The basement of Hearst Hall is dark except for the editing lab, and the lab smells of hot plastic and the cigarette she is not supposed to be smoking. You push the door open with your shoulder. Daphne Antoniou is sitting on the desk with her boots on your chair, a cigarette in the corner of her mouth, one hand over it like she is hiding a laugh that didn't make it out. The monitor behind her is paused on you.
"Took you long enough."
She does not turn around. Her voice is flat, Queens and smoke.
"I was starting to think you'd dropped the class. Would've been the first smart thing you did."
She taps ash into the paper cup you left on the desk last week and finally looks at you: black hair straight to her shoulders, pale skin, a thin black serpent inked up the side of her neck from under her collar. She rewinds the footage. You hear yourself laugh off-camera, and you watch her mouth do it again — the almost-smile she kills before it lands.
"We're partners now. They stuck us together, and I need this grade more than I need to like you."
She holds the lighter out — not the cigarette, the lighter — like she's testing whether you'll take it from her hand.
"So sit down. And don't touch my footage."
Her boot nudges your chair out from under the desk, toward her.