***
The sun climbed bold and yellow in Godbole’s towering glass face as she crept into the foyer just fifteen minutes later, Colton’s coffee scalding the fingers of her left hand. In her right, she gripped her notebook, the dot-grid pages splayed open to reveal a large hand-drawn butterfly. The previous day, Whitehall had given a lecture on the mass implications of the butterfly effect in parallel universes. Delaney had spent the majority of class transforming her notes into doodles, a lump in her throat. Now, baking in the heat of the sun-drenched lobby, she made a futile attempt to decipher what she could before class began.
She was halfway to the elevator when Colton Price’s voice barreled into her.
“Wednesday!”
A spike of panic rammed through her. She spun, not anticipating his proximity, and slammed directly into gray wool and burgundy silk. Coffee splattered, scalding the white ruffled bib of her dress. Colton reared back, similarly covered, the face of his watch winking gold in the light. For several seconds, they stood, wet and startled, and stared down at the empty cup on the floor between them.
“Oh,” she said as the murky brown deluge bled into the paper wings of her butterfly. Then, because she felt she ought to say something more, she added, “I brought you a coffee.”
“Yes,” Colton said, inspecting the damage. “I’m wearing it.”
“It’s Lane,” she sputtered out.
Those dark eyes rose to hers. “What?”
“My name. You called me Wednesday, but it’s Lane.”
He stared at her for a beat. For two. The coffee chilled against her stomach, turning her cold. “I know your name,” he said. Then, “Whitehall wants to see you in his office before class.”
An undercurrent of dread swam through her. “Me? Why?”
But he was already turning from her, picking up the fallen cup and chucking it into a nearby receptacle. She hurried after him, her pulse racing just a bit faster, supremely conscious of the too-loud click of her heels.
In the elevator, they fell back into their usual holding pattern. Colton tap, tap, tapped at the face of his watch as though it might have broken. Delaney blotted half-heartedly at her butterfly-encrypted notes. The air between them stood perfectly still.
“Ah, Ms. Meyers-Petrov,” Whitehall said, the moment she stepped inside his office. The space was cramped and cluttered—the only spot of dark she’d seen in all of stark, clinical Godbole. Delaney was struck at once by the sheer cerebralism of him, all glasses and tweed and elbow pads, insulated in his office of dark mahogany and rich emeralds. “Thanks for coming in. I’ve been eager to speak with each freshman one-on-one. How are you getting on in your classes?”
Delaney considered her less-than-favorable meeting with her philosophy professor, the scribbled gaps in her notebooks. The way she crawled into bed each night with her head ringing, both fearing the dark and dreading the dawn.
“Fine,” she lied, conscious of Colton hanging on to her every word.
Whitehall pried up a crisp manila folder and thumbed through its contents. “Your file says you’re here on scholarship.”
“I am.” She tried not to glance at Colton, with his glossy curls and his glossy shoes and his glossy watch. He’d probably paid his tuition bill in cash. He probably had a 4.0 GPA. He definitely didn’t draw butterflies in his notebooks and personify the dark and miss out on half his lectures.
At the desk, Whitehall continued to peruse her records. “You must have excelled in your exams.”
“Not exactly,” Delaney admitted. “I wasn’t allowed to finish the placement test.”
Something in what she’d said caught Whitehall’s attention. Intrigue flashed through his gaze, and he examined Delaney as though seeing her anew. “If you don’t mind my saying so, you have a very intriguing accent. I can’t quite place it. Where is it you’re from?”
Delaney’s blood iced over. Shedidmind his saying so, but she couldn’t imagine embarrassing the dean of her department by pointing it out. Clutching the thin strap of her bag, she said, “Massachusetts.”
“Ah.” Whitehall’s smile lingered. “And before that?”
Her stomach soured. Braced in the open door, Colton watched her like a shark, hands thrust into his pockets.
“Nowhere,” she said, careful to articulate in the way she’d been taught. Tongue behind her teeth. Her consonants crisp.
“Really?” Whitehall sounded unconvinced. “Petrov—that’s an interesting surname. What is it, Slavic?”
“Yes.” She cursed the wobble in her voice. “But my mom grew up in New England.”
“And you’re sure you haven’t lived anywhere else,” Whitehall prompted, as though she might be misremembering her own childhood. “What about your parents?”
“She’s deaf,” Colton bit out, with an edge that brought both sets of eyes in his direction. Delaney’s breath snared in her throat. She’d spent her whole life dancing around the word, too afraid to make anyone uneasy, too afraid to claim it for her own. In front of her, Colton didn’t look afraid. He only looked annoyed. Propping his shoulder against the frame, he said, “I forwarded you the email over the summer.”
