If I walk in there, this stops being a reaction and becomes a choice.
And choices have consequences.
For her, too.
My phone buzzes again in my pocket. I don’t check it. I already know what it says.
She straightens, stretches her neck once, and turns—finally registering me through the glass.
Our eyes meet.
No smile. No surprise. Just assessment.
My pulse kicks anyway. Like she hooked her fingers into my throat and decided she likes the grip.
Good.
I push inside.
The door clicks shut behind me, sealing the noise out.
Her gaze flicks once—my shoulders, my face—and then she stills like she’s bracing for impact.
She doesn’t soften. Of course she doesn’t.
That’s part of why I’m here. That’s part of the problem.
I say her name. “Barnes.”
OceanofPDF.com
Chapter 10
Gio
She holds steady. Her eyes stay on the page at first. Her pencil keeps moving—precise, relentless—the graphite whispering across paper like my voice slides past her as background noise. The refusal is deliberate. First line of defense.
“You’re loud when you don’t mean to be,” she says, eyes still on the page.
“I came to get to the point.”
That does it. She stills just long enough for the point to land, then lifts her head. Her gaze snaps to mine—sharp, assessing. No surprise. No relief. Just calculation, like she’s already slotting me into a column she doesn’t like and deciding how much damage I’m allowed to do there.
“Then you should probably get to it,” she says. “People are staring.”
The lights hum overhead, too bright, too exposed. I glance toward the glass wall. Late enough now that the hall is alive—class traffic, backpacks, loud shoes, movement that turns any pause into an audience. Two students slow as they pass, phones hovering at chest height like they’re pretending to browse their screens instead of recording.
Curiosity dressed up as innocence.
I keep my body open by the glass, refusing to shield her. The sightline stays clean. Let them see it. Let them decide what they want.
“Good,” I say. “Means it lands.”
Her mouth tightens. Calculation. “To you.”
She sets her pencil down carefully—too carefully. Controlled, but tension threads through it, like she’s locking something in place before it spills.
“You’ve been circling since yesterday,” she adds. “If you’re here to apologize for something, don’t.”
