I closed my eyes and forced the breath out slowly through my nose, the way Aster always told me to do when I was spiraling. It didn’t help. Not when the memory of his voice coiled around my ribs, soft as silk and twice as dangerous. Not when the heat of his gaze still burned beneath my skin, invisible and unmistakable.
You seem distracted.
So do you.
God, I was. Not just distracted. Unraveled. Dismantled. As if he’d reached inside me without touching, stolen something vital, and left me walking around missing it.
I forced movement into my limbs, the kind that didn’t feel like mine anymore, and each step across the tiled floor sounded sharper than it should have, heels striking rhythm against the silence, discipline masquerading as composure. There were people beyond the corridor, faculty, students, eyes that could see too much, and still I felt him everywhere. The way he leaned in. The sound of his breath close enough to taste. That near-moment when touch became threat, then restraint.
My reflection caught me in the tall window as I passed. Flushed cheeks, mouth drawn tight, eyes hollowed by something I didn’t have language for. Wrecked, but still standing. I’d spent years learning how to look untouchable, and now I couldn’t even convince the glass. My fingers twitched with the urge to tracemy own lips, to check if they were still swollen from what hadn’t happened.
I didn’t. Instead, I swallowed the tremor, tightened my grip on the clipboard, and walked faster. The cold outside met me again, but it wasn’t the temperature that made me shiver. It was knowing that he could undo me with only a few words. And that a part of me wanted to let him.
The café sat in its midmorning lull, half-empty, caught between the chaos of commuters and the buzz of students skipping class. The scent of roasted beans and vanilla hung in the air, steam curling from the espresso machine like breath. I spotted them instantly, Aster curled in the corner booth, her sleeve stained with a smudge of cobalt paint, and Gwen across from her, stirring honey into her tea with slow precision, her hair a curtain of soft control.They both looked up when I approached. Gwen’s eyes caught mine first, bright with mischief. Aster smiled, that wide, unguarded kind of smile that always felt like sunlight through fog.
“Finally,” Aster said, nudging her cup aside so I could slide in beside her. “We were about to put your name on a missing persons list.”
“Sorry,” I muttered, shrugging off my coat. “Didn’t sleep much.”
Gwen studied me, head tilted, a spark of teasing under her tone. “You’ve got that post-existential-nightmare look again. It’s veryacademic chic.”
I gave a low laugh. “Perfect. Exactly what I was going for.”
Aster’s gaze lingered longer. She didn’t ask, not directly. She just pushed a croissant toward me, the gesture quiet and steady.“Eat,” she said. “You look like you’ve been living off caffeine and regret.”
“I have,” I murmured, but I took the bite anyway. Warmth spread across my tongue, and for a moment, I let it ground me.
We talked after that, about deadlines, about absurd student emails, about Gwen’s ongoing argument with Zayn over who had better taste in playlists. Their laughter filled the space, softening the edges of my thoughts. They always did that, brought me back to something resembling balance, to the version of myself that existed before midnight corridors and professors who spoke in warnings that felt like foreplay.
Aster was halfway through a story about a studio critique gone wrong, something involving a misplaced nude study and a mortified teaching assistant, when she suddenly paused, dug through her coat pocket, and pulled out a folded flyer.
“Oh. This,” she said, unfolding it and sliding it across the table. “Almost forgot.” She grinned. “Ski trip. Next weekend. Some of the lit department’s going. A few professors, too. Thought it might be good for all of us to breathe actual mountain air for a change.”
Gwen leaned over, examining it. “Wait, is this the one with the cabins and hot tubs?”
Aster nodded. “That’s the one. Cozy, snowed-in, mildly irresponsible. Perfect.”
I blinked at them. “Skiing? You both know I can’t ski.”
“Details,” Aster said, waving off my protest. “You don’t have to ski. Just come. You can drink cocoa and watch Gwen and me make absolute fools of ourselves on the slopes.”
“I don’t know…”
Her tone softened. “You’ve been distant lately. Come with us. No research. No symposium prep. No mysterious dark-haired distractions.”
Gwen snorted into her cup.
I sighed. “It’s not—”
“Don’t even finish that,” Gwen interrupted. “We all saw the meeting. There was enough tension to power the entire university.”
Aster reached across and squeezed my hand, gentle but firm. “Say yes. Just one weekend. Let something else exist for a while.”
I looked back down at the flyer, the cheerful font promising snow, laughter, stillness. All the things that felt too far away lately. A part of me knew I should say no. But another part, the one that hadn’t stopped burning since he first looked at me, was already reaching for escape.
“I’ll think about it,” I said finally. And maybe, for once, thinking would be my undoing.
Chapter Thirteen
