Chapter 26—Reunion

Elara's POV

I saw him before he saw me.

He walked into the lecture hall during second period with his bag over one shoulder and that settled energy he carried everywhere, and my heart did something completely involuntary before my brain had a chance to weigh in on the matter.

Three days of an empty seat and unanswered messages and I had been telling myself I was handling it fine, and then he walked through that door and I realised I had not been handling it fine at all, I had just been very busy pretending.

I looked back down at my notes immediately and told myself to be normal about this, which lasted approximately four seconds before I looked up again.

He had found his seat and he was already looking at me.

I held his gaze for one moment and felt something loosen in my chest that had been wound tight for three days, and then Professor Ken called the class to attention and I made myself face forward and stay there for the rest of the hour, which was considerably harder than it should have been.

After class he was waiting in the corridor outside, leaning against the wall with his hands in his pockets, and the moment I came through the door he fell into step beside me without a word, and we walked together through the main corridor past the noticeboard and the student common room and then he turned down the arts wing, quieter at this hour with most students heading in the opposite direction toward the cafeteria, and stopped at the far end near the last classroom where the corridor ended and the noise of the rest of the school became something distant and manageable.

He turned to face me.

"You are annoyed," he said.

"I am not annoyed."

"You have the face."

"I do not have a face," I said, and I heard myself sigh. "I was worried there is a difference."

Something shifted in his expression, softer than his usual calm. "Family matters," he said. "Something came up within the pack that needed my attention and it took longer than I expected."

I looked at him. "You could have texted."

"I know i should have, i am sorry."

The apology landed simply and without performance, the way everything from him landed, and I felt the tight thing in my chest loosen a little further.

"Three days, Ravin. Your seat was just sitting there empty and I did not know if something had happened to you or if you had just decided to stop coming or what."

"I was not going to stop coming," he said, and the certainty in his voice was immediate and quiet and left no room for doubt.

I looked at him for a moment. "I missed you," and I heard the slight surprise in my own voice, like the words had come out more honestly than I had intended them to, more than I expected to. Which is a bit embarrassing considering it was only three days."

"Three days is not nothing," he said.

"No," I agreed. "It is not."

He reached out and tucked a strand of hair behind my ear, his fingers warm against my cheek, and I let myself lean into it slightly in a way I would not have done a month ago, and the corridor was quiet around us and the afternoon light was coming through the window at the far end in long pale strips and nobody was watching and it felt like exactly the kind of moment that did not need anything added to it.

"Tell me about the family matter," I said.

"Later," he said. "Right now I just want to be here."

I looked up at him. "That is very unlike you. You usually deflect with considerably more content."

"I am working on it," he said, and the corner of his mouth moved in that quiet way that still did things to me, and I felt the warmth of having him back settle through me properly for the first time since Tuesday.

"I have questions about where you go, about the things you do not tell me. I am not pushing tonight but I want you to know that I notice and I think about it and eventually I am going to ask."

He looked at me steadily. "I know and when you ask I will answer."

"Promise?"

"Yes," he said simply, and I believed him, and that was the part that got me more than anything else, the fact that I believed him without needing more than the single word.

The arts corridor was completely empty now, the last few students having cleared out while we were talking, and the quiet around us had the particular quality of a space that belonged to just the two of us for however long we chose to stay in it.

Ravin stepped closer and I tilted my face up and he kissed me, and it was the kind of kiss that happened after three days of absence and a conversation that had cleared something between them, warm and deep and with nothing held back, his hand coming up to cup the side of my face and mine finding the front of his jacket and holding on the way I always did, and the three days of quiet worry I had been carrying dissolved completely in the space of it.

Neither of us pulled away for a long time, the arts corridor quiet and empty around us, the rest of the school carrying on somewhere beyond it without us, and when we finally did pull apart we stayed close, his forehead resting briefly against mine, and I kept my eyes closed for a moment longer because opening them would mean the moment was officially over and I was not ready for that yet.

When I did open them he was looking at me with that expression, the warm steady one that still made it hard to think clearly, and neither of us said anything because there was nothing that needed saying.

Neither of us wanted to part and for a little while, we did not have to.