Good. Let her try.
I gestured toward the empty chair beside her. “Is this seat taken?”
Her pause lasted just long enough to tell me she was thinking about more than the question.
“No.”
I sat down. Too close. Not close enough.
The air shifted, thick, weighted with the things we wouldn’t say, the memories we shouldn’t have. I didn’t turn to face her. Her scent was already under my skin, the trace of her perfume caught somewhere between breath and heartbeat.
“You received my email?” I asked.
“Yes.” Her answer came softer than I expected, her voice carrying that slight raw edge that made my pulse stutter. Maybe exhaustion. Maybe nerves. Maybe something else.
“Good.” My reply landed quiet, measured, the edge of authority smoothing over the violence beneath it. “The committee expects your draft this morning. I trust it’s ready.”
Her nod was small, too measured to be effortless. Every inch of her posture was held in a kind of rehearsed stillness, but the tremor in her fingers betrayed her. They tightened around the folder resting in her lap, the pressure turning her knuckles pale, her composure stretched thin against the weight of what lingered between us.
“It’s ready,” she said. Her voice trained, but beneath it something wavered, something uncertain, hesitant, alive. I saw it in the subtle flicker of her eyes, in the brief collapse of her mask before she forced it back into place.
I leaned forward, knowing I shouldn’t, knowing that proximity only ever made the silence more dangerous. The distance between us narrowed until I could see the small pulse at her throat, could sense the strain in her breath as she tried to ignore the gravity that kept pulling her closer.
“You’re unusually quiet today,” I said, the words slipping out low, threaded with something I couldn’t disguise. “Did something happen?”
She turned her head toward me, the motion deliberate, as if she feared that moving too fast might fracture the air that had hardened around us. Her gaze found mine, calm and cold, the kind of composure that didn’t come from peace but from effort.
“You didn’t show up to class yesterday,” she said. “That was… unusual.”
A faint trace of amusement tugged at the corner of my mouth. “So you were paying attention.”
“I’m your student and assistant,” she replied, her tone stripped of inflection, too careful to sound natural. “It’s my job to notice.”
Liar.
It was a lie, and we both knew it. The words were armor, built from professionalism and fear. But her eyes, they told the truth. They always did. They were unguarded even when she thought they weren’t, windows to every thought she couldn’t silence.
I leaned back slowly, letting the quiet settle into something heavy. Silence was a weapon, and she was beginning to understand its sharpness, the way it could wrap around two people and make the space between them unbearable.
“Then we’re finished here,” I said, though I didn’t move.
She hesitated, the pause slight but potent, enough to make the moment stretch and tighten. Then she rose, collecting her papers with her usual precision, but her steps faltered when she turned away. That subtle break in balance, that almost imperceptible weakness, God, I hated that I noticed it.
“Miss Carter.”
She stopped, her spine rigid, tension brimming in the air. But she didn’t turn around.
“You may want to review the keynote material again,” I said. “Some of the phrasing in your abstract leans too far into theory. The committee will want clarity.”
Her head turned just slightly, enough for the faint outline of her profile to catch the light. “I wasn’t aware clarity and theory were enemies,” she said, her voice quiet but edged.
There it was again, the restrained defiance that always managed to thread itself through her words, soft enough to be forgivable, sharp enough to cut.
“They often are,” I said. “When ambition begins to cloud precision.”
She didn’t flinch. “Or when precision hides fear.”
The words slid under my skin before I could brace for them. I exhaled, the air rough against my throat. She was baiting me again, the way she always did, testing the boundaries I pretended were firm. And God help me, I wanted to be baited.
