Chapter 33 Equilibrium
At 4:00 PM, the gold-leafed clock on the wall ticked with the heavy finality of a gavel. The few students who had been lingering in the back rows had cleared out minutes after Nate arrived, fleeing the sudden drop in temperature that always accompanied his presence.
We were alone.
Nate sat across from me, his long legs stretched out under the small wooden table. He hadn't opened his textbook yet. Instead, he was watching me with an unnerving, predatory focus while I frantically highlighted a passage on fiscal policy. My hands were shaking. I hated that they were shaking.
"Open your book to page one-hundred and twelve," I said, my voice sounding more like a plea than a command. "We need to cover the multiplier effect if you’re going to pass the mid-term."
Nate didn't move. He leaned back, his chair creaking. "My father used to say that the multiplier effect is a myth for people who don’t understand how to exert direct pressure. He believed that if you want something to grow, you don't wait for the economy to move it. You force it."
I looked up, meeting his gaze. "Your father isn't the one grading this exam. Now, focus. If the government increases spending by—"
"My mother called me this morning," he interrupted, his voice low and smooth. "She wanted to know why I had a sudden interest in the Stone family’s financial stability. Apparently, your father has been very... vocal... about his new 'partnership' with the Salvatores."
The highlighter bled a neon-yellow stain across the page as my hand stalled. "I told you to leave them alone, Nate. I told you that card was a mistake."
"Was it a mistake?" Nate leaned forward, resting his elbows on the table. The space between us shrank until I could see the golden flecks in his dark irises. "Because Mark sounded remarkably relieved on the phone. He sounded like a man who had finally found a way to stop drowning."
"He’s not drowning," I hissed, leaning in so the security cameras wouldn't pick up my rage. "They’re just... struggling. My parents are doing the best they can. Do you have any idea how much it costs to keep a house running? My dad works his hands raw, and my mom—she’s the glue. Every cent they get from you goes toward the bills and finally catching up on the rent and the heating. They’re being responsible."
Nate’s expression didn't flicker at first, but then he tilted his head, his eyes narrowing as he scanned my face. A strange shadow crossed his face, a mixture of disbelief and a flicker of something that looked almost like pity.
"You really believe that, don't you?" he asked, his voice barely a whisper. "You think they're sitting in that apartment balancing ledgers and paying off the bank."
"Because they are," I said, my brow furrowing. "I'm the one who brings half the money home, Nate. I know where it goes."
He let out a short, dry breath that wasn't quite a laugh. He looked at me for a long, silent moment, his gaze lingering on my worn-out thrift-store sweater. "You really don't know, do you?"
I felt a chill that had nothing to do with the library's air conditioning. "Know what? What are you talking about?"
Nate’s jaw tightened before glancing at the security camera in the corner and pulled his gaze back to the textbook. The shutters came down over his eyes, leaving him cold and unreadable once more.
"Nothing," he said, flipping the page of his book with a sharp snap. "Forget it. Let's get back to the lesson. If the marginal propensity to consume is high... what happens to the slope of the aggregate demand curve?"
"Nate, wait," I said, reaching out to touch his arm. "What don't I know? If you're implying that my parents are—"
"I'm not implying anything," he snapped, jerking his arm back as if my touch burned. "I'm telling you to do your job. You're the tutor, remember? So tutor. Tell me about the slope, Mila."
I stared at him, my heart hammering a frantic, uneven rhythm. The confusion was a heavy weight in my stomach. He was hiding something.
But the wall was back up. Nate Salvatore didn't offer information for free, and he certainly wasn't going to give it to me now.
"The slope..." I started, my voice trembling as I looked down at the blur of graphs and numbers. "The slope becomes steeper. Because for every dollar of income, a larger portion is recycled back into the economy."
"Recycled," Nate repeated, his voice dark and hollow. "Exactly. It's all about where the money ends up, isn't it?"
I didn't answer. I couldn't. I just kept my head down and kept talking, while the silence between us grew heavier with every word I spoke.
The air in the library seemed to grow thin, charged with a sudden, suffocating heat. Nate hadn’t moved, but his presence felt like it was expanding, crowding into my personal space. He reached out, his long, blunt-tipped fingers tracing the edge of my textbook, slowly sliding it aside until there was nothing between us but the scratched oak of the table.
"You're shaking again, Mila," he murmured.
His voice had dropped to a low, velvety register that made the fine hairs on my arms stand up. He didn't look at the book; he looked at my mouth, then back up to my eyes. The intensity of it was dizzying. I felt like a bird pinned under a hawk’s shadow—terrified, yet unable to look away.
He stood up slowly, the movement fluid and prowling. He didn't walk away; he moved around the table until he was standing directly over me. I could smell his cologne and it made my head swim. He leaned down, placing one hand on the back of my chair and the other on the table.
The heat radiating from his body was an assault on my senses. I could feel the thrum of his pulse, see the slight tension in his jaw. My breath hitched, caught in a throat that had gone suddenly dry. I should have pushed him away. I should have gathered my things and ran. Instead, I sat there, paralyzed by the sheer, magnetic pull of him.
"You spend so much time protecting everyone else," he whispered, his face so close I could feel the warmth of his breath against my skin. "But who's protecting you, Mila? From me? From them?"
His gaze was molten. For one heartbeat, the hatred between us felt like it was shifting into something much more dangerous—a desperate electricity that made me want to lean into him and strike him all at once.
Then, just as quickly, he pulled back. He straightened his shirt, his expression snapping back into that cold, untouchable mask.
"We’re done for today," he said, his voice flat as if the last minute hadn't happened.
He walked away without looking back, leaving me alone in the echoing silence of the library.