I walk the path between the student union and Porter Hall just after 9:15 AM. The leaves on the quad have gone from Instagram gold to compost brown, and each step crunches through them with a finality that makes me feel old. The campus shuttle whines in the distance, laughter from the girls in the sorority sweaters erupts ahead of me, and the sharp, yeasty tang of croissants wafts over from the cafe cart parked beside the library steps.
I’m halfway through rehearsing my excuse for Professor Ely when I catch a voice—Aaron’s—honed to that perfect volume where you can pretend not to listen but still catch every word. He’s leaning against a marble planter under a lamppost, just outside the math building, with his friend Malik, who looks like he should be on a recruitment poster for Division I basketball.
“Bro, I’m telling you, we had real chemistry,” Aaron says. He’s wearing a navy jacket over a black tee, the sleeves pushed up so you can see the flex of his forearms even from a distance. “But like Cinderella at midnight, she just vanished. No one even knows her name.”
Malik adjusts his baseball cap, squinting. “So, no one’s seen her anywhere? It’s like she disappeared off campus.”
Aaron leans back, scanning the parade of students with a kind of hopeful predation. “I keep scrolling through the photos,hoping someone tagged her. Nothing. It’s like she’s a glitch in the Matrix.”
My stomach twinges, a weird, traitorous spark of guilt. The part of me that wants to dissolve into the cement wishes I could be anywhere but here. The other part—the one that noticed the way Aaron’s mouth curled around the word “chemistry”—wants to keep listening forever.
Malik snorts. “You sure you didn’t hallucinate her?”
Aaron elbows him, grinning. “If I did, it was the best hallucination of my life.”
I slow my walk, letting a cluster of guys in matching parkas overtake me. The trick is to act casual, like you’re not registering anything at all, but my face prickles with heat even as the wind chafes my cheeks. I don’t look over. I don’t have to—Aaron’s voice carries.
He’s not talking about me, I remind myself. Not really. He’s talking about “Jessica.” The impossibility of her. The night that split in two, before and after, and the way he kept his hand on my hip even after the knock on the door.
Malik shrugs. “You sure you want to find her? What if she’s, like, a Psych major?”
“You’re a Psych major.”
“Exactly.”
They both laugh, a sound that bounces off the planter and through the cold air. I duck my head and kneel to re-tie my sneaker, even though it’s already double-knotted. From this angle I can see the curve of Aaron’s jaw, the way his hair looks darker in the morning sun, and the raw pink scrape on his knuckle. I remember, with embarrassing clarity, how his hands felt at my waist.
I knot my shoe with a violence that surprises me, then stand and brush the grit off my jeans. The urge to turn and run is strong. Instead, I make myself walk forward, posture straight,eyes fixed on the Porter Hall sign as if it’s a lighthouse and I’m a ship about to crash.
As I pass, Aaron’s gaze flickers. Not at me, not really—he’s scanning for miracles, not suspects—but for a nanosecond our eyes meet, and I am a supernova of nerves. I look away first. I always do.
I reach the shade of the building and let out the breath I’ve been holding. After adjusting my backpack strap, I wipe my sweaty palm on my thigh and keep moving.
Inside, the echo of their conversation follows me, a vapor trail of possibility and danger. It’s not just that he noticed me. It’s that he’s still looking.
I try not to smile. It doesn’t work.
—ΠΩ—
I’m convinced lecture halls are designed for humiliation. Tiered seating, walls painted the color of raw panic, banks of fluorescent lights that bleach the world until even the air looks synthetic. I take my usual spot in the fourth row, dead center, as if being as far from both escape and authority will somehow make me invisible.
By 9:59 AM, the room hums with the susurrus of caffeine and last-minute cramming. I arrange my pens—three colors, plus a mechanical pencil for diagrams—and flatten my notebook open to a clean, uncreased page. I know the sequence by heart: title, date, running header. It’s the only ritual that works.
Professor Collins sweeps in at exactly 10:00, carrying three things: a battered thermos, a laser pointer, and a stack of handouts so sharply squared they could draw blood. His tie is crooked, but his hair is perfect, every gray strand swept back with military precision.
Today’s lecture topic is nucleophilic aromatic substitution, but Collins opens with a thinly veiled threat. “There are two kinds of students in organic chemistry,” he says, eyes raking the hall. “Those who respect the rules—and those who become the cautionary tale.”
The class titters. I don’t.
I’m already three lines into my notes when someone slides into the seat next to mine. It’s a minor seismic event, a ripple in the force, and I clock the cologne and the heavy-lidded confidence before I even look up.
Aaron Thompson. Alive, upright, and apparently oblivious to last night’s existential crisis.
He smells like Old Spice and new laundry, and his hair is still damp, like he rolled out of bed and into the world in one motion.
“Morning, Montgomery,” he whispers, voice pitched for my ears only.
I grunt something noncommittal and focus on my paper. The words “rate-determining step” march across the page in tight, orderly script. I will not be the first to crack.
