Chapter 32 The First Fracture You Pretend Not to Feel
I didn’t leave campus immediately.
I walked the long way around the research wing, letting the cold evening air press against my cheeks until the sting felt like something I could understand. Inside the lab, Meta had returned to his notes without hesitation. Outside, I felt the echo of that choice with every step I took.
We were drifting.
Not because we wanted to—
but because he was afraid to admit he already had.
I ended up in the student courtyard, the one surrounded by too-green hedges and metal benches that burned your skin in summer and froze you in winter. I sat anyway. The air smelled like rain even though the sky was clear.
I pulled out my journal.
The Anatomy of Us: Case Entry #14
Symptom: emotional ischemia.
Cause: decreased circulation of presence.
Prognosis: pending.
I didn’t write anything more. I couldn’t. The words clogged somewhere behind my ribs, swelling and stubborn, like fluid pressing against the heart.
“Selene?”
I stiffened.
The voice wasn’t Meta’s.
Dr. Kavanagh—our research mentor—approached with a slow, measured calm, holding a stack of forms. He looked tired, but then again, everyone here always did. This place fed on exhaustion like oxygen.
“You’re out here late,” he said.
I managed a small, polite smile. “Just clearing my head.”
He studied me for a moment, the way he studied slides under a microscope—carefully, intentionally, searching for what didn’t belong. “You and Meta have been… out of sync lately.”
I blinked. “You noticed?”
He sat beside me, leaving a respectful foot of space. “In labs this intense, you notice everything.” He paused. Then, more gently: “You’re still a unit on paper. But in practice? You’re working like two people walking different hallways.”
The words hit somewhere deep. “We’re busy,” I said automatically.
“That’s not what I mean.”
He exhaled. “Meta’s good—exceptional, even. But he’s carrying himself like someone who’s trying to outrun something.”
I swallowed. “He thinks he’s falling behind.”
“Behind what?” Kavanagh asked. “He’s at the top.”
“That’s the problem,” I whispered without thinking. “He thinks the top is… fragile.”
Kavanagh looked at me with a softness I wasn’t prepared for. “And you? You feel like collateral damage?”
My throat tightened. I didn’t answer. I didn’t need to.
He stood, handing me a form. “This was meant for both of you. Our department’s nominating a student team for the national fellowship. You two were the strongest candidates.” He hesitated. “But if you’re not aligned—professionally or otherwise—they’ll choose someone else.”
My fingers closed slowly around the paper.
A fellowship like that could change everything.
For Meta.
For me.
For us.
And suddenly, the silence from earlier wasn’t just sadness. It was fear. Real, tangible fear that his distance wasn’t temporary—that it was preparation. For leaving me behind.
“Talk to him,” Kavanagh said gently. “Not as partners in the lab. As partners in life. Because one will always affect the other.”
He left before I could respond.
I sat there for a long moment, staring at the form until the words blurred.
When I finally returned to the dorm building, the hallway was quiet. The only sound was the faint hum of vending machines and the soft tap-tap of someone typing behind a closed door.
Meta’s room was at the end of the hall.
I paused outside it, hesitant, fragile in ways I hated feeling. But I raised my hand and knocked anyway.
He opened the door quickly, as if he had been pacing.
“Selene.”
My name sounded like an exhale—surprised, cautious, hopeful.
His hair was damp from a shower, a towel slung carelessly around his neck. His T-shirt clung to him, wrinkled from being pulled on too fast. He looked less tired than he had earlier, but the tension was still there, sitting just beneath the surface.
“Can we talk?” I asked.
He stepped aside. “Yeah. Of course.”
The room was dim. His desk lamp was the only source of light, casting a warm glow over scattered notes, half-finished diagrams, and open textbooks. The chaos of a mind that couldn’t stop moving.
I sat. He didn’t.
He paced once, twice, before finally stopping in front of me. “I didn’t like how we left things earlier.”
“Neither did I.”
The words were soft, but they landed between us like a weight.
His jaw worked, as if he were choosing and discarding sentences in his mind. “Selene… I’m scared.”
Not what I expected. Not even close.
“Of what?” I whispered.
“Everything.” He dragged a hand through his hair. “Falling behind. Failing. Losing my spot. Disappointing everyone. Disappointing you.”
I rose slowly. “You’re not disappointing me.”
“Then why does it feel like I’m failing us?”
His voice cracked, just barely.
The honesty punched through me.
“Because you’re carrying everything alone,” I said gently. “And pushing me out so you don’t have to admit you’re overwhelmed.”
He swallowed, throat bobbing. “I didn’t mean to make you feel like a distraction.”
“You did,” I said, without cruelty. “But I know you didn’t mean it.”
He exhaled shakily, lifting hesitant eyes to mine. “I don’t know how to balance anything right now.”
“Then let me help you.”
“You shouldn’t have to.”
“But I want to,” I whispered.
He stepped toward me. Slowly. As if approaching something fragile.
“Selene…”
I felt the space between us shrink, the tension shifting into something softer. He reached out—finally, finally—and his fingers brushed my wrist, light but deliberate.
Not flinching.
Not pulling away.
Reaching.
“I’m sorry,” he murmured. “For earlier. For all of it.”
I closed my eyes briefly, letting the warmth of his touch steady me. “Just don’t shut me out.”
“I won’t.”
The promise trembled, but it was real.
I looked up at him, at the exhaustion and longing and fear tangled together in his eyes. The boy I loved. The boy I was losing. The boy I was trying desperately to keep.
“There’s a fellowship nomination,” I said quietly. “For us. But we have to apply together. We have to be aligned.”
His breath hitched.
For a moment, something bright flickered across his expression—hope, ambition, possibility.
Then fear shadowed it.
“Selene… I don’t know if I can do it.”
“Why not?”
He shook his head. “Because if I mess up, I pull you down with me.”
“You won’t mess up. And even if you did? We’d climb back up together.”
Silence.
Then—
He stepped closer, forehead touching mine, breath warm against my lips.
“Okay,” he whispered. “We’ll do it. Together.”
Relief unfurled inside me, slow and tender.
I wrapped my arms around him.
He held me back this time.
Not out of instinct.
Not out of fear.
But out of choice.
For the first time in weeks, the quiet between us felt warm again.
But somewhere deep inside—beneath the hope, beneath the closeness—something small and trembling warned me:
This was only a temporary stitch.
Not a cure.
And someday soon, the wound would open again.