Chapter 1: Introduction
The quad was alive with the kind of energy that only exists between classes—half-formed plans, last-minute espresso runs, the rhythmic thud of a basketball against pavement from the rec center, the distant whir of a drone hovering over some freshman’s head. Megan pibalanced three textbooks against her hip as she wove through the crowd, her sundress flapping around her knees in the late-summer breeze. She was running late—again. Not for her own fault, really.
The morning had started with a text from her roommate, *Lena*, who’d somehow convinced Megan to share her last protein bar at 6 a.m. because "the gym is a warzone without fuel." Then there was the coffee spill—Megan’s own doing, of course—when she’d tried to pour a cup while simultaneously answering a group chat about tonight’s party. Now, her favorite white sneakers were speckled with caramel-colored stains, and she could still feel the stickiness between her toes.
She ducked under a low-hanging tree branch, narrowly avoiding a collision with a guy in a fraternity hoodie who was too busy yelling into his phone to watch where he was going.
*"Dude, I told you, we’re not sharing the keg with the CS majors!"* Megan laughed to herself, wondering why people always yelled when they were on the phone but whispered when they were right next to someone. She adjusted her grip on the books, the one on top threatening to slide off like a greased otter. *Great. Like today needed another textbook avalanche.*
As she approached the old humanities building, she heard the familiar murmur of students spilling out of the lecture halls, their voices rising and falling in the kind of rhythm that only happens when a professor is *not* boring.
Megan slowed her pace, tilting her head toward the open windows where a deep, resonant voice was weaving words together with effortless charm.
*"And so, in Jane Austen’s world, a single raised eyebrow could dismantle an entire social order—think of it, not just as wit, but as a weapon."*