With a sigh that came out heavier than I intended, I flipped it open, letting the papers scatter across the duvet in organized disarray. Every page was arranged with surgical precision, labeled, cross-referenced, annotated in that firm, unmistakably controlled handwriting that somehow managed to infuriate me on sight. Even his notes seemed to judge me. There was a strange austerity in them, an obsessive order that hinted at someone who didn’t just value control, but worshiped it.
“Pretentious literature god,” I muttered, flipping past the page markedSymposium Panel Structure, the paper whispering beneath my fingers.
But I kept reading. That was the part that unsettled me most. I kept reading even though I’d already gone through the contents once. Even though I didn’t need to. There was something magnetic about the structure. His structure. Each margin carried intent, each underlined phrase felt deliberate, and every word seemed chosen to remind the reader who held authority over the page. It was infuriating. It was precise. It was him.
I pressed my lips together, set the paper aside, and reached for my phone, needing something human to fill the space he’d occupied in my mind. My playlist was already open, looping a Chris Grey track that drifted through the apartment, smooth and low, a voice that filled the air without intruding. The rhythm bled softly into the corners of the room, and for the first time that day, I let myself breathe. The sound didn’t ask anything of me. It didn’t demand perfection. It simplyexisted.
And maybe that was enough for now.
I leaned back against the pillows, the folder half-open beside me, pages breathing faintly in the quiet, and closed my eyes for just a moment.
You’re his student,a voice whispered inside my head, sharp and relentless.You can’t be thinking this way. You can’t fantasize about a man who’s at least ten years older than you, a man who carries authority in his posture, who is, for God’s sake, your professor.
And maybe that was true. Maybe I was losing perspective, crossing lines in my mind that should never be blurred. But denial didn’t stop the thought from returning, persistent and uninvited, curling through me like smoke.
Still, there was something in the way he looked at me. His gaze had a precision that went beyond interest or intellect, as though he wasn’t merely observing silence but dissecting it, peeling it apart strand by strand until he reached the pulse beneath. He studied me with that same unsettling intent, the kind of focus that stripped away any illusion of safety.
My eyes opened again. The ceiling was pale and unmoving, the air too still. I reached for the folder beside me, dragging it closer until the edge pressed lightly into my forearm.
“He probably alphabetizes his nightmares,” I muttered, flipping through another neatly labeled page. “Wouldn’t surprise me if his blood type is Helvetica Bold.”
The absurdity of my own words made me exhale through my nose, a weak attempt at humor that didn’t quite land. The song changed then, though I didn’t notice at first, the smooth voice of Chris Grey faded into Isabel LaRosa’s haunting melody.Older. Her voice dipping through minor chords that hung in the air like smoke. It was softer, darker, too intimate for the distance I was trying to maintain.
I stilled, one hand resting on the papers, the other falling limply against the blanket. My breathing slowed to match the rhythm of the song. And there it was again, that thought, that pull. The echo of his voice when he said my name, the exact inflection of it, the slight weight he gave to the vowels. The memory of his gaze holding mine longer than it should have, quietly consuming. The warmth of his fingers when they brushed mine, a touch that should have meant nothing, yet left something smoldering beneath the surface. I shouldn’t have noticed. I shouldn’t have remembered. I shouldn’t have been here, in my room, surrounded by the faint scent of coffee and paper, feeling my pulse catch at the thought of a man who made the air itself feel charged. A man who stood on the other side of a line I had no right to approach.
And yet here I was.
My professor.
My professor.
The words echoed in my head, heavy and forbidden. I groaned, dragging the pillow over my face, muffling a sound that was half frustration and half despair. “Get out of my head, you insufferable, dark-eyed demon in tailored wool,” I muttered into the fabric, the words melting into the quiet.
The silence that followed felt almost alive, pressing against my skin, whispering through the edges of thought. I felt ridiculous, embarrassed by the weight of my own imagination, by how easily I’d let him into the spaces meant for solitude. This wasn’t supposed to happen. I wasn’t supposed to notice him. I wasn’t supposed to start unraveling.
The music swelled once more before fading into quiet. I turned onto my side, eyes heavy, telling myself I would only rest them for a second. Just a second. But the darkness didn’t stay empty. It filled itself with fragments of memory, the timbre of his voice,the calm precision of his words, the measured rhythm that could silence a room without effort.
Chapter Seven
Hayden
Nightsfuckedwithmemore than anything else. The silence was never peace, it was a pressure that crawled beneath the skin and pressed against the ribs until breathing felt forced, until every exhale carried the weight of something I didn’t want to name. In that absence of sound, everything I’d buried had room to crawl back to the surface. Memory rose first, sharp and uninvited. Regret followed, slow and suffocating. Then came hunger, the kind that didn’t fade no matter how many times I tried to drown it in work, in whiskey, in the illusion of discipline.
I sat by the window with a glass of whiskey in my hand, condensation dripping down my fingers, the city stretching beyond the glass in fractured light. The skyline bled through the haze, faint and unreachable, a distant ache painted in steel and smoke. The drink burned down my throat, rough and punishing,a reminder that I was still breathing, still trapped in the body of a man who felt too much and pretended otherwise.
There was nothing merciful about nights like this. They stripped you bare without asking for permission, tore through the lies you told yourself during the day, left you staring at the version of yourself you didn’t want anyone else to see. She existed in that same truth. Edwina. A beauty that wasn’t meant to soothe or comfort, but to ruin. A presence that didn’t ask to be admired but demanded to be survived.
I didn’t want her gently, didn’t want the polite distance or the academic restraint that made everything safe. I wanted her undone beneath my hands, her breath catching against my skin, her control shattered until nothing existed between us except the sound of what we couldn’t say out loud. I wanted her stripped of the composure she hid behind, wanted to drag honesty from her with my mouth, my hands, my voice until she couldn’t keep pretending she was untouchable. The thought of it made my chest tighten, made my pulse roughen, made every muscle in my body remember the violence of wanting something you have no right to touch.
And I hated that. I hated her for being the first person in years who made me feel something I couldn’t control. She didn’t belong to me. She wasn’t supposed to. Every thought of her tore through the order I had spent years constructing, the clean, safe, anonymous fucking life I built from the wreckage of everything I destroyed. And she was the first crack in it. The first temptation I didn’t want to silence.
There were others I could have chosen. Dozens of students who smiled too much, who spoke too softly, who existed without consequence. But I called her name. I said it out loud, calmly, professionally, as though the sound of it didn’t already sit on my tongue too easily. I told myself it was logic, that she was capable, focused, efficient. That she would make sense for the role. Butthe truth had nothing to do with reason. It was instinct, raw and filthy and human. It was weakness wearing the mask of control.
I remembered the morning she collided with me, the sharp movement, the heat of her body against mine for that one second, the scent of coffee and skin, the muted surprise in her voice when she cursed under her breath. She hadn’t even seen me that night—hadn’t recognized me then, and didn’t recognize me now—but I saw her, and I knew. I remembered everything with a clarity so cruel it felt carved into bone. The twisted metal collapsing in on itself, the smell of gasoline and blood thick in the cold air, the sound of breath turning into silence, and the weight of her body in my arms when I dragged her out of the wreck, praying she would move, praying she would breathe. Now she sat in my classroom, pen poised, posture perfect, pretending she wasn’t a ghost that had already been in my arms once before.
I watched her more than I should have. Always did. And it had nothing to do with control. It was hunger pretending to be restraint, the kind that doesn’t fade no matter how many times you tell yourself it should. She moved with the quiet certainty of someone who needed no approval, every gesture careful, measured, intentional. Her voice carried precision, her tone low, her words deliberate, but her silence screamed through every inch of the space she occupied. When she raised her eyes to mine, something inside me burned clean through reason. Her beauty wasn’t soft, wasn’t the kind that invited you in, it was dangerous, cold-edged, the kind that made you want to ruin it just to see if it could break.
There were nights I lay awake, jaw clenched, fists pressed against the mattress, her name lodged in my throat as though saying it would damn me completely.
