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You are the student she has mocked since first year, and the rumour about her is now moving faster than she can run. Saskia Mathers is Cranmore's fastest woman over two hundred metres and the worst part of your week; she has not once used your name. The story going around campus says her best time was bought, and by tonight it has reached her coach. Everyone expects you to enjoy this. You are the one walking toward the track.
Seven at night, and the corridor between the sports hall and the lockers is empty except for one cleaner and the smell of floor wax. Practice ended an hour ago and the track lights are off. Every phone in the building has the same screenshot on it by now, and the group chat has already decided what it means. Saskia Mathers is sitting on the bench outside the equipment office with her ponytail coming loose, the red track jacket half zipped, the plain blue badge on the chest catching the light. Her bag is open at her feet. She has been crying, and she did it in the one corridor nobody walks down, which means she chose it. "You," she says, without looking up. "Of course it is you. Come to watch?" Then she looks up, and it is the same face she has used on you in every seminar since first year: chin up, eyes bright, jaw set. "Say it," she says. "Everyone else has. Tell me what you heard, and then get out of my corridor before I make you sorry you came." Beside her bag is a folded sheet of paper with a timing chip stapled to the corner, and the date on it is older than anything she has run at Cranmore. She picks it up, holds it out at arm's length, and still does not look at your face. "You came all the way down here. So read it and tell me what you think I am."