Chapter 5: New Life. School Environment.

"Passport please.”

Vanessa slid her passport across the counter and didn’t look up.

The immigration official barely glanced at her before turning the pages leisurely, too leisurely. Then he shifted his eyes between the photograph and her face. There were activities everywhere around her, rolling suitcases, clipped announcements, the low hum of people who had just arrived to meet someone.

“Whats your purpose of visit?” he said.

“To study.”

“For how long?”

“As long as it takes.”

That earned her a final look. Not suspicion, just mild curiosity. He stamped the passport, in what seem to be in slow motion, slid it back to her, and made a hand gesture for her to go.

The airport had this smell that is unique to hospitals…like disinfectant and burnt coffee, a strange blend that clung to her clothes as she followed the flow of bodies toward baggage claim. Screens blinked overhead in unrecognized codes and terminals. Voices rose and fell in accents she couldn't recognize…yet. Somewhere behind her, a child cried. Somewhere ahead, laughter broke out.

She was met by the city in pieces, its glass buildings mirroring a dull sky, streets more narrow than she had anticipated, voices augmented with dialects that she had yet to learn. She navigated it like she had learned to do all the months over prior, steps deliberate, shoulders back, focus outward. Her body knew what to do. Keep going. Don’t strain your eyes. Don’t stare too long.

The cab let her off at the gate of the medical school. Aged stone, contemporary glass, a calm that wasn’t trumped by the need to impress. Vanessa paid, collected her single bag and paused for a moment just to feel that she was there, physically present in a life she had opted for without seeking permission from anybody.

The air inside the admin building smelled faintly of paper and disinfectant. The receptionist didn’t look up.

“Your name please?”

“Vanessa Cole.” She replied feeling somewhat.

Keyboard clicks. A pause.

“You’re late.”

“I’m on time,” Vanessa said calmly. “I was scheduled for ten.”

The woman scowled at the screen, then sighed. “Different time zone. Happens. Fill this out.”

Forms appeared, one after another. Student ID, department confirmation, housing referral she already knew wouldn’t help. Questions that presupposed continuity, stability, a tidy backstory. Vanessa answered only what was required. No embellishment. No volunteering.

“You’re switching tracks,” the receptionist said, leafing through a page. “That’s… ambitious.”

Vanessa met her gaze. “Well, it’s necessary.”

Another pause. Then a nod, brief but respectful. “Orientation’s in Hall C. Don’t be late again.”

Vanessa turned away before the woman could ask anything else.

The campus opened up in front of her as she walked, students gathered in tiny, tightly-knit cliques, laughter she didn’t recognize, confidence she hadn’t quite acquired yet. She experienced the mild sting of loneliness, not painful, just enough to make her aware. Good. Isolation meant space. Space meant safety.

She made it to Hall C with seconds to spare.

The room was already half full. Vanessa slid into a chair toward the rear, notebook open, pen at the ready. She listened. Policies. Expectations. The magnitude of what she had signed up for settled in her chest, not heavy, but firm. This wasn’t an escape. It was a replacement. A rebuilding.

At the end of the session, everyone hustled out of the room. Then Vanessa grabbed her stuff and stood, and realized she’d misread the exit signs. She made a wrong turn into a narrow, silent hallway, the sound of her footsteps bounced off the shiny floor.

“Lost?”

The voice came from behind her.

Vanessa turned.

He was tall, thin, modestly attired with no lab coat, no apparent signs of authority. His hair was dark, and his demeanor was dispassionate, as one who is accustomed to watching rather than doing. His pocket was a badge that said Dr. Edward Hart.

“Yes,” she said without hesitation. “But temporarily."

Something like a flicker was in his eyes. Amusement, maybe. An interest reined in too soon.

“Hall C is the other way,” he said, motioning toward that direction.“This wing’s restricted.”

“I’ll remember that.”

She passed him, tightening her hold on the notebook. He did not move right away, as though reckoning with whether to say more.

“You’re new,” he said finally.

“Yes.”

“Neuroscience?”

“Yes, Medicine.”

Another flicker. This one is definitely unmistakable.

“That’s a shift.”

Vanessa paused, just long enough to acknowledge the statement. “People shift.”

She waited for a follow-up question. It didn’t come.

“Well,” he said as he stood aside, “welcome.”

“Thank you.”

They parted, the meeting disintegrating as suddenly as it had started. Vanessa didn’t look back. She didn’t need to. She’d already catalogued him, the restraint, the precision, the way he hadn’t pushed. Not everyone did.

By late afternoon, she had gotten her ID, picked up a map of the campus she didn’t need, and confirmed what she had suspected all along, that permanent housing would be her weeks, not days. The provisional lodging was a tiny studio apartment near campus, not much but clean.

Vanessa set her suitcase down by the door and then made for the center of the room. The silence was complete. Not a step overhead, no voices leaking through the walls. She exhaled slowly.

This was it.

She sat on the edge of the bed, pulled out her phone from her pocket, and looked at the screen. No missed calls. No messages. The distance had done its job well.

She didn’t miss Travis.

That realization came with startling clarity.

What she missed was the woman who had once thought the truth was enough, who believed that love was endurance, who had trusted her own reality without any need to prove it. That woman seemed as distant as the city she had crossed an ocean to come to. Vanessa lay back on the bed with her eyes on the ceiling, and the quiet sank down into her bones. Tomorrow will come fast. Classes. Expectations. A life that would take all she still had. She closed her eyes, not knowing that the man she’d stumbled upon by chance that day was in his own apartment across the hall, reading an email he didn’t expect, one that would make her temporary accommodations far less temporary than either of them anticipated. And this time, there would be no witnesses when everything changed.