I didn’t give her the reaction she was waiting for. I just walked out, my bag slung over my shoulder, letting the hallway swallow me. My footsteps echoed against the tile, too loud, too rhythmic, my pulse falling into the same uneasy rhythm as I made my way toward his office.
The door stood half open, light spilling through the gap.
I knocked once, soft enough not to sound uncertain, and waited until his voice answered, smooth and restrained.
“Come in.”
The air inside felt different the second I stepped across the threshold, tighter somehow, focused, as though the room itself was holding its breath. He was behind his desk, sleeves rolled up to his forearms, veins standing out faintly against skin tanned from the kind of sunlight he never sought but always carried. His shirt strained slightly where the muscle in his arms flexed with each movement, his glasses slipping a fraction down the bridge of his nose as he bent over the papers in front of him.
When he lifted his head, the shift was immediate. His eyes caught mine, sharp and unreadable, and for a moment neither of us moved.
“Close the door,” he said, voice quiet but leaving no room for negotiation.
The sound of the latch falling into place felt louder than it should have.
“Sit.”
The word came smooth and absolute, carrying more command than volume. I crossed the room, each step a study in control, and lowered myself into the chair opposite him. The silence that followed pressed against the space between us until I could feel it in my chest. His gaze never drifted, trained on me with a focus that felt too personal, too knowing, as if he were studying every detail I hadn’t meant to reveal.
“Are you feeling better?” The question caught me off guard, gentler than I expected, edged with concern he couldn’t quite disguise.
I nodded. “Much better.”
Something in his expression shifted, faint but visible, a subtle crack forming where his restraint had begun to wear thin. There were words behind that look, unsaid but heavy, pushing against the quiet, threatening to break it. But he didn’t let them out. He kept them locked behind the same self-control that defined him, leaving me to carry the weight of what he wasn’t saying.
He leaned back slightly, his pen forgotten on the desk, the faint creak of the chair filling the silence. “Good,” he said at last, the single word landing with more weight than it should have. He straightened, shoulders squaring again, his tone shifting back into authority. “We’ll review the final checklist for the symposium. I want everything precise.”
I nodded again, but the air between us had already changed. It wasn’t professional anymore. It wasn’t safe. Every second in that office stretched thinner, the quiet pulling at both of us, drawing something unspoken closer to the surface.
We went through the papers one by one, voices even, movements careful, every line of our dialogue pretending at normalcy. Yet under the sound of his words, the clear, exact cadence of his instruction, I heard the ghost of something else.
That night. The storm. His voice breaking through the dark.
I can’t lose you. I can’t lose you like her.
And in the silence that followed, that single word echoed through me again—
Her.
It pressed at the edges of my mind, a bruise I couldn’t stop touching even though I knew the pain it would bring. I should have asked him, should have demanded an answer, should have said her name and watched what it did to him, but I didn’t. I kept my eyes on the notes in front of me, pretending to listen, pretending to write, pretending I wasn’t unraveling.
“Saturday,” he said, closing the folder and setting it neatly aside. “Don’t be late.”
“Yes, Professor—”
His gaze caught mine before I could finish. “Hayden,” he corrected, voice rough but composed. “When we’re alone, you call me Hayden.”
The air between us thickened until it felt almost tangible, my pulse faltering in my chest as his words sank in, not simply correcting me but commanding, claiming, reminding me that the boundaries we kept existed only beyond this room, never within it.
“Hayden,” I said, the name leaving my lips with more hesitation than I wanted to admit. It didn’t sound foreign. It carried warmth, ownership, something I couldn’t name without breaking.
He watched me for a long moment, the silence between us drawing taut until it felt alive. Then he leaned back slightly, a faint ghost of approval flickering in his eyes. “Good,” he murmured. “Don’t forget it.”
He rose from behind the desk, unhurried, but every movement carried intention. The chair scraped softly across the floor, a sound too small for the weight of the moment, and with each step he took, the distance between us disappeared. Hismovements weren’t rushed; they carried a quiet purpose, each moment drawn out with intent as he closed the distance between us, the air thinning until his breath brushed against my skin when he finally stopped.
His hands found my waist, sure and grounding, his touch burning through the thin fabric of my shirt. In one smooth motion, he lifted me onto the desk, the wood cool beneath me, papers sliding beneath my palms, the air suddenly too thin to breathe. He stood between my knees, close enough that I could feel the rhythm of his chest brushing mine, that steady rise and fall dragging me into its pull. His gaze moved over my face with quiet certainty, searching not for answers but for the truth he had already found.
When his hand rose to my cheek, I forgot how to think. The brush of his skin against mine sent heat crawling up my throat. His touch wasn’t forceful, but it wasn’t tentative either. It was knowing. Confident. The touch of someone who had already memorized the shape of what they wanted.
