Lines we cannot cross

Dana Whitmore came to Columbia for a fresh start. She did not come for Elena Moretti.

Elena is the head of her department, the mother of her most talented student, and the kind of woman who commands every room she walks into - including, increasingly, the ones that contain Dana. Both of them are brilliant. Both of them have been broken by people they trusted. Both of them understand perfectly well why this is a terrible idea.

Understanding has never stopped anyone.

What begins as professional friction slowly becomes something neither of them has a name for - built in stolen glances, charged silences, and conversations that say everything except what they actually mean.

Some lines exist to be respected.
Others exist to remind us exactly how much we want to cross them.