Chapter 76 Chapter 76

Chapter 76 Chapter 76
Aria’s Pov.

The administrative block was at the far end of the main building.

We walked fast, Camille on my left, Adrien slightly behind us, our footsteps the only sound in the empty corridor.

"Are we actually doing this," Camille said.

"Yes," I said.

"Like right now."

"Before she can get to them first."

She nodded once, and said nothing else.

We reached the administrative block door, I pushed it open and we went in.

The reception area was calm. A woman at the front desk looked up at three students with bags, mid-morning, which was clearly unusual.

"Can I help you?"

"We need to speak with someone from student welfare," I said. "Today. It's urgent."

She looked between us.

"Do you have an appointment?"

"No. But what we need to report can't wait."

She paused.

"Take a seat."

We sat.

I looked at Adrien.

"Actually…" I said quietly.

He looked at me.

"Could you wait out here?" I said. "What we need to say in there is…" I paused. "Some of it isn't mine to tell."

He held my gaze for a second.

Then he nodded. No questions. Just…okay.

"I'll be right here," he said.

Camille watched him settle back into the chair.

Then she looked at me.

Something in her expression had shifted, she looked less certain, more exposed.

"You don't have to say everything," I said quietly. "Only what you're ready to say."

She pressed her lips together.

"No," she said. "I think I have to say all of it."



Madame Fontaine was mid-forties, reading glasses pushed up into her hair, she had the kind of composure that came from doing this job for a long time. 

She gestured to the two chairs in front of her desk and we sat.

"What can I help you with?" she said.

I started.

The project. The F. The comment Beaumont had made in class. The detention. Today's class. The passage Camille had been asked to read and then immediately undermined. Some students simply aren't suited to literary analysis.

Madame Fontaine listened, wrote things down. Then she asked dates and exact wording.

When I finished she looked at Camille.

"Is there anything you'd like to add?"

Camille was looking at her hands.

The office was very quiet.

"There's a reason she's been doing this," Camille said. Her voice came out lower than usual. Careful. "It didn't start with the grade."

Fontaine set her pen down.

"Go on," she said.

Camille looked up.

"Madame Beaumont and I had…" She stopped. Started again. "She approached me. Earlier this term. It started with staying after class, texts that weren't about coursework." 

She took a breath. "It became… more than that. For a while."

The room was completely still.

Madame Fontaine didn't interrupt. She simply folded her hands on the desk and waited. 

"And then I ended it," Camille said. "I told her I wasn't interested anymore. That I didn't want it to continue." She met Madame Fontaine's eyes. "The F came two weeks after that, the comments in class started after that."

Madame Fontaine was quiet for a moment.

Then she picked up her pen.

And wrote for significantly longer than she had before.

"Camille," she said. Her voice had changed, still composed, but with something careful and deliberate underneath it now. "I want to make sure I understand what you're telling me. Are you saying that a member of staff initiated a personal relationship with you?"

"Yes," Camille said.

"And that the academic consequences you've described followed after you ended that relationship?"

"Yes."

Madame Fontaine set the pen down again.

"I'm sorry," she said. "I'm very sorry this happened to you. What you've just described goes significantly beyond a grading concern. This is a safeguarding matter and it will be treated as one."

Camille nodded once.

Her jaw was tight.

I reached over under the desk and found her hand and held it.

She didn't pull away.

We were in the office for over an hour.

By the end of it Camille had said everything twice, once in her own words, once in response to Madame Fontaine's questions. 

When it was over Madame Fontaine looked at both of us.

"I need to be transparent," she said. "What happens next will involve a formal investigation. Madame Beaumont will be suspended from teaching duties while that takes place. That will be visible…students will notice. People will ask questions."

She looked at Camille specifically.

"You are not obligated to explain anything to anyone," she said. "Your account is confidential. Whatever people speculate is not your responsibility."

Camille nodded.

"There may also be some initial outcomes that feel uncomfortable in the short term," Fontaine continued. "I want you to be prepared for that." She paused. "But I want to be clear…you did the right thing coming here. Both of you."

We stood to leave.

At the door Camille stopped.

"Will anything actually happen?" she said. "To her."

Madame Fontaine looked at her steadily.

"Yes," she said. "It will."

We came out into the corridor.

Adrien was exactly where he'd said he'd be.

He stood up the moment he saw us.

He looked at my face first. Then Camille's.

He didn't ask what had been said.

He just looked at Camille and said "You okay?"

Camille looked at him for a moment.

"Not really," she said honestly. "But I will be."

He nodded.

That was all.

We walked down the corridor together, slower now, the urgency of getting there replaced by the particular weight of having done it.

The school had refilled around us while we'd been inside, bells going, classes shifting, the building indifferent to the fact that something had just happened in that office.

Camille was quiet.

I didn't push.

We reached the vending machine near the gym, Camille stopped in front of it.

"Chocolate or crisps," 

"Both," Adrien said.

"Both," she agreed.

She pressed both buttons. Collected both. Tore the crisp packet open, ate three in a row and exhaled slowly.

"Better?" I said.

"I think so."

She held the packet out. I took one. Adrien took one.

We stood in the corridor and said nothing for a moment.

Then Camille spoke.

"I've never told anyone that before."

I looked at her.

"What you said in there," she said quietly. "About her initiating. I've never…" She stopped. "I kept thinking it was my fault somehow. That I'd…" She shook her head. "I don't know."

"It wasn't your fault." 

"I know that." She said it quickly. "I know that. It's just different when you say it out loud to someone official. It becomes…" She looked for the word. "Real."

I held her gaze.

"It was always real," I said. "You just had to carry it alone until now."

She looked at me for a long moment.

Then she looked at Adrien.

"You didn't hear any of that," she said. "For the record."

"Hear what?" he said.

She almost smiled.

Almost.

She folded the crisp packet and put it in her pocket.

"I have maths, which feels genuinely insane after the last ninety minutes. But apparently school just…"

"Continues," I said.

"Continues." She picked up her bag. "Okay. I'm going."

She hugged mea little longer this time.

Then she walked off down the corridor without looking back.

I watched her go.

Adrien stood beside me.

"She's going to be okay," he said quietly.

"Yeah," I said. "She is."

He looked at me.

"Are you?"

I thought about the office. Camille's voice going quiet and careful and then saying it anyway. Madame Fontaine's expression shifting when she understood what she was actually hearing.

"Yeah…I think so."

He took my hand and we walked back into the class corridors.

I thought about what Camille had said.

It becomes real.

I looked at our joined hands.

There were things I was carrying too.

Things that hadn't been said out loud yet.

Things that were real whether I said them or not.

I pushed the thought away.

But it came back anyway.

It always did.