And still, I noticed.
I noticed the way his brow furrowed when he read. The subtle curl of his fingers around the edge of the podium, steadying himself in ways no one else would see. He wasn’t conventionally handsome, not in the careless, charming sense. He was a study in control and distance, the kind of beauty that dared you to get too close.
My pen hovered above the page, unmoving. Words refused to come. Thoughts refused to form. Beside me, Aster whispered something I couldn’t catch, and it all dissolved into the static rush of blood in my ears.
I wasn’t okay. I had spilled coffee on this man an hour ago. I had insulted him. He had looked at me as though I’d disrupted the order of his universe. And now he stood ten feet away, dressed in black, voice steady and merciless, the person who held my academic fate in his hands.
Perfect.
I had prayed he wouldn’t recognize me, that I’d blend into the crowd, faceless and forgettable. But when his gaze swept the rows and met mine, the faint shift in his expression told me otherwise. The slight tightening of his jaw. The nearly invisible curl at the corner of his mouth.
He remembered. And worse, he didn’t intend to ignore it.
“This course,” he said, his tone cutting through the silence, “is not about reading poetry to feel something. It is about dismantling it, understanding how meaning fractures under scrutiny, learning to see the text as conflict, as tension, aspower.” His eyes moved from one face to another, unblinking. “If that unsettles you, there’s still time to leave.”
I wanted to scream, not at his words, but at the sound of them. That voice was a weapon. Precise, commanding, utterly self-assured. He spoke the way great literature was written, with conviction, intelligence, and an unshakable belief in its own authority.
It made me despise him all the more.
The next slide illuminated the wall, a quote in bold serif letters:
“Criticism is the expression of life in terms of art.”— Havelock Ellis.
Pens scratched against paper; keys clacked faintly. I sat motionless, my pulse uneven. Hayden Stone paced the length of the room, hands clasped behind his back. He wasn’t merely teaching. He was assessing, measuring the air, weighing our silences, and cataloging who flinched and who held his gaze.
When he finally stopped near the front row, the stillness that followed felt deliberate, the kind born of someone who understood how silence could be sharper than speech.
“Let’s start simple. Who can tell me what this quote implies?”
A few hands lifted hesitantly, the shuffle of sleeves and pens filling the brief pause that followed. Mine stayed still. I forced myself smaller in my chair, shoulders curling inward, wishing I could melt into the wood and vanish before his gaze found me. My pulse thudded beneath my scarf, each beat echoing a single, silent plea: don’t notice me.
Professor Hayden Stone’s eyes drifted over the room, steady and unhurried. His control was unnerving, each glance sharp, his composure almost mechanical in its precision. And then, inevitably, his attention found me. The change was subtle, barely perceptible, a flicker of awareness tightening the air between us.
Recognition lingered in his expression, faint but unmistakable. A ghost of memory passed through those onyx eyes, followed by the smallest twitch at the corner of his mouth. The kind of almost-smile that wasn’t kind at all.
He remembered. Of course, he did.
And when he spoke again, his voice carried a sharper edge, the kind that sliced through the room like a cold draft. “You.”
My head lifted before I could stop myself. His gaze was already there, fixed, unwavering, and entirely uninterested in mercy. He wasn’t speaking to Aster beside me. He was speaking to me. A slow wave of dread tightened my chest. He might not have known my name, but he knew the face, the one that had collided with him in the café, that had drenched his coat in caramel-colored humiliation. His lips curved again, faintly, the expression balanced somewhere between amusement and quiet vengeance.
“What’s your take?” he asked.
The room seemed to tilt. Every sound dulled, the faint hum of laptops and the scratch of pens fading into the background. My mouth had gone dry, and I could taste the faint bitterness of fear on my tongue. I forced myself upright, straightening my shoulders despite the weight of his gaze.
“It suggests…” I began, voice thin but steadying as I went. “That criticism isn’t just about dissection or technique. It’s an interpretation of life filtered through art, a mirror, not a scalpel.”
A hush followed, so complete that it felt almost physical. Professor Stone studied me, his head tilting slightly, his expression unreadable. The silence lengthened, not dismissive, but evaluative, as though he were quietly reassessing something he thought he’d already decided.
“Your name?” he asked at last, his tone devoid of inflection.
“Edwina Carter.”
A subtle change crossed his face, so faint it could have been imagined, though I knew it wasn’t. There was no astonishment in it, only the quiet stillness of recognition. He had known all along, and now the knowledge had a name. My words had merely exposed me, turning me from a stranger into something remembered.
“Reflective,” he said softly, as though tasting the word and finding it insufficient. Then, his tone changed, cooler, quieter. “Or perhaps criticism is just a way for the critic to claim the artist’s voice for themselves, to reshape creation under the illusion of intellect.”
My breath caught, and I felt several students turn their heads toward me, the room suddenly smaller. Aster shifted beside me, concern flickering across her face, but I couldn’t look at her. I could only look at him.
