I nod, unable to speak past the lump in my throat. Professor Silvermoon hands me a handkerchief from her desk drawer—soft linen that smells faintly of lavender.
“Are you still planning to attend the ball?” she asks.
The question hits me like a physical blow. I hadn’t even thought about not going. But now that she’s asked, the idea of showing up alone, of watching everyone else dance while I stand against the wall remembering what I’ve lost...
“I have to,” I say, wiping at my eyes as fresh tears fall. “I helped plan it. I can’t just... not show up.”
“No one would blame you for taking care of yourself,” Professor Silvermoon says. “If attending would be too painful—”
“No.” I straighten my shoulders, trying to summon some semblance of strength even though I feel like I’m made of fractured glass. “No, I want to go. I need to go. I’ve worked too hard on this to miss it.”
Even if it breaks my heart. Even if seeing that ballroom—the one I’ve been dreaming about, the one where Aric was supposed to take me by the hand and make me feel like the most special witch in the room—tears me apart.
Professor Silvermoon reaches across the desk and squeezes my hand, her touch firm and grounding. “You’re stronger than you know, Poppy. But you don’t have to be strong all the time. It’s all right to be hurt.”
Her small kindness cracks me wide open.
The tears come harder now, no longer silent but accompanied by quiet sobs that I can’t control. I press the handkerchief to my face, mortified to be crying in front of my professor but unable to stop. All the pain I’ve been holding in for days comes pouring out—the hurt, the confusion, the desperate loneliness of losing someone who was supposed to be mine.
“I really thought—” I start, then have to stop and breathe, my chest heaving. “I really thought he was it for me. That we were going to figure it out. The distance, the future, all of it. I thought if we just wanted each other enough, it would be enough.”
“Perhaps it still will be,” Professor Silvermoon says softly. “You may still figure it out.”
I shake my head, wiping at my eyes with the now-damp handkerchief. “He said we needed a break, but the way he said it—” My voice cracks. “It didn’tsound temporary.”
“People say things they don’t mean when they’re scared. And stressed. And overwhelmed.” She leans forward, her dark blue eyes reflecting the light coming through the frosted window. “Give it time. Give him time. Finals end in two days. Perhaps things will look different then.”
But I remember the look in his eyes when he said we needed a break. The finality in his voice. The way he didn’t even try to stop me when I walked away from that table in the library, my heart in pieces, my whole world spinning out from under my feet.
“Maybe,” I whisper, but the word holds no conviction.
We finish going over the ball preparations after that, the damp handkerchief clutched in my fist. I take notes mechanically, my handwriting unusually messy, nodding as Professor Silvermoon speaks and making suggestions when prompted. But my heart isn’t in it anymore.
When we’re done, I gather my things slowly. I dread the walk back to my dorm, dread the empty hours ahead of me where all I’ll be able to do is think about him.
“Poppy?” Professor Silvermoon calls as I reach the door, my hand on the cool handle.
I pause and turn back.
She’s watching me with an oddly knowing expression, something almost like a smile playing at the corners of her mouth.
“Sometimes,” she says quietly, “the things most worth having are the things we have to fight for.” She tilts her head slightly, studying me, her long silver hair slipping across her shoulder. “The universe has a way of giving us what we need,but rarely when we expect it. And sometimes... we have to meet it halfway.”
I’m not entirely sure what she means, but the gentle encouragement in her voice makes my chest feel a little less tight, like she just gave me a tiny spark of hope.
“I’m not much of a fighter,” I whisper.
“Aren’t you?” She raises an eyebrow. “You’ve been fighting since the moment you walked into my classroom as a shy, quiet first-year. And look at how far you’ve come.” She pauses, then adds softly, “Don’t stop now. Not when you’re so close to getting what you really want.”
“But I don’t know if—”
“You don’t have to know. You just have to show up.” Her smile is small. “Trust me on this.”
I want to ask what she’s seen, what she knows, but divination doesn’t work that way. She can’t just tell me the future. She can only nudge me toward it. I know that from my dreams.
“Thank you,” I say, my voice barely audible, even in the quiet classroom.
“Go rest, Miss Waverly. And remember—bravery isn’t the absence of fear. It’s doing what needs to be donedespiteit. That’s what makes you strong.”
