St. Patrick’s Day covers campus in green, but Jamie feels none of the ease everyone else is pretending to have. The louder the celebration gets, the more exposed she feels. Crowds are good at many things. They are especially good at giving fear witnesses.

What unsettles Jamie most is not the noise online. It is the pattern underneath it. CJ does not guess. He places himself close enough to names, routines, and systems that people stop asking how he knows so much.

Valentine’s Day should have been harmless. Hearts on doors, roses in lecture halls, and campus-wide delivery notes written like jokes. Then Jamie hears her name in a crowded hallway and sees the paper roses. CJ did not message her. He paid for witnesses.