After Stan cut the call, Zack stood alone in the dormitory, staring at his new bed, which was, by any honest assessment, approximately four times nicer than the one that had been destroyed, and tried to reconcile reality with everything he thought he knew about how the world worked.
He failed.
He went to sleep anyway. The mattress was excellent.
That evening, Stan took Zack out for lunch. His roommate had earned it, weeks of loyalty, sleepless nights defending Stan's reputation online, a demolished dormitory endured without complaint. The least Stan could do was buy him a meal.
They found a table in the campus cafeteria and settled in.
The ambient conversation around them was, predictably, still about Stan.
"…heard Vivian Reeves is having him expelled…"
"…it's only a matter of time…"
"…the principal already signed off on it, apparently…"
