Clara's arms were crossed, her eyes sharp as steel as she stood at the foot of my bed. "You're not fine, Amelia. Stop saying it. You're pale, you're exhausted, and you've been sick almost every morning for weeks. I'm not letting you brush it off anymore."
I groaned and rolled onto my side, pulling the blanket tighter around me. "It's just stress. Midterms, projects, his—" I stopped myself before saying his class. The last thing I needed was Clara digging into what she could never know.
"Stress doesn't make you almost faint in the middle of a lecture," she snapped, her tone gentler but unyielding. "You're going to the hospital tomorrow. I'll go with you."
I swallowed, my throat tight. A hundred excuses crowded my tongue, but Clara wasn't someone I could push aside. She was stubborn, fierce, and frustratingly right.
Still, my chest ached for another reason entirely. Not my nausea. Not my dizziness. Him.
Alexander.
Five weeks of silence. Five weeks of walking into his classroom only to be met with his cold stare sweeping past me as though I didn't exist. Five weeks of carrying a secret in my heart while he pretended the night we shared had never happened.
It was cruel.
It was unbearable.
And yet, part of me wondered if I deserved it.
"Maybe," I whispered, "he doesn't even notice."
Clara frowned. "Who?"
"No one," I muttered quickly, sitting up and forcing a smile. "You're right. I'll go tomorrow. Happy?"
Clara's expression softened, but her eyes still burned with suspicion. "Relieved," she said firmly.
I nodded, but inside, I felt hollow.
Tomorrow, I would face the truth about what was wrong with me. Tonight, though, I only wanted one thing—to understand why he was doing this to me.
The stack of assignments on my desk blurred as I stared at the same paragraph for the tenth time. Numbers and words swam before my eyes, meaningless against the storm raging in my chest.
I had thought distance would be easier. That if I buried myself in work, if I forced myself to look through her instead of at her, I could pretend Amelia Hayes hadn't happened.
But she had.
And I couldn't forget.
A sharp knock on my door startled me. Two students stumbled in, mid-laughter.
"Professor Carter, sorry—we just wanted to drop off the project forms," one said breathlessly, setting a folder on my desk. "Can you believe Hayes nearly fainted in class again? She looks awful lately."
My hand froze on my pen.
"What?" I asked sharply, too quickly.
The student blinked. "Amelia Hayes. She's sick or something. Everyone's noticed."
A strange heat burned in my chest. I forced my jaw to relax, nodding curtly. "I'll… make a note. Thank you."
When they left, silence fell heavy again.
I gripped the pen so hard it cracked.
She was sick. Pale. Struggling. And I had seen it, hadn't I? The way her hand trembled when she turned a page, the way her face drained of color halfway through class. I had noticed every detail—because I always noticed her.
And still, I had said nothing.
I told myself it was mercy. That keeping my distance was protection. But the truth clawed at me.
I wasn't protecting her.
I was protecting myself.
The library was closing early because of the storm, the lamps flickering as Clara and I gathered our things. My head ached, and my stomach twisted again.
"You're seeing a doctor tomorrow," Clara reminded me for the tenth time, slipping her arm through mine.
"I know," I murmured, trying to steady myself.
We stepped out into the damp night air. Students hurried across campus, umbrellas bobbing like dark flowers. I wrapped my cardigan tighter around me, wishing the knot in my chest would loosen.
That's when I heard it.
A laugh—low, feminine, effortless.
I turned my head instinctively, and my breath caught.
Alexander.
He stood under one of the tall lamps outside the faculty building, his dark suit immaculate despite the drizzle. But he wasn't alone.
A woman clung to his arm, her head tilted toward him, her lips curved in a perfect smile. She was strikingly beautiful—tall, elegant, the kind of polished grace that belonged on the cover of a magazine. Her hand rested possessively on his sleeve, her laughter ringing out like bells in the rain.
And Alexander… he didn't pull away.
His face was unreadable, as always, but he let her cling to him. He let her lean close, whisper something in his ear.
I stopped walking, my legs refusing to move. Clara nearly collided with me. "Amelia? What—"
But I couldn't answer. My chest squeezed painfully, the sound of blood rushing in my ears drowning everything else.
It shouldn't matter. He wasn't mine. He never had been. But seeing him there, letting her touch him, broke something inside me I hadn't realized was still whole.
Clara followed my gaze, her lips parting in shock. "Is that…?"
I swallowed hard, my throat tight. "His fiancée," I whispered.
The word tasted like poison.
Clara's hand tightened around mine, but I barely felt it. My vision blurred, and for a moment, I thought I might collapse right there on the wet pavement.
He already belonged to someone else.
And tomorrow, when the doctor confirmed what I already feared, I would carry something of his that he could never know.
Her laugh grated against me, though I forced myself to endure it. My family expected this. The world expected this. She was the perfect match on paper—beautiful, wealthy, polished.
But my mind wasn't with her.
It was across the courtyard.
For one fleeting seco
nd, I thought I saw movement—a flash of dark eyes, a familiar silhouette in the rain.
I turned, but the space was empty.
Empty, except for the hollow ache in my chest.