Elena did not think about Mara Keller on her way home.
She was very deliberate about that.
Traffic was heavy, the late afternoon sun low and irritatingly bright as it reflected off windshields. Elena focused on the familiar route, on the small irritations she knew how to handle—red lights, an impatient driver behind her, the reminder notification chiming softly from her phone.
Dinner. Daniel. Normal.
By the time she pulled into the driveway, she had convinced herself that the afternoon had passed exactly as any other lecture day.
Inside, the house was quiet in the way she liked. Shoes neatly by the door. The faint scent of the cleaning spray she had used that morning lingering in the air. She set her bag down, slipped off her coat, and stood still for a moment longer than necessary.
Only then did the thought return.
She didn't look away.
Elena pressed her lips together.
It wasn't unusual. Students were curious. Engaged. Sometimes intense. Especially the quieter ones. Especially the ones who listened.
That was all this was.
She busied herself with small tasks—watering the plants by the window, straightening a stack of mail, rinsing a mug that hadn't been used yet. Each movement precise, purposeful.
When Daniel came home, she greeted him with a kiss to the cheek, familiar and automatic.
"Long day?" he asked, loosening his tie.
"Nothing out of the ordinary," Elena replied.
And that was true, she told herself. Mostly.
Over dinner, Daniel talked about work. A new project. A colleague's retirement. Elena listened, nodded, smiled at the right moments. She laughed when she was supposed to.
Yet her mind kept slipping—not forward, not backward—but sideways, into the memory of a lecture hall bathed in afternoon light.
The way Mara had sat so still.
The way she had asked questions that felt less like curiosity and more like testing the edges of something.
That night, Elena lay awake longer than usual.
Daniel fell asleep quickly beside her, his breathing steady, reassuring. Elena stared at the ceiling, tracing familiar cracks in the plaster, patterns she had memorized years ago.
You're imagining significance where there is none, she thought.
She turned onto her side, facing away from him.
Sleep eventually came—but it was shallow, restless.
The next lecture passed without incident.
Mara did not speak.
She sat in the same place—third row, near the window—quiet, attentive, her pen moving steadily. Elena did not seek her out.
She also did not avoid her.
That balance, Elena told herself, was professionalism.
Still, she found herself aware of when Mara arrived, of when she left, of the subtle shift in the room when her gaze lifted from her notes. Elena never met it directly.
This is what control looks like, she told herself.
After class, Elena lingered, answering questions from other students, reorganizing her desk twice. When the room finally emptied, she exhaled slowly.
Her phone buzzed.
A calendar reminder: Office Hours — Thursday, 14:00–16:00
Elena hesitated.
She had already planned to cancel them that week. A department meeting. Papers to grade. Perfectly reasonable.
Her finger hovered over the screen.
Then she locked the phone and set it aside.
I don't need to avoid my own schedule, she thought. That would be ridiculous.
And yet, the idea of sitting across from Mara again—of that steady gaze, that measured calm—made something tighten uncomfortably in her chest.
Elena gathered her things and left the classroom.
As she walked down the corridor, she caught her reflection in the glass of a display case. Composed. Professional. Entirely herself.
Still.
For the first time in years, Elena Weiss wondered—not what she felt—but how long she had gone without questioning it.
And whether that certainty had been as solid as she'd always believed.