I take a deep breath and push myself out of bed. It's a quarter to five in the morning, and although I don't want to get out of bed, I don't exactly want to stay here either. And it's not like I really have a choice in the matter. Reluctantly, I slide on my robes and make my way down the hall to the mail room. Sleeping didn't help, in fact, it made me feel worse. All night it felt like I had this heavy pressure on my chest, like something was holding me down, like I could hardly breathe.

Even when I unlock the door to the mail room, I jump when the lights spring on. It's empty, and I don't know quite what I expected. Just my imagination getting the better of me. I immediately lock the door behind me and pull out the money and the envelopes and slump down in the corner of the room behind the door so I can see who comes in before they see me. I don't know why I'm so worried. Do I really think Tommy's going to try to break into the room and attack me? I just…he had always seemed nice, cute, funny, and uncomplicated. Yesterday he seemed forceful and harsh, like he was a whole different person. What had suddenly happened to make him act this way? Did I do something? Did I set him off in some way?

My stomach tangles itself into knots when I hear someone try the doorknob. I don't hear the jingle of keys but the lock clicks open and someone walks in. I hold my breath tightly and let out a shaky sigh of relief when I realize it's just Professor Grabiner. "Tori?" he asks in surprise. "Did you lock the door?"

"Sorry," I mumble. "Must've." He sets about doing other things, and I rhythmically put money in the envelopes, trying not to cry. I try to sync it with my breathing, tucking the money into the envelope on an in breath and sealing it with an out breath, but I feel like I'm not getting enough oxygen and I soon release a long shuddering breath.

I breathe out and rub my face with both hands, leaning back in the chair. Come on, it's over now, just get a grip. I shake my head and sniff as I sit up. Grabby's looking at me, but I just bow my head and focus on my work.

"Are you all right?"

"Just tired," I mumble. If I speak any louder than a mumble at this point, I'm afraid my voice is going to be choked by sobs that I won't be able to hold back.

"What's wrong?" he asks. I don't answer. He sits down next to me, and my heart skips a beat at our proximity. "Tori, what's wrong?" I don't want to look up. His voice is firm, and I'm expecting his angry lecture stare, the way he looks when people are giving him the wrong answer to an obvious question. But that's not the look on his face at all. He looks concerned, and it's touching his eyes.

"I, um." I don't want to tell him this. I don't know why, but it doesn't feel right telling him. "Something happened to me yesterday. I'm being stupid, that's all. I'll be fine."

"Tori," he says, and there's something in his voice, the way he purrs my name, that lures me in. I want to run into his arms and bury my face in his chest. I want him to stroke my hair, and wrap me in his arms, and that's when I realize I've never felt that way about Thomas. Ever.

"Someone…" I twist my hands in my lap. I can't tell him this, but he's not going to go until I do, so I purposely don't look at him and spit my words out in a rush. "…tried to kiss me and I didn't want him to and he was holding me down and I couldn't push him off so I pushed him with magic and then I thought he was going to attack me and then Professor Potsdam came and said that she was the one who pushed him off me and yeah." I rub my arm uncomfortably and he's quiet for a long time.

"Are you all right?" he asks finally. "You don't have to be."

"It's complicated," I bite my lip, peeking at him from the corner of my eyes.

"Complicated?" he asks. He seems surprised.

"Well," I shrug. "I don't know. I didn't ever really…like him like that. I didn't want him to kiss me. I want- well, I like…someone else." My eyes meet his for a second and I blush, looking away quickly. He's not stupid, I tell myself. He knows it's him.

He sucks in a breath, and I give him a moment to think as he makes a decision about something. "You don't need anyone right now," he says at length. What? Something sinks into my chest. "Just, focus on your studies for the time being. You're young yet, and you'll find the right person eventually."

Eventually. Or maybe I don't have far to look. Maybe he's sitting right next to me. "Eventually?" I ask. "Like, after I graduate? And I'm not a student anymore?"

A smirk pulls at the corners of his lips, and he chuckles a bit. "Perhaps," he says. For some reason, this rubs me the wrong way. I realize I have finished sorting the envelopes, and stand up quickly.

"Yeah, great," I say bitterly. "Two years of my life gone, but, hey, at least it'll be slightly more appropriate, right?"

I don't give him time to respond. I grab the packages for delivery and head out the door. I don't know why I was so harsh to him. He was my professor; there was no way he could ever reciprocate whatever childish affections I had for him. In any case, he had a point. I was just attacked yesterday. I didn't need anyone right now but me. But that wasn't exactly true. I wanted Hieronymous there, I wanted him to stroke my cheek and tell me that it was all going to be okay. I wanted intimacy, real, raw, emotional intimacy, and comfort, and I wanted him to be the one to give it to me. But he couldn't give me that, not in the way I was looking for it, anyway.

I avoid Grabiner for the rest of the week. Tommy keeps showing up to my door and asking to talk to me, even once arriving with Donald, but Virginia and Ellen have made sure not to let him in. They don't really understand why, but I don't want to talk to them about it. How am I supposed to tell them that I'm kind of scared of him? He's smaller than me and he's supposed to be a freshman. My magic is stronger than his. I should have been able to defend myself better. He doesn't look that strong, but he was holding me to him with such force…

Valentine's Day is coming up, and part of that makes the whole thing worse. No one asks me to help with the Valentine's Day sales, and I let it go. It doesn't matter. Part of me feels a little better that Grabiner might consider me after graduation, but that feels like such a long time from now. So many things could happen between then and now…what was I supposed to do? Just ignore the connection between us and shuffle awkwardly around each other for two years until I graduate? What good would that do? I wasn't sure why I was suddenly so interested in him; maybe mulling over my feelings for him were a welcome distraction, rather than constantly replaying the feeling of Tommy's cold, clammy hands on the back of my neck as he tried to force himself on me. Honestly, all he wanted was just one kiss. I didn't understand why it was such a big deal to me, but it was. It felt like a big deal, it felt like a huge, monumental deal, and although I couldn't explain why, I feel like not kissing him back was probably the best decision of my life.

It makes me feel guilty listening to Grabby's heartbeat to lull myself to sleep at night, but I tell myself that it's what I need right now, partly because it is. I've started to have nightmares, nightmares where some demon is holding me down, its hot, sulfuric breath in my face, trying to stick its acidic tongue down my throat. It's so heavy on my chest and I can't breathe and I can't move as it comes closer and closer – I've never experienced night terrors before, but now I understand why they call them terrors for a reason. Ellen tells me I've been crying out in my sleep a lot lately and waking them up in the middle of the night, but there's nothing I can do but apologize. I don't think they understand it at all, and I don't know how to explain myself any better. How am I supposed to tell them that all of this was brought upon by Tommy simply trying to kiss me? It didn't make any sense even trying to justify it to myself; there would be no way I could possibly explain it to them.

Friday night I can't sleep at all, so I head into the mail room in the early hours of the morning. It's probably not as safe as my dorm room, but I lock the door, lie down on the couch, and wrap my robes around me as I try to sleep. I can't, not really, and I end up sorting through the mail at around 4:30. Unfortunately it seems that they are doing two weeks of Valentine's Day cards this year, and there's so much to sort through that I am still busy sorting through the mail when Professor Grabiner walks through the door an hour later.

"You look like you've had a good night's sleep," Professor Grabiner observes as he sees me. I look like shit and he knows it. I just make a face and keep on sorting.

"This is such crap," I say to take the conversation off me. I wave a bunch of valentines in his face. "This is the worst part of the year. It's all I can do not to vomit."

"Well, don't get bitter before your time," he says, but I just roll my eyes. "Or are you perhaps jealous for some reason?"

"Jealous?" I blink at him. There's a look of good humor on his face. I have no idea if he's actually in a good mood, or if he's simply taunting me to serve as a distraction. I decide to throw it back in his face anyway. "I mean, are you jealous? You're not getting any either, I bet."

"Oh, I get enough of them," he replies, and my head tilts in confusion. "People think it's funny, to prank me, with fake love letters."

"Oh." I don't know why, but it fills me with a mixture of emotions as I remember the one he accidently received from me during my freshman orientation, combined with my desire to send him a real one. "Well, at least you're still getting something, so I have the right to be more bitter than you, for a change." I try to say it teasingly, but it doesn't sound very funny, even to my own ears.

"Does it really mean that much to you?" he asks after a moment.

I sigh. "No, it really doesn't. I'm just being a stupid teenage girl. Ellen and Donald have been inseparable lately, and I'm pretty sure Virginia's dating someone since she seems to be gone all the time now. A lot of my senior friends have graduated and moved on; I've just been really…alone lately." I shake my head and raise my eyebrows at him. "I'm just being stupid. Carry on."

"You're not being stupid," he says softly. "It's not stupid to want to be thought of."

I shrug uncomfortably. "I mean, you're pretty lonely and you don't seem to mind it."

"Maybe it's because I know I'm already being thought of," he says, and I can't read his expression as he turns and walks out of the room. I open my mouth to say something, but he's already gone.

Virginia won't tell me who she's dating, probably because I don't even bother to ask her, but she is gone all day and only seems to come back to the room at night to sleep. Even Ellen is spending a lot more time with Donald, and since I've been hanging out in the room more since I'm afraid to walk the trails in case I run into Tommy, she's started hanging out here less too. I continue my pattern of going only to Potsdam's classes, or going to the gym, or studying in my room. It's kind of quiet, day in and day out, with no one to really talk to, and I wonder if this is how Hieronymous feels all the time. I wonder if he minds it, or if he likes it this way. Do I like it this way? I'm not sure.

Valentine's Day eventually comes. Professor Potsdam gives a long speech about consent and how it pertains to magic, but I can barely listen to it. If it wasn't for the same speech she gave last year, I would almost be sure she was giving us this talk because of me. I'm probably not the only one this has happened to, but it doesn't make me feel any less alone.

After class, I head back to my room to see two Valentine's Day cards sitting on my nightstand. Really? Two? But as I open up the first one, my heart sinks in my chest. It's from Tommy, saying he wants to talk to me, he wants to work things out… I don't even bother reading the rest of it as I rip it up and throw it in the trash. I don't even want to think about him anymore, and I'm probably going to be stuck seeing him on campus for another two years yet. Was I really just going to hide in my room and avoid him for two whole years?

I jump on my bed and close my eyes before I realize I had another card. Who's it from? Virginia? Ellen? One of them trying to be polite? I pick it up off the desk. It's just a generic card, it's not signed, but I immediately know who it's from. I blush and quickly tuck it into the pages of my diary before anyone else can see as I lay my head on my pillow and repeat the words back to myself.

You're being thought of.