Chapter 151: Chapter 151

Talon

I glanced at him slightly. “I’m still part of it.”

“Yeah,” he said. “But not inside it the same way.” That distinction again inside versus beyond. After a moment, I said, “That was always going to happen.”

Nico looked at me. “You expected this?”

“No,” I replied. “But I didn’t avoid it either.” That’s the reality of expansion; it doesn’t ask permission, it just recalibrates everything around it. Later that night, I was in transit again, a short flight, and another internal meeting. Different city, same structure.

As I looked out the window before landing, I noticed something simple. Distance didn’t feel like separation anymore, and somewhere in that distribution, Aurelia still existed in my awareness.Not as priority disruption. Not as an emotional anchor pulling attention away from everything else. Just as a fixed point that didn’t need constant checking to remain stable.

She existed beyond her world now, and I existed beyond mine, but the connection between them didn’t rely on proximity anymore. It relied on continuity.

Aurelia

By the end of the second semester, I felt like my brain had officially stopped functioning like a normal human being; everything hurt. My eyes. My shoulders, my patience, and even my handwriting looked exhausted. I sat in the library staring at my laptop screen while Dani aggressively highlighted half a textbook beside me like she was trying to fight it physically. “I swear this semester lasted fourteen years,” she muttered.

“Minimum,” I replied without looking up.

She dropped her highlighter dramatically. “If one more professor says the words 'final assessment,' I’m walking into traffic.”

I blinked slowly. “That feels extreme.”

“I’m exhausted,” she said.

“Fair.” I said, "Honestly, everybody on campus looked dead." Not actually dead. Just academically destroyed. The kind where people stopped dressing properly halfway through finals week because nobody had the energy anymore.

There were coffee cups everywhere, students sleeping in random corners, and someone crying in a stairwell yesterday. Classic end-of-semester behavior, and somehow I was surviving it. Barely surviving that part mattered. Because when second semester started, I genuinely thought it was going to crush me.

Now I was sitting here finishing my last paper with shaking fingers and a caffeine addiction that probably needed medical attention.

Progress. My phone buzzed beside my laptop. I checked it immediately out of habit. Talon.

Landing in another hour. How bad are finals?"

I stared at the message for a second.

Then typed back.

"I forgot what sleep feels like.”

His reply came faster this time.

Good. means you’re working.”

I snorted quietly at that. Typical Talon response: no sympathy, just acknowledgment. Still, the tiny smile that hit my face happened automatically.

Dani noticed immediately. "Is that him?” she asked.

“Yeah.”

She narrowed her eyes dramatically. “Your scary businessman boyfriend communicates like a military email.”

“He’s busy,” I replied.

“He’s emotionally constipated,” she corrected. I laughed tiredly. “That too," I said. Truthfully, though, things with Talon felt… steady lately. Not intense or dramatic, just steady.

We barely saw each other during finals season. Calls got shorter, messages got slower. Sometimes we’d go almost a full day before replying because both of us were drowning in completely different worlds, and weirdly enough, it stopped bothering me.Because I understood it now, this wasn’t distance because we were falling apart. This was actual life. Busy, messy, and demanding, and we were learning how to exist inside it without constantly needing reassurance. That realization felt bigger than I expected.

Later that night, I finally submitted my second-to-last exam assignment. The second it uploaded successfully, I physically dropped my forehead onto the desk. Dani looked over. “You alive?” he asked.

“Debatable,” I mumbled into the table.

She laughed. “One more exam.”

“One more exam,” I repeated weakly. Then I lifted my head slightly and checked my phone again. Still nothing new from Talon. He was probably in another meeting or another city or another building full of people in expensive suits saying words like acquisition and expansion every five minutes.

At this point I honestly stopped trying to keep track, and strangely, that was okay too. I didn’t need constant updates anymore. I just needed consistency, and somehow he always gave me that, even in small ways.

The next morning was my final exam. The last one. The campus atmosphere felt insane. Everyone looked stressed enough to fight somebody. Some students were pacing outside buildings. People were speed-reading notes like their lives depended on it.

Dani shoved a coffee into my hand before the exam. “If we fail, we fail together,” she declared.

“That’s beautiful,” I said emotionally.

“I know," she said. We walked inside together, and for the next three hours my entire existence became writing until my wrist wanted to detach itself from my body. By the time I walked out afterward, the sun was already lower in the sky, and for a second I just stood there outside the building, staring ahead like my body genuinely didn’t know what to do now.

It was over. Second semester was done. Done. Dani suddenly grabbed my shoulders. “WE SURVIVED," she shouted.

I laughed for the first time all week. “Barely.”

“No, like actually,” she said. “You realize how hard this semester was?” I did, and weirdly enough, I also realized something else.

I had done it. Not perfectly. Not effortlessly, but I did it. On my own, that feeling sat somewhere deep in my chest as we walked back across campus. Pride is small but real. My phone buzzed before we reached the dorms. Talon calling. I answered immediately.

“Hey.”

There was a small pause before his voice came through.

“You finished.”

Not a question.

I smiled tiredly. “Yeah.”

“How’d it go?" he asked.

“I think I blacked out halfway through,” I admitted.

That got a laugh out of him.

“You passed then," he said.

“You sound very confident.”

“I know how you work,” he said simply. That hit softer than he probably intended. I sat down on a bench outside while Dani kept walking ahead to give me space. For a second neither of us said anything. Not awkward, just tired.

Then he asked, “You okay?” and honestly, that question almost got me emotional for no reason, not because something was wrong but because I was exhausted enough that kindness suddenly felt dangerous.

“I’m just tired,” I admitted quietly.

“I know,” he said.

I leaned back slightly against the bench. “What about you?”

“Still working," he said.

“Of course you are.”

“That’s usually how this functions,” he replied.

I smiled a little. Same, Talon. Still controlled, still calm. Still somehow making exhaustion sound organized. “You should sleep,” he said after a moment.

“You too," I said, and there was a pause. Then, quieter this time, he said, “You did good this semester," and that one landed because Talon never said things just to say them. If he said it, he meant it.