She looks away. The muscle in her jaw tightens. She's doing the thing she does when she's decided not to say something — making herself very still, very small, waiting for me to get bored and leave.
I don't leave.
"What do you know, Nessa?"
"Nothing."
"What did he tell you?"
Her eyes cut back to me, sharp and sudden. "Don't."
"I need to know what—"
"I said don't." Her voice cracks on it, just barely. She pulls the sleeves of her hoodie down over her hands. "You want to talk about what I know? Fine. Let's talk about what I know." She tilts her head, something shifting in her expression — the stillness becoming something more. "I know that Beck has been spending a lot of time with Cody's girlfriend."
The air in the room changes.
"I saw them," she continues, watching my face now. "Outside the IMA. They looked pretty comfortable together for two people who had just met."
"That's not what we're talking about."
"Oh." She pulls one earbud out of her hoodie pocket and turns it between her fingers. "She's pretty, Theo. Really pretty. The kind of pretty that makes people do stupid things." A beat. "Or maybe Beck's just doing what you told him to."
"Nessa—"
"I'm tired." She puts the earbud in. "Close the door on your way out."
I stand. The chair scrapes back. I look at her for a moment — small in the big bed, deliberately making herself smaller, using the one piece of information she knew would redirect me.
She learned that from me.
I leave and pull the door shut behind me.
In the hallway, I stand still for a moment, working through it. Nessa knows more than she's said. She's been protecting something — or protecting me — and whatever Cody told her before everything went sideways is still sitting inside her like a splinter she won't let anyone near.
And Beckett.
Outside the IMA.
I pull out my phone and stare at his name for a long moment.
Then I put it back in my pocket and walk downstairs, because whatever Beckett is doing, I already told him not to get attached.
Whether he listened is a different problem.
One I'll deal with when I have to.
Thursday evening, I sit at my desk with my laptop open, pulling up the university's student portal.
I already have her schedule. Already know her patterns. Already understand the rhythms of her day.
Political Theory: Monday, Wednesday, Friday at 10 AM.
Comparative Government: Tuesday, Thursday at 2 PM.
She studies in the library most afternoons. Third floor, near the political science section, usually in one of the private study carrels by the window.
Predictable.
