The corridors had begun to shift.
Andrew noticed it not in the architecture, but in the atmosphere — how groups clustered differently now, how conversations paused and resumed with unfamiliar names. Jason had arrived like a storm wrapped in silk — equal parts chaos and charm. Everyone felt it. Some resisted. Most leaned in.
Andrew watched from the periphery, as always.
He didn't hate Jason. That would've been easier. He didn't even know him well enough for that. What unsettled him was how easily Jason moved through the world — how the rules bent for him, how he took up space without ever seeming to try.
Emma noticed him too.
Of course she did.
She had begun to speak of him in fragments — casually, as if his name were no heavier than any other. But Andrew heard it in the change of her tone: a breath caught, a soft upward lilt. The way people speak when something — or someone — has started to matter more than they're ready to admit.
Andrew said nothing.
Instead, he kept showing up.
That week, he met her every morning with coffee in hand, just like always. He still walked her partway to class, still waited by the west gardens with his coat damp from dew. Sometimes she'd rush up, cheeks flushed from the cold, grateful and warm. Sometimes, she'd be distracted, her eyes elsewhere, voice hurried.
He never asked where she'd been.
One morning, they sat beneath the stone archway by the library, Emma shivering despite the layered scarves. Andrew handed her his gloves without comment. She smiled and muttered a "thank you" without quite meeting his eyes.
"Been writing much?" he asked, gently.
"A bit," she said, watching the courtyard. "Not as much as I want to."
"What about the story you mentioned? The one with the girl who runs away from the sea?"
She smiled, but faintly. "I haven't touched that in weeks."
"Maybe you're waiting to live it first."
She glanced at him, eyebrow raised. "You think she'll run?"
"I think she already has," he said, voice soft.
Emma didn't reply. The silence between them stretched, but not comfortably. Not like before.
That afternoon, Andrew saw them together.
He wasn't looking for them. It just happened — a chance turning of a corridor, a glance toward the conservatory steps. Jason stood with one foot against the stone, coat draped like a careless crown, smoke curling from a cigarette.
Emma stood close.
Not touching, not laughing — just present. But even that was different.
Andrew turned away before they saw him.
He didn't go to the café that evening. Instead, he wandered toward the river's edge. The snow had mostly melted now, revealing the dirt beneath. A few stray leaves clung to the bare trees, refusing to fall.
He sat on the old bench facing the water and let the silence speak.
There was no bitterness in him — only ache. He didn't blame Emma. He didn't blame Jason. But part of him, the small, quiet part, wondered how long someone could stay unseen before they started to vanish altogether.
He pulled out his notebook.
Another letter formed — never to be sent.
> Emma,
Today I watched you from across the square. Not in secret — just from a distance. That's where I belong now, I think. And that's alright. But I want to say this once, even if only here:
I see you. Still. Clearly. Even when your eyes are on someone else.
I hope he makes you laugh. I hope he gives you stories. I hope when the days are heavy, he lightens them. But if he doesn't — if he forgets the quiet parts of you — know that someone else remembered.
I always will.
— A.
He didn't fold this one. Just left it pressed between the pages of a book he never finished reading.
The next day, Emma didn't meet him for coffee. She left a note in the dormitory window: "Sorry — something came up. Tomorrow?" The handwriting was hers, but hurried. No flourish at the end. No smile in the ink.
Andrew nodded to himself, though no one was there to see it.
He sat in the chapel that night, no music this time. Just the stillness. The saints in the stained glass looked down like silent witnesses. The candle he lit burned low and slow.
The next morning, she came back.
Smiling. Hair slightly tousled. Tired, but radiant in that way she always was when something inside her was stirring.
Jason's name came up three times in ten minutes.
Andrew listened, nodded, smiled. Offered a dry joke when she paused, enough to make her laugh. But her mind wasn't with him. Not entirely. He saw it in the drift of her gaze, the slight shift in her shoulders.
Still, he walked her to class.
Still, he stayed.
That afternoon, she handed him back the gloves.
"You left these in my satchel," she said.
He blinked. "You kept them."
She shrugged. "They were warm."
He took them slowly, his fingers brushing hers for the briefest second.
That evening, he found Jason by the fire pits behind the dormitories, a group of students gathered around him like moths to a lantern. Jason told stories — wild ones, half-true, all confident. He spoke like someone who had never once doubted that the world owed him attention.
Andrew stayed hidden in the shadows.
He watched.
And for the first time, a flicker of resentment stirred. Not because Jason had charm — but because Andrew had tried so hard not to intrude, not to impose, and yet here was someone who barged in with smoke and swagger and was handed everything.
But the thought passed quickly.
Andrew wasn't built for anger. He was built for endurance.
He returned to the river again that night. Alone. Snow fell again — just a whisper. He let it dust his shoulders, his hair. He didn't brush it off.
The bench was colder than before. The wind sharper.
He didn't write this time.
Just sat there, quietly breaking, the way soft things break — without noise. Without warning.