Chapter 3: Confessions, Consequences, and the Ultimate Roast

His ears turned red. For a second, I thought he might actually throw down over dessert.

We little minions instantly shut up.

In academia, you keep your head down and your mouth full.

Seriously, can’t you two sign a mutual non-mockery pact?

I whispered to Jess, “If they start a food fight, I’m grabbing the eclairs and running.”

When the big shots fight, it’s the little guys who get burned.

It’s like being a bystander at a family Thanksgiving argument. Best to stay quiet and hope for pie.

Dr. Sinclair sat down next to me, face dark.

He looked like he was counting to ten in his head. I scooted over, offering him a napkin as a peace offering.

I quietly tugged his sleeve:

“Hey, don’t be mad. I even saved you some cake, look...”

I held out a slightly squished slice, hoping it’d earn me some points.

“This lemon cheesecake is really good—super hard to get.”

He rubbed his temples, looking at me like I was a lost cause:

“Riley, did you learn anything from this meeting?”

I immediately switched to full bootlicker mode, giving two thumbs up:

“Your talk was incredible!”

I tried to look earnest, but my eyes kept drifting back to the snack table.

He chuckled:

“Which part did you like?”

He knew I was bluffing. I started sweating.

“All... all of it...”

He picked up my notebook, slowly reading my notes:

[Good snacks are fleeting, be mindful of the time—one minute can beat a crowd.]

[Try to sit at the back, run fast. Whether it’s simple cubic packing, body-centered cubic packing, hexagonal close packing, or face-centered cubic packing, grab everything at once.]

[Dare to fight, dare to grab, dare to eat!]

[Summary: Knowledge doesn’t always stick, but food in the stomach is real.]

He took a deep breath, trying to stay calm:

“Riley, if you used your snack-hunting brain on your thesis, I wouldn’t be so embarrassed everywhere.”

I shrank in my seat, poking at the ice in my latte. My defense mechanism was to drink until my mouth was too cold to answer.

He tapped the table, voice serious:

“Why haven’t you submitted your thesis yet?”

I mumbled:

“I’ll send it to you as soon as I get home...”

He sighed:

“Forget it, send it tomorrow. Let me get one good night’s sleep first.”

He sounded exhausted, like he’d been grading my life choices instead of papers.

The next day.

The moment I pushed open Dr. Sinclair’s office door, it felt like a neon sign flickered above his head:

Doomsday.

I swear, even the fluorescent lights seemed dimmer. His desk was covered in red-marked papers, and he didn’t look up when I walked in.

“Miss Evans, your paternity test is in.”

I looked at my 95% plagiarism rate.

Everything went black.

My brain short-circuited. I felt like I’d been caught cheating on Maury.

“Dr. Sinclair, I didn’t copy that much! At most, I’m half-related...”

I tried to joke, but my voice cracked. This was bad. Really bad.

Oh God, please have mercy!

I silently prayed for the floor to swallow me. Or for a tornado to hit the building. Either worked.

He slammed the thesis on the desk:

“Then explain why this paragraph is identical to what I published in ‘Nature’ five years ago?”

I muttered guiltily:

“Shows I’ve perfectly inherited your legacy...”

He glared at me over the rims of his glasses.

I shrank a little more.

“Didn’t I say your first draft was garbage?”

He took off his glasses and rubbed his temples.

He only did that when he was truly at his limit. I’d seen it enough to know the signs.

"Now look—you rolled the garbage into a ball and spray-painted it gold. The snack gobbler has become academia’s dung beetle."

He had a way with metaphors, I’ll give him that. Even my shame was creative.

"Do you know what a flea market looks like in academia? This paper is so cobbled together I’m questioning your sanity."

He waved a page at me. I could see my cut-and-paste job—Frankenstein’s monster in Times New Roman.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw his computer screen still open.

Big words on the search page:

[Can a total idiot get into grad school?]