Chapter 8: Fifty Feet

I called my father from the sidewalk on Greek row, exactly fifty-one feet from the porch.

I paced it out first.

He answered on the fourth ring, from somewhere with a piano playing.

"You signed a letter calling me a stalker," I said.

"I signed a letter about Olivia Mabry."

"That's me."

"No, sweetheart."

His voice was gentle.

"Olivia Mabry doesn't exist. You made her up."

"I signed a letter about a girl who doesn't exist, to protect a girl who's frightened."

"She's not frightened. She's winning."

"Then stop playing." The piano behind him swelled. "Come home, and none of this follows you. Stay, and it's your choice what it costs."

"Did Lorna write that letter, or did you?"

There was a pause.

"I'm at dinner, Olivia."

He hung up.

On Monday, the order followed me everywhere I went.

I had to check the Delta Phi girls' class schedules.

I had to leave a lecture hall by the back door because Brielle came in the front.

Trudy printed a campus map and drew fifty-foot circles on it in red marker.

"This is the Brielle-free zone," she said, tapping the empty parts. "Mostly the agriculture buildings. You'd love the cows."

The nine walkouts had a different plan.

The freshman with braces explained it in the Lake Road group chat with eleven exclamation points.

Wherever Liv eats, one of us films the door.

At six that night, I was eating chicken and rice in the North dining hall with Trudy and four of the walkouts.

We were at a long table by the windows.

Brielle Haldane was supposed to live on the other side of campus.

She walked in at six-fifteen anyway.

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