quiet in a very Dean-specific way.”

Mara’s foot brushed yours beneath the table, light enough for Camden not to notice. When you looked at her, she gave you that quiet, steady look she got whenever the podcast stopped being funny for half a second.

“Text me after,” she said.

You nodded.

Camden, who had the terrible gift of sensing when people were leaving and choosing that exact moment to become impossible, added, “And if Dean brings up the party, I want the wording.”

“I’m not collecting statements for you.”

“You literally collect statements for a living.”

“I collect approved quotes for Briar Athletics.”

“Then approve one for me!”

Mara said his name, low enough that you almost missed it.

Camden settled back, but the interest stayed on his face. “Fine. I’m only saying that if he did use a side door, that matters.”

Your fingers tightened around your camera bag strap.

“What?”

“Back door implies panic,” Camden said. “Side door implies planning.”

You stared at him.

Mara stared too, but for an entirely different reason.

Across campus, you had already heard three versions of the story. None of them had mentioned a side door. That detail had been in the original submission, the part you had changed on air because saying too much would have made it easier to track.

You forced your voice flat. “You sound like you’ve given this a lot of thought.”

Camden only shrugged, unbothered. “All I’m saying is, the wording matters.”

You gave him one last look, then adjusted your camera bag on your shoulder. “I have to go.”

“Text me if he confirms anything,” he called after you.

“He won’t.”

Camden smiled down at his drink. “People always confirm something!”

By the time you pushed through the doors and stepped back into the September sun, your phone buzzed again with another email from Elaine.

Also, please tell me you saw the Briar Wire episode before everyone starts asking you about it.

You stopped in the middle of the sidewalk, read it twice, and breathed out through your nose.

Then you typed back:

I heard enough. On my way.

The arena was colder than the rest of campus, even from the outside. It always felt like the building had its own weather system. The closer you got, the more the ordinary sounds of Briar thinned out behind you: bikes clicking over pavement, students talking in clusters, someone blasting music from a dorm window with no concern for taste or volume.

Inside, the air changed. Cleaner. Sharper. Threaded with the permanent scent of ice and equipment that no amount of industrial cleaner could fully erase.

Briar Athletics Media lived in the back hallway between the rink offices and the storage room where old tripods went to die. It was not glamorous, but it was yours in the way campus jobs became yours after enough late nights. You knew which outlet sparked if you plugged in the ring light too fast. You knew which desk drawer had extra batteries and which one only had granola bar wrappers from last semester. You knew the printer jammed when it sensed weakness.

Elaine was waiting near the media room doorway, phone in one hand, clipboard in the other, her hair twisted up in a clip that looked like it had been added during a crisis. She was in her early thirties, which made her ancient by campus standards and young by the standards of everyone she answered to. She had the calm, focused exhaustion of a person who knew exactly how many fires could be put out before lunch and had already exceeded the number.

“There you are,” she said.

“I’m four minutes early.”

“Emotionally, you’re late.”

“That sounds like a personal issue.”

“It became a department issue at eight sixteen this morning.” She held up her phone.

On the screen was a paused clip from Briar Wire, someone’s repost of the line about the designer jacket. The caption underneath read:

DEAN DI LAURENTIS YOU HAVE 24 HOURS TO RESPOND.

Your stomach tightened.

Elaine studied your face. “You listen to this thing?”

“Everyone listens.”

“That is the answer people give when they do not want to answer.”

“It’s still true.”

She sighed like she had been waiting all morning for someone to disappoint her in a new way. “The administration is pretending not to know about it, which means they know. Hockey is pretending not to care, which means they care. Football is pretending they did not let hockey players into their party, which means they absolutely did.”

“Sounds like everyone has a full schedule.”

“And we are going to redirect the attention.”

You did not like the way she said redirect. It sounded like a word adults used right before handing you work they already knew would ruin your week.

Elaine passed you the clipboard.

At the top was a printed outline with Beyond the Rink typed in bold.

Below that:

Episode One: Dean Di Laurentis.

You looked up slowly. “No.”

Elaine did not blink. “Yes.”

“No, thank you.”

“That would work better if this were optional.”

“I have concerns.”

“I have several. We’ll trade later.”

You looked back down at the page. Interview questions. B-roll list. Practice footage. Casual campus shots. A short personal segment. A line about leadership, which made you wonder if Elaine had ever met Dean Di Laurentis for more than thirty seconds.

“Why him?”

“Because Dean gets views,” Elaine said. “Because he is comfortable on camera. Because he doesn’t freeze when someone points a lens at him. Because if I let Coach choose, we’ll get seven minutes about discipline, forechecking, and protein intake.”

“That sounds peaceful.”

“That sounds god-awful.”

You could not argue there.

Elaine tucked the clipboard back against her chest. “You’re good with athletes who know they’re being watched. You don’t buy into the performance, but you don’t punish them for it either.”

That was almost funny, considering Dean’s performance had already spent the morning following you across campus in sound bites and chalk messages.

“I need ten minutes of interview footage today,” Elaine said. “Some practice B-roll. Maybe a hallway walk-and-talk if he behaves.”

“That’s a large maybe.”

“Start with the interview.”

Before you could respond, laughter came from the hall that led to the locker rooms. Not loud enough to be obnoxious, but familiar in the way some sounds became familiar by repetition. You had heard Dean laugh in the background of too many clips, too many post-game hallways, too many celebrations where he was not even the focus and still somehow ended up in frame.

He appeared a second later with two teammates, coffee in hand, Briar Hockey sweatshirt sleeves pushed to his forearms. His hair was still damp, like he had showered after morning skate and run his hands through it once before deciding that was good enough for the day. One of his teammates was grinning at something he had just said. The other looked like he had already heard the joke twice and still found it funny, which was probably Dean’s real talent.

He was mid-conversation when he walked in, his voice carrying into the media hallway like he had not considered the possibility of privacy.

“I’m not saying the story is wrong,” Dean said. “I’m saying it lacks context.”

His teammate laughed. “You want context now?”

“I’ve always valued context.”

“You told Ryan to stop texting like a man with a head injury.”

“That was a medical concern.”

The other guy shook his head, still laughing. “It was a group chat.”

“Then I was spreading awareness.”

Elaine looked at you.

You looked back at her.

Absolutely not, you thought.

Dean noticed you then. His eyes flicked to your camera bag, then to the clipboard in Elaine’s hand, then back to your face. Recognition sparked, not personal exactly, but professional. He had seen you around the rink before. Most athletes had. They knew you the way people knew exit signs, necessary when needed and otherwise part of the background.

Today, unfortunately, you were not going to be background.

Elaine stepped forward. “Dean. Perfect timing.”

“That’s what I’ve been saying for years.”

“We’re starting the new player feature series today. Y/N will be producing your segment.”

Dean’s attention returned to you with more interest.

“Y/N,” he said, like he was testing the name once before deciding what to do with it.

You held out one hand because professionalism, even in the face of a man currently being discussed in half the campus group chats, was still technically your job.

“Hi.”

He shook your hand. His palm was warm from the coffee cup, his grip easy, not the exaggerated kind guys used when they thought firmness could double as personality.

“Hi,” he said. “Are you here to repair my image?”

“I’m here to film it.”

His smile came fast, the kind that probably worked on professors, donors, and anyone with a functioning nervous system. It was annoying to discover you were not immune so much as determined.

Elaine checked something off on her clipboard. “We need a short intro interview today. No party questions.”

Dean turned to her. “I feel like I deserve a chance to defend myself.”

“You’re not on trial.”

“That is how trials start.”

Elaine pointed toward the small interview room. “Ten minutes. Keep it clean.”

One of Dean’s teammates made a sound under his breath, not quite a laugh. “Not what Ryan said about the party.”

Dean glanced back at him. “Ryan called a side entrance a back door. His credibility is gone.”

Your fingers paused on the strap of your camera bag.

A side entrance.

Camden would have levitated out of his chair.

Elaine only pinched the bridge of her nose. “Room three. Now.”

The two teammates disappeared toward the rink, still laughing. Dean stayed where he was, attention shifting back to you.

“So,” he said, “how much creative control do I get?”

“None.”

“I can respect that.”

Elaine had already turned away, finished with both of you. “Y/N, send me the raw clips when you’re done.”

You nodded and led the way down the hall before Dean could decide to respect anything else.

Room three was barely a room. It was more of a storage closet. There were two folding chairs, a tripod, a small Briar Athletics banner on the wall, and one window that looked directly into another hallway.

You set up the camera while Dean wandered in behind you and looked around.

“This is intimate,” he said.

“It’s a repurposed closet.”

You snapped the camera onto the tripod and adjusted the height. Dean sat in the chair you pointed to, then shifted once under the fluorescent light, trying to get comfortable on a seat that had been purchased by someone who hated spines.

“You’re not going to ask about the party,” he said.

“No.”

“Not even off the record?”

You looked at him over the camera. “Do you know what that means?”

“I understand it deeply.”

You adjusted the focus to keep your mouth from giving you away. “This is for Athletics, not Briar Wire.”

The second the words left your mouth, you wished you could pull them back.

Dean’s eyes sharpened.

Not enough to look suspicious. Enough to notice.

“So you do listen,” he said.

You kept your fingers on the camera. “Everyone listens.”

“That’s what people keep telling me.”

“Maybe because it’s true.”

Dean looked toward the lens, then back at you. “Funny, considering the podcast has never actually named me.”

“And yet you seem pretty sure it was about you.”

His mouth curved, but it did not quite turn into a smile. “That’s the strange part, isn’t it?”

The camera beeped softly when you hit record.

“State your name, year, and position.”

Dean sat up with enough exaggerated obedience that you already knew the first take would be unusable.

“Dean Di Laurentis. Junior. Forward. Victim of implied journalism.”

You let the silence sit.

He looked at you.

You looked back.

Finally, he exhaled. “Fine.”

You reset the clip.

He gave the answer properly the second time, which somehow annoyed you more than if he had made it difficult. Dean was not stupid. That was the problem with people like him. Everyone treated them like they were all charm and no structure, and sometimes they let people think that because it was easier. Then they turned around and did exactly what was needed the moment it mattered.

You moved through the basic questions. Favorite part of playing at Briar. Best memory with the team. What game-day routine he refused to give up. He gave you enough polished answers for the official cut, then enough ridiculous ones that you knew Elaine would make you delete them and you would probably save them anyway.

Halfway through, you asked, “What do you think people get wrong about you?”

Dean looked toward the camera, then away from it.

The pause was small, but you caught it. You always caught pauses. Audio taught you that people lied most clearly in the space before they spoke.

“That I don’t notice,” he said.

You waited.

His mouth tipped like he almost regretted giving you a real answer.

“People think I don’t notice what they assume about me,” he continued. “I do.”

There was no joke at the end of it.

For a second, the room felt too still.

You glanced down at the question list in your lap, though you had stopped needing it three questions ago. “Does that bother you?”

He looked at you then.

The easy answer would have been no. A shrug. A joke. Something about being too attractive to suffer. You could almost see him considering it.

Then he said, “Depends who’s doing the assuming.”

That was too good for the athletics page.

That was also too honest for a Friday morning with a camera between you.

You looked at the tiny red recording light and felt, briefly and strangely, like it was looking back.

Dean cleared his throat, and the moment shifted before either of you had to do anything with it.

“Was that tragic enough for the feature?”

“Elaine might cry.”

“Good. I’ve been trying to expand my range.”

You stopped the recording before you smiled. “We’re done.”

“That’s it?”

“For the interview.”

“I had more to give.”

“I’m sure you did.”

He stood, then lingered while you packed the camera. You could feel him still in the room, not crowding you, just present in a way that made the space feel smaller than it had before.

At the door, he paused.

“For the record,” he said, “I didn’t sneak out.”

You zipped the camera bag. “I didn’t ask.”

“I left through a side entrance. Walked, actually.”

You looked up at him.

He looked oddly satisfied, as if this settled everything.

“A side entrance,” you repeated.

“Different thing.”

“It sounds like the same exact thing.”

Dean’s smile widened despite himself. “That is exactly how reputations get ruined.”

It should have been nothing. A throwaway line in a room with bad lighting and a camera between you. But Dean was looking at you like he had found something more interesting than the interview, and for one stupid second, you forgot what you were supposed to be doing.

You picked up your bag before the silence could turn into anything else. “I have to get these clips to Elaine.”

“Right.” He stepped aside. “Wouldn’t want to keep the official story waiting.”

By late afternoon, the campus had only gotten worse.

Briar Wire was everywhere. Someone had taped a printed screenshot of the episode quote to the bulletin board outside the communications building. A hockey player you recognized from sophomore year passed you on the quad while arguing into his phone that Dean had definitely been at the football party but absolutely would not have climbed through a window, because Dean did not “do undignified exits.” At the dining hall, Camden had apparently posted a poll in the group chat asking whether Briar Wire’s host was more likely to be a communications major, an athlete’s ex, or someone hiding in plain sight.

Mara texted you a screenshot with no comment.

Then, thirty seconds later:

Mara: I did not vote.

You replied:

You: That feels worse than voting.

Mara: I’m preserving the integrity of the investigation.

You: You’re enjoying this.

Mara: A little.

You stared at your phone in the athletics media room while Dean’s interview files uploaded painfully slowly to the shared drive. His face was frozen on your screen in the middle of an answer, one hand lifted, mouth half-open, looking less like Briar’s favorite rumor and more like a guy who had accidentally said something real and immediately tried to outrun it.

People think I don’t notice what they assume about me.

You hated that you had kept thinking about it, and hated even more that you understood.

People assumed things about you too. Not loudly, not cruelly most of the time. They assumed you were quiet because you were shy. Responsible because you liked rules. Good with cameras because you preferred hiding behind them. They assumed that if you did not fight to be the center of the room, you had no interest in the room at all.

Briar Wire had been the first thing you built that did not ask permission to take up space.

And now everyone wanted to know who built it.

By the time you got back to your dorm, the sun had dropped low enough to turn the windows gold. Your roommate was gone for the weekend, which meant the room was yours. No small talk. No questions. No one asking why you were setting up your microphone at your desk or why your closet had a shoebox full of index cards labeled by episode number.

You changed into a sweatshirt, clipped your hair away from your face, and opened your laptop.

The Briar Wire inbox was a mess.

Some messages were insightful. A freshman had submitted a story about a fake ID getting confiscated by someone’s own older brother, which had potential. Someone else wanted advice about hooking up with their lab partner and then discovering they had been assigned a semester-long project together, which was less a submission and more a cry for help.

There were twelve messages about Dean.

Four claimed to have proof he was the football party hockey player. Two claimed he was innocent. Three were not remotely helpful but extremely passionate. One simply read:

I don’t care if he did it. Can he call in?

You snorted and took a screenshot for Mara.

Her reply came instantly.

Mara: Do not manifest that.

You were still smiling when the call window opened.

Unknown Caller.

Your smile faded.

Briar Wire did not take many live calls. You had a number people could use for voice submissions, but most came in as recordings. Live calls were harder to manage. Too unpredictable. Too easy for someone to say a name you would have to cut or reveal something you did not want in your ears in real time.

The window pulsed on your screen.

Unknown Caller.

You should have ignored it, which was probably why you put on your headphones instead.

The room seemed to quiet around you as you opened the recording software. The little red button appeared in the corner, waiting. Your heartbeat was too present, too close to the surface.

You accepted the call.

“Briar Wire,” you said, letting your podcast voice settle into place. Lower than your normal voice. Warmer. More controlled. “You’re on.”

There was a brief silence.

Then a male voice said, with far too much confidence for someone pretending to be anonymous, “Hi. Long-time listener, first-time caller. My name is Dennis.”

You closed your eyes.

Dean Di Laurentis.

Of course.

Of course he had chosen Dennis.

You muted yourself and pressed your fingers over your mouth, not because you were laughing, exactly, but because your body had chosen a reaction and none of the options were safe.

On the other end, Dean cleared his throat.

“I’m calling on behalf of a friend,” he said.

You unmuted yourself.

“A friend.”

“He values privacy.”

“Says the man calling a campus podcast.”

“I’m not the friend. I’m Dennis.”

“Right.”

“I feel like you don’t believe me.”

“Dennis, I believe in a lot of things. This is not one of them.”

His laugh came through the headphones before he could stop it. Brief. Unpolished. Not for an audience.

It caught you off guard more than it should have.

“My friend feels misrepresented,” he said once he recovered.

“Does your friend often attend parties he claims he was invited to through men named Matt?”

Silence.

You felt it the second it happened. Not a dead silence. A listening one.

“How do you know about Matt?”

You stared at the waveform jumping across the screen.

“Lucky guess,” you said.

“There are a lot of Matts on the football team.”

“So I’ve heard.”

“That’s not the same as knowing one invited me.”

You sat very still.

“Did I say you?”

Another silence.

Then Dean laughed again, lower this time, like he had been caught and did not entirely mind.

“Dennis,” he corrected.

“Yes,” you said. “Dennis.”

“Dennis’s friend was invited.”

“And yet Dennis’s friend left through a side entrance.”

He went quiet again.

This time, you smiled before you could stop yourself.

“How do you know about the side entrance?” he asked.

You glanced at the red recording dot, the tiny signal that this was all being saved somewhere. Every pause. Every slip. Every little edge in his voice when he realized you knew more than you should have.

“Maybe I have sources.”

“Do your sources have names?”

“Maybe.”

“Would one of them be Matt?”

You leaned back in your chair. “You called me, Dennis.”

“To seek justice.”

You should have ended the call then. You had enough for the next episode already. More than enough. Dean Di Laurentis pretending to be someone named Dennis while arguing about the architecture of his exit would carry the entire campus through at least Tuesday.

But the line stayed open.

So did you.

“My friend wants a correction,” he said.

“For what?”

“The record should reflect that he did not sneak out. He left.”

“Through a side entrance.”

“With dignity.”

You looked at the red recording dot blinking on your screen and let the silence do the work for you.

Dean laughed under his breath. “You’re kind of mean, Wire Girl.”

Wire Girl.

It was ridiculous. Barely even a nickname. Still, your fingers paused against the desk like it had reached across the line and touched something it shouldn’t have.

“You called me,” you said.

“To defend an innocent man.”

“To defend yourself.”

A pause.

Then, amused, “I never said it was me.”

“No,” you said. “You just made it very easy to guess.”

For a moment, the call went quiet. Outside your door, someone laughed down the hall, normal life carrying on a few feet away while Dean Di Laurentis sat somewhere on campus pretending to be a stranger.

Then he said, “Who are you?”

Your hand stilled.

There it was. The question everyone at Briar had been asking all morning.

“That would ruin the show,” you said.

“Not for me.”

“Especially for you.”

You heard his smile before he spoke again. “I can keep secrets.”

“Goodnight, Dennis.”

Then you ended the call.

For a moment, you just sat there, headphones on, staring at the recording file as it saved automatically to your laptop.

Then your phone buzzed.

Mara: I felt a disturbance.

You looked at the file name.

UNKNOWN CALLER 7:42 PM

Your fingers moved over the screen.

You: Dean called in.

The dots appeared immediately.

Disappeared.

Appeared again.

Then:

Mara: Tell me you did not answer.

You looked at the microphone. At the red light. At the saved audio file that now contained Dean Di Laurentis pretending to be a man named Dennis and asking who you were like he had a right to know.

You typed back:

You: I answered.

Mara’s reply came so fast it looked angry.

Mara: Tell me you at least recorded it.

You glanced at the file again.

Despite the nerves still moving through you, despite the rules, despite the fact that Dean had gotten closer to the truth in one phone call than anyone else had managed in eight episodes, you smiled.