If she thought her first night was bad, it paled in comparison to what the next day held for her. It was packed from an ungodly hour to the late afternoon with orientation activities. With not nearly enough caffeine thrumming through her veins, Tuesday dragged herself to the student center. At least having the reassurance that Jordan wouldn't be there, since everyone was grouped alphabetically, she managed to don her familiar faux-smile she learned to adapt so well from her summer job.

There were enough people in the student center that no one had more than a foot of personal space. The sight made her sway on unsteady legs but pinching the inside of her elbow centered her hazy thoughts. She found the correct line to file into, standing around for a good fifteen minutes before she'd shuffled to the front just to collect a name tag marked with a red circle signifying her department. Then she was directed to find other red-dotted students to stand and wait for another quarter of an hour.

While most everyone else managed to make small talk, Tuesday huddled in a corner silently reciting the names in her journal just to keep herself from getting the hell out of there. It was the first day all summer she hadn't begun the day with that list–no breakfast, no coffee, no brushing her teeth until she'd read through it. She simply hadn't had the time. So she took the free time then to go down that list, to remind herself over and over the lives she'd help take so maybe she could make hers mean just a sliver of anything at all. And because, of course, Jordan had been forced to memorize that list once, so Tuesday would be damned if she let herself forget.

If hell was real, it should take notes off orientation, Tuesday mused as people were finally funneled off to respective groups based on major. She was paired with twenty other incoming criminal justice students and forced to partake in ice-breakers. This meant nearly two dozen sullen young adults were left to take half-assed attempts at talking to each other and lining themselves up by surname A to Z. The one kid with a Z name stood to the side, victorious, while everyone else had to actually make an attempt at socializing. Tuesday offered her name in a tone barely above a whisper whenever someone bothered to ask; beyond that, she relied on listening in to the others' to know where to place herself, shuffling around the other H's.

After that painful monotony came the hours-long presentations about campus life, wherein she was faced with the reality she did not fit amongst her new peers. When tasked with answering the question of why they'd chosen criminal justice as their majors, Tuesday had nothing to give. She'd planned this life back in high school, before everything went to shit, before... Before she herself had become a criminal. One who'd gotten away with quite a few different wrongs. What gave her the right to judge anyone else?

Just as her eyes were starting to glaze over at the trivial information overload, the discussions taking place in a stuffy auditorium ended and everyone was released into the fresh autumn air for campus tours. Again, she was thrown into the criminal justice group, feeling like she couldn't have stood out more violently if she'd dunked herself in red paint. Campus was beautiful, all archaic, ivy-choked and crumbling facades, a sprawling mini-city of blue-paned windows reaching towards the sky encircling a single rectangle of artificial greenspace. Don't get too attached, she thought to herself. This thing won't last. Beautiful things rarely did.

As she was dragged from building to building, she felt icy, hesitant fingers tickle the back of her neck. Shivering, straggling at the back of the group, Tuesday shot a glance over her shoulder. In the hazy intersection of two buildings' silhouettes mingling in the midday sun, for just one electrified moment, she saw familiar eyes looking back at her. Ones she hadn't seen since a beer and blood-stained night, ones that made a no-longer visible gouge on her palm ache. Ones that said, "What, because you killed me you think I wouldn't show up for this?"

She knew it wasn't real. At least that's what she told herself. But the irony was there, in her father not missing her first college experience even in cold, lonesome, burning death.

When she was able to tear herself away from the unreal staring contest, the group had scattered on to the next building, and she had to jog to catch up. A few stragglers spared her a curious glance but thankfully she went unnoticed for the most part. The rest of the tour her hand burned, her throat constricted. She'd gone the majority of the summer able to present as a normal, useful member of society, and then Carson Lee's mother just had to wander into her shop of all the endless options to sate her caffeine addiction. Now she was surrounded by ghosts.

The tour ended and everyone was shuffled off to lunch. She grabbed the first things her fingers touched in line, paid with shaky hands, and picked at whatever it was for half an hour at a table in a far untouched corner. She may as well have been a thousand leagues away from the rest of them, the students who chattered and rode the high of Something New, a chapter that only she seemed hesitant to turn the page for. And in her mind, she was lost at an unforgiving, relentless sea that seemed hellbent on tearing her limb from limb, determined to take every last piece of her even when she had nothing left to give but the infinitesimal slab of drift wood she clung to.

But it wasn't just beautiful things that were sure to come to an end, and the final dregs of the afternoon were coming to roost. Lunch drew to a close and she was summoned to a computer room for registration. One by one students were called into an adjoining room to speak with a counselor for more specific discussions while the rest worked on organizing the general education basics into their schedules. Tuesday watched her cursor blink, about as lost as she was, until her name was called. She took a shuddering breath before excusing herself to the counselor's office.

Another nametag she didn't bother reading, another brightly smiling face she barely registered. Tuesday settled into the seat across from the counselor, wondering what the point behind the little quilted pillow was when all it succeeded in doing was taking up half the already-small surface of the chair.

"Hey there, Tuesday," the counselor said after a glance at her own nametag. "What a unique name!"

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Rather than explaining the corny backstory of it, like she used to before killing the person who'd given it to her, she just forced a tight smile.

"Well then," the counselor continued and began typing information in, manicured nails clacking extra-loud off the keys. They were sharp enough to draw blood, which had Tuesday's thoughts going off on yet another macabre tangent. "I see you're a criminal justice major. We'll get you started on CJ1001, the introductory course, which'll open you up to the rest of the core requirements for next semester and onwards. You'll need 42 credits in this concentration and a total of 120 to graduate–"

Those numbers brought any concentration Tuesday had to a screaming, bleeding halt. 120 credits. About 40 classes. 15 weeks for any given class, two days a week for each of those, which meant 30 sessions per class... 1200 sessions... 1500 hours inside a classroom in a period of four years, not including all the time she'd spend studying and doing homework. Somehow she'd never really cognized the full, banal depth of what getting a degree meant. 1500 hours of draping sheep's clothing over her true visage, staring at different blackboards that all looked the same, learning about the law and thinking about how she'd broken it.

"You still with me, honey?"

Tuesday jolted back into the almost-fictionally cozy office, which felt like it had shrunk to half its size. "Uh, yeah, sorry, um."

The counselor just laughed. "Okay, I know this is a lot to take in. Try to just focus on the semester in front of you. You still need one or two classes to pad out your credit hours. Some other areas you'll want to dip your toes into, well, we can fit you into an intro to psych or sociology class. How would you feel about an 8am lecture?"

High school had meant four years of getting up hours before then, but the summer off and all the weight she'd carried had her reeling at the thought. "I feel less than enthusiastic about that."

Another laugh, this one a bit less strained than the last. The counselor prattled on about the available listings and Tuesday drifted again, imagining spending those 1500 hours here in the beating, bleeding heart of New York City. 1500 possibilities of running into Jordan or, or, Mrs. Lee, old church friends, private school alumni who remembered that at her core she was just a pastor-killer.

Interjecting into the schedule spiel, Tuesday blurted, "Are there other schools still accepting new admissions?"

The counselor blinked.

Regret, embarrassment, rushed hot to her face. She tried backpedaling, but this was not a hole she knew how to climb out of. It resulted in unintelligible mumbling.

"I, er, well," the counselor mumbled back, eyebrows pinched, jaw working as she attempted to work out the new puzzle before her. After a pause that physically pained Tuesday, the other woman said, "Look, I'm going to be honest here. That is not a question I have literally ever been asked at registration. I think this may be beyond my paygrade, if you're unsure about finalizing your schedule here."

There it was, the opportunity to choke-strangle out a laugh and a "Just a joke, wasn't that so silly?" Tuesday opened her mouth, willing herself to say just that, but she had lost her voice. The thought of Cyrus and his own muteness popped into her head, derailing her even further. The heat in her cheeks spread, her entire body alight now, and all she could think was: Fuck. FuckfuckfuckfuckFUCK!

The counselor cleared her throat and rummaged in one of her desk drawers, producing a business card she stiffly slid towards Tuesday. Emboldened across the top line was "CAPS Directory", followed by a list of contact names and numbers. Dying, dead, gone; her brain overloaded by this point, Tuesday grabbed the card and shoved back from the desk. She made a narrow escape before the class advisor could think of what else to say, and then she was pinned under a dozen sets of confused stares, and then she was running from the computer lab too. The clap of her tennis shoes against linoleum bounced off the otherwise empty and quiet hallways until she burst out the first exit doors she could find. Fresh air. Lilac and car exhaust. The card was crumpled in her fist now and she let it fall to the sidewalk. Seeing the names of the mental health providers stare up at her, questioning, judging, was still too much and she crushed the card underfoot for good measure, grinding it into oblivion. Then she was running again, exerting all the nervous energy into crossing campus in two minutes flat. The dorm lobby was deserted except for one staff member manning the front desk; they didn't look up from their monitor as Tuesday rounded the corner and sank to a crouch at the elevator. She ached, she felt dizzy. The doors took their sweet time in opening but finally they did, and finally they spit her back out on her floor and she fumbled with the lock and dropped her keys, twice, and finally, finally, she was ducking into her bedroom and, blissfully, wretchedly, reached safety–solitude.

Solitude–sentencing. She'd just taken the worst plea deal of the century.

What the fuck was she thinking?

She wasn't thinking, that was the problem. She'd seen the next four years of her life stretching out in front of her, four flickering, dying street lamps barely illuminating a dead-end street. And after that street, a rocky cliff face pitching into nothingness, and no one for miles around to hear her scream.

Opening her laptop, she saw her reflection in the few seconds it took to wake: dead, red eyes. Black circles, sunken caverns of a face, hollows where she could already imagine bugs making their nests. Then the reflection was replaced by the bright blank canvas of the Google homepage. Mary's ringtone sliced through the silence, causing Tuesday to make an involuntary keyboard smash. She erased the nonsense she'd typed, letting the phone ring as the letters disappeared one-by-one. What was she supposed to say? What was she going to do?

Before it could go to voicemail–because then she'd really have hell to pay–she answered the phone. "I was just about to call you," Tuesday immediately said.

"Hello to you too," Mary said back. "I know, I know, you're a busy collegiate now, but I couldn't wait to hear how today went."

Another blank canvas. Tuesday hadn't lied to her aunt before, wasn't sure if it was even possible, but mused she could say anything back and Mary would just have to accept it. How did the day go? It went to shit, and then some. That was true. What was also true, and easier to say, and easier to accept, was how dull and uneventful it had been up until shit hitting the fan. "Uh, pretty boring, honestly."

"Did you get any cool classes at least?"

"Not really." This was also true, and also didn't have to mean much. It didn't have to mean much if she hadn't paused too long, if Mary couldn't see straight through any walls she tried to erect.

"Tuesday," Mary said-sighed. "Why don't you try breaking this place in before making any big decisions?"

Tuesday nodded. That was the sane thing to do. But it also wouldn't change the fact she'd already made a decision, and that her aunt couldn't read her mind; even a powerful witch couldn't guess how spectacularly she had just fucked herself.

All because she could still see that dim, dead-end street, and she didn't want to know what waited for her on the other side of the drop-off. She tried to think of reasons not to change course, any reason at all, and came up empty-handed. It was already done. It was done years ago, it was written on her birth certificate, tattooed on her bones before they'd even finished forming. She couldn't stay in New York.

She wouldn't.