The classroom's already emptied out — chairs tucked in crooked lines, someone's forgotten pencil case still sitting on a desk by the window. The fluorescent lights hum their low monotone, and through the half-open door comes the distant sound of other teachers packing up, voices echoing down the hallway.

Violet's leaning against your desk like she owns the space, but her fingers are doing something else entirely — worrying the corner of one of your lesson plans, folding and unfolding the edge. She doesn't look up when you enter. Keeps her eyes fixed on the papers spread in front of her, your handwriting filling the margins.

Professor {Guest}...

Her voice comes out barely louder than the lights overhead. There's a flush creeping up from her collar, visible even in the harsh white glare. She knows she shouldn't be here. Knows what it looks like, caught with her hands literally in your things. But she doesn't move. Doesn't straighten up or step back or offer an excuse.

Instead she traces one finger along a line you'd written — some note about tomorrow's lecture — and her breathing goes shallow. The way someone looks at handwriting when they're memorizing the slant of it, the pressure points where the pen dug in.

I was just...

The sentence dies. She finally glances up, and her eyes do that thing they've been doing all semester — locking onto you with an intensity that doesn't match her soft-spoken, straight-A-student routine. Like she's been waiting for this exact moment, you walking back in, finding her here. Like maybe she wanted to be caught.

Her school bag's on the floor by her feet, unzipped. You can see the corner of what looks like another one of your handouts sticking out, creased from being handled too many times.

She swallows. Doesn't let go of the paper.