Page 115 of My Brother’s Best Friends Entanglement

Rhys:

I'll come get you. I'll drive us in together.

My reflex is to tell him there's no need, I have my own car, I've been cleared to drive, I do not need chauffeuring, but the protest doesn't actually make it to my thumbs.

Alexia:

Thank you. I'll be waiting.

Twenty minutes later I'm sitting on the edge of my bed, dressed and ready, bag packed, when Zachary appears in the doorway jingling his car keys.

“Ready?” he asks with a smile.

“Oh, Rhys is taking me in, actually. It's more convenient, it'll save you the drive.”

“He is?” Zachary frowns, a little confused. “He asked me to take you.”

The bottom drops out of my chest but I fight not to show it. There's probably a perfectly reasonable explanation. “Oh. Must've got my wires crossed. No worries, I'll just⁠—”

“I've got you,” he says.

Marcus is waiting by the front door when I come out, holding up a giant insulated bag. “Lunch. And there's a muesli bar in there for if you get light-headed, and an electrolyte drink and⁠—”

“A ten-course meal?” I joke, eyeing the sheer size of the bag.

Zachary scoffs, takes the bag, and carries it out to the car for me.

Craig is worse than I'd prepared myself for.

It starts small, a comment when I mix up a date on the assignment brief, benign enough that half the class laughs, including me. Then it happens again when I mix up two oft-confused terms, and again when a student asks a genuinely reasonable question and I take half a second too long to answer it, only because I'm thinking of the best way to explain it. By the third snide remark, one of the students says, quiet but firm, “Hey, it's cool, everyone loses their words sometimes.”

Craig turns on her instead. “If you're planning on taking too long to answer simple questions, don't come crying to me when you fail.”

A couple of students turn to look at me, waiting, and I watch Craig watch them watch me, and then, like flicking a switch, the charm slides back over his face, easy and warm. I try to smooth it over for the sake of the class, and he does his best not to interact with me at all.

I try to catch him after. He shuts me down before I've finished the sentence.

“What, you going to send your three bodyguards after me for speaking the truth?” It comes out light, like a joke between colleagues, already walking away. “Didn't realise professional feedback was a crime now.”

I don't have a response fast enough. He's gone before I find one.

But it leaves me in a mood, a dark cloud hovering over me.

All morning I look forward to my standing appointment with Rhys, but when the calendar notification pops up cancelling it, no replacement time offered, I read it three times because it just doesn't compute. Rhys doesn't cancel things. Rhys is aggressively, constitutionally reliable. I sit there in my office and feel something in my chest quietly deflate. I debate texting to ask if something's wrong, considering that's twice he's cancelled on me today, but then Professor Pollack comes in to check on me and I let it go.

By the time I make it to the courtyard with the lunch Marcus packed, my head's started up that low, insistent throb that means I've pushed harder than advised. I'd made a point of going outside for fresh air, but the noise is quickly proving to be way too stimulating. And when my phone buzzes, it's like a taser to the brain.

I grab it, hoping it's from Rhys with an explanation. And quickly regret it. It's from my landlord in Sydney. He's raising the rent, effective next lease renewal, after I'm set to return following my three-month placement in Adelaide. Unless I want to move out by the end of the month, in which case he's got someone lined up and he'll waive the break clause.

I sit with the notice, Marcus's lunch forgotten. I've always meant to go back, and it's never once occurred to me that I might not actually want to go back.

But now...

It's too soon to make this decision. I'm not ready. I pick up the phone to call Mum. If nothing else she'll remind me to breathe and tell me that whatever I decide, she'll support me.

But when I pick up my phone, I see another email waiting for me.

I should just ignore it, put it away, deal with one thing at a time.