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“Good. When can you come into the recruiting office to sign the papers?”

“I’ll call you,” I say.

There are voicemails I haven’t listened to. I key in my passcode and hear Bastien as he cycles from raw betrayal to rage. I save the messages so I can hear his voice after today. I tap a few things on my phone and pull up my banking app.

This is it. Everything is done now.

There’s no going back anymore. Not after this.

Then I put the phone in the cupholder facedown and I drive to campus. It rings twice on the way and I don’t look at it.

I’m late, and it annoys me. I can hear my old Drill Sergeant screaming at me about it.

Ironically, it calms me down, because the one thing that being constantly yelled at for four years did for me is that it completely killed my fear of failure. And this time, I don’t bother to check my email.

The lot I normally use is full and I end up behind the baseball stadium, which is a hike.

The campus is a zoo. Between the time that class emptied out and now, the protest that was still brewing has gone to a full category three. I put on my panda hat and keep my head down so that I don’t attract attention as I skirt the edges of the crowd. It seems like this has become a referendum of numerous grievances that seem important to the student body, and Bastien’s dismissal is the needle that popped the blister. Their rage oozes through his name.

I can still hear the chanting when the elevator doors open, but the building is empty. My shoes echo in the corridor.

The door to 412 is closed, but I can hear voices from inside, and I straighten. This is it. This is what he asked for yesterday. He told me to divorce him. He told me, in no uncertain terms, that I would always ask for more than he would be able to give, and he was right. And now he’s being judged by these people.

I take the folder out from under my arm and hold it down by my leg where nobody will look at it.

I don’t knock. I don’t need permission. I’m the reason they’re all here.

“—to objectively ascertain,” a woman with curly dark hair is saying. She stops and stares at me, and for a moment, there’s shocked silence in the room.

“I heard you were talking about me,” I say. “Figured I’d show up for the fun.” I take a chair and sit on it backwards, with the folder flat against my thigh where they can’t see it.

I look at the committee. Most of them I don’t know: there is a mix of women and men who don’t bother to introduce themselves to the interloper, but I do know Julia Spring and Arthur Hughes. Of course they are on his Ethics Panel. I can hear chanting filter through the glass. Ho ho, hey, hey, Doc Saint-Jacques has got to stay!

“You seem to be pleased with this disorder,” Arthur Hughes says, looking back and forth between us.

“I am surprised by it,” Bastien says. His voice is even. He doesn’t look at me.

“I believe that our summons said that friends and family were not invited,” Hughes says.

“No, you didn’t,” I answer. “You said that they were, and I quote, ‘strongly discouraged’ from attending. If you want to disinvite me, you put that in writing if you dare.”

“My client is well within his rights to be present,” Patrick says. “And while we’re on the subject of who is in this room, I’d like the record to show that Dean Hughes signed the suspension letter and Dr. Spring is Dr. Saint-Jacques’s neighbor, and that both of them are seated on this panel.”

Rage crosses Hughes’s already red face. “I’m going to cut through the politeness. Did you have a hand in planning this mob as a means to hijack the findings of this committee?”

Bastien’s voice is even. “No. I have been denied the right to come onto campus and was unaware that they were planning this.”

“And therefore, you take no responsibility for their actions,” Hughes surmises.

“None whatsoever.”

“It seems you are not prone to taking responsibility for your actions,” he says.

Patrick knocks the table with his knuckles. “My client has been nothing but forthcoming to you. You have asked for documentation, and he has provided it. You have asked for a written statement, and he has provided that. I would suggest you refrain from personal comments of this nature so that we can proceed with the inquiry at hand. Unless the answer is already a foregone conclusion and you intend to toy with my client, in which case we will have a very different conversation in the court systems.”

The woman with the curly hair clears her throat. “Dr. Saint-Jacques, please tell us again the story of your first meeting with Levi Knight.”

I sigh in exasperation. “This is boring. I thought you were smart. Or at least literate. You can read, right? It’s in the document we had to submit to you. If you’re too lazy to read it, why are we here?”