Five weeks. That's how long it had been since the gala. Since his lips had claimed mine. Since I had surrendered to the pull I had sworn I could resist.
And now it was as though none of it had happened.
Professor Alexander Carter stood at the front of the lecture hall, his voice steady, his words sharp as ever. He wrote formula after formula across the board with his precise, unshakable hand. To everyone else, he was exactly the same.
But to me, every second was torture.
He didn't look at me. Not once.
I sat in my usual seat in the third row, notebook open, pen idle. I watched him like I always did, waiting, hoping for even the briefest flicker of recognition. But his eyes swept over the class as though I didn't exist.
The night we shared—my first taste of something reckless and dangerous—was locked away behind his fortress walls, erased by his silence.
He was pretending it never happened.
My stomach twisted, not just with hurt, but with the constant unease that had followed me for days. I felt… wrong. My body betrayed me in small ways—waves of nausea in the mornings, headaches that came and went, exhaustion that pressed like weights on my shoulders.
I told myself it was stress. The exams. The endless pressure. But deep down, a whisper nagged at me, a fear I couldn't name.
When the lecture ended, chairs scraped and chatter filled the air. I lingered again, clutching my notebook, waiting. Hoping.
"Professor—"
He didn't even glance at me. "Class is dismissed, Miss Hayes."
His tone was cool, professional, final.
The wall between us grew taller, thicker, and I was left staring at him, my heart breaking silently.
I felt her gaze again. I always did.
Amelia Hayes had a way of looking at me that burned, as though she could see through every wall I had built. I told myself I could withstand it. That if I ignored her long enough, it would fade.
But every time her dark eyes locked on me, my resolve faltered.
Five weeks. Five weeks of silence. Five weeks of pretending. And every second of it tore at me.
I remembered the curve of her lips beneath mine, the fire of her defiance melting into surrender. I remembered her voice, whispering my name—Alexander—like a prayer.
And I remembered waking alone.
She had left me before the dawn, leaving nothing behind but the echo of her absence.
Maybe it should have made this easier. Maybe I should have been grateful she had walked away first. But instead, it haunted me.
I forced myself to look past her in class, to bury her with equations and lectures. Because if I didn't, if I let myself acknowledge her, I wouldn't stop.
And I couldn't let that happen.
So I avoided her. For her sake. For mine.
Even if it killed me.
"You're pale again."
Clara's voice cut through my thoughts as we sat together in the campus café. My roommate's sharp eyes narrowed as she pushed a glass of juice toward me. "You've barely eaten all week."
I forced a smile. "I'm fine. Just tired."
She raised a brow. "Tired doesn't make you run out of class like your stomach's on fire. Spill it, Amelia. What's going on?"
Heat rose to my cheeks. I couldn't tell her the truth—not about him, not about that night. But the worry in her eyes made my chest ache.
"I… don't know," I admitted softly. "I feel sick in the mornings. And sometimes during class. But it's nothing serious."
Clara leaned back, arms crossed. "You should see a doctor. Stress only explains so much."
I shook my head quickly. "Later. After exams."
She didn't look convinced, but she let it drop.
I pressed a hand against my stomach, a strange chill running through me. Something was happening to me—I could feel it. But the thought of naming it, of facing what it might mean, terrified me.
And worse… the thought of facing him terrified me even more.
The rain tapped against my office window, steady and relentless. I buried myself in grading, in anything that would distract me.
But her face appeared in every page.
I thought keeping my distance would free us both. Instead, it chained me tighter. I heard her voice in every silence, saw her shadow in every hallway.
I clenched my pen, forcing my hand to keep moving. But the truth pressed heavier than the storm outside.
Avoiding her didn't erase
what I felt. It only proved how deep it ran.
And no matter how far I pushed her away, a part of me already knew—I had lost.
.