Chapter 34 A friend indeed
Asher stood beside their table, his hair damp from the drizzle outside, his gray hoodie clinging slightly to his shoulders. His eyes searched hers like he wasn’t sure he had the right to be there.
“Lila,” he said again, voice low, careful. “You weren’t answering my calls.”
Roy glanced between them, the tension clear in his face. Lila’s fork slipped from her fingers and clattered against the plate, breaking the fragile quiet around them. She stood up quickly, the chair screeching back against the floor.
“Asher,” she whispered.
Before he could say anything else, she crossed the distance between them and wrapped her arms around him, a sudden, desperate motion that caught him completely off guard. Her fingers clutched at his shirt; her voice broke.
“Do you know how scared I was?” she said, the words tumbling out between sobs. “You just left. Everyone does. Everyone leaves.”
Asher froze for half a second, then returned the hug with a steady, strong, grounding. “I’m sorry,” he murmured into her hair. “I should’ve stayed closer. I just didn’t know how to help.”
She didn’t let go right away. Her heartbeat pounded against his chest, and for the first time in days, it felt like something solid beneath her grief. When she finally stepped back, her face was blotchy and damp, but there was a flicker of color in her eyes again.
He brushed a tear from her cheek with his thumb. “You look pale,” he said softly. “You’ve been eating, right?”
Roy gave a little grin, trying to cut the tension. “I’ve been trying to make her. Maybe you’ll have better luck.”
Asher glanced at him, nodded in thanks, and gestured for Lila to sit. “Come on,” he said. “Please.”
Roy stood, slinging his bag over his shoulder. “I’ve got class. You two finish lunch. She needs someone around, so don’t let her bail.”
Lila gave him a tired smile. “Thanks, Roy.”
When he left, the silence between her and Asher felt different, it felt softer, more fragile than before. He slid into the chair beside her, close enough that his arm brushed hers when he moved.
He nudged the plate gently toward her. “Eat.”
“I’m not.”
“No arguments,” he said, voice quiet but firm. “You don’t have to eat all of it. Just try.”
There was something steady about his tone, he wasn't teasing, not scolding, just constant, like an anchor she hadn’t realized she needed. She hesitated, then finally picked up the fork and took a small bite. It barely tasted like anything, but Asher smiled anyway.
“There,” he said. “That’s progress.”
She gave him a faint look. “You’re still bad at jokes.”
“Yeah,” he said softly. “But I’m not leaving again.”
That silenced her. She stared at him, searching his expression for something like regret, guilt, maybe truth. Whatever it was, she saw enough to let herself breathe again.
After a while, she whispered, “It’s strange. Everything keeps going, classes, projects, laughter. Like the world doesn’t even care if someone's gone.”
“That’s the cruel part,” Asher said. “It doesn’t stop for anyone.”
Their eyes met again, and for a brief second, the air between them stilled with quiet understanding, shared loss, the kind that doesn’t need to be spoken.
He reached out halfway, then stopped himself, resting his hand flat on the table instead. “You’ll be okay,” he said. “Just not yet.”
She smiled faintly. “You sound like you believe that.”
“I have to,” he said. “Otherwise, what’s the point?”
They lingered for a few more minutes before leaving the cafeteria. The world outside had dimmed into a dusk haze, purple clouds hanging low over the campus roofs. The lamps flickered on, one by one, bathing the path in golden pools of light.
Asher walked beside her, hands deep in his pockets. “You sure you’ll be okay tonight?”
She nodded. “You don’t have to worry. I’ll be fine.”
He gave a small, quiet laugh. “Yeah, you always say that.”
They fell into silence again. The crunch of gravel underfoot, the soft rustle of leaves, the world felt gentler somehow. Or maybe it was just that she wasn’t walking alone.
But when they reached the dorm building, Lila stopped.
Her body froze before her mind even registered why. The air felt off. It was still like the moment before a storm, when everything held its breath.
Asher looked at her, confused. “What is it?”
She didn’t answer. Her gaze had locked on the entrance of her dorm, the ordinary, gray-painted door she’d walked through a hundred times. But now, it felt unfamiliar, like it didn’t belong to her anymore.
The yellow hallway light above flickered once, then steadied, casting long shadows over the steps. Her chest tightened.
She took one small step forward, then stopped again.
It wasn’t fear, not exactly more like her body recognized something her mind hadn’t caught up to yet. Something quiet and unseen.
Asher stepped closer, his voice low. “Lila?”
But she couldn’t speak. She just stood there, frozen her eyes fixed on that door, her breath shallow, her heart racing without reason.
For the first time in days, she wasn’t thinking about Ruby, or the funeral, or the silence. She was thinking about the feeling of faint, electric tension at the edge of things. The sense that something was waiting just beyond the threshold.
And she couldn’t decide if it was danger
or something she’d been running from all along.
Asher noticed her hesitation. “What’s wrong?”
She didn’t answer. Lila stood still, her hand cold around the strap of her bag, her eyes fixed on the gray door as if it might open on its own. Her pulse wouldn’t slow down. She felt that heavy, crawling stillness again, the one that made silence feel alive.