Chapter 04

Clara’s POV

I was in outfit number five, standing in front of my closet mirror, silently negotiating with my own reflection. Nothing felt right. The jeans that fit fine everywhere else dug in at my waist the second I sat down, and the top that actually looked decent just felt wrong for a frat house basement.

There was no version of tonight where I showed up looking like I had it together.

So I gave up. Swapped the jeans for sweatpants, the going-out top for the same soft tank I'd slept in for most of the week, and twisted my hair up into a bun that wasn't cute-messy so much as actually messy  pieces sticking out at angles no amount of hairspray would fix.

My roommate, Nadia, pushed the door open mid-text, glanced up, and stopped short. "Why are you still in pajamas?"

"I'm not going," I said, chewing the inside of my cheek.

"Rue. It's literally week one. You have to have some fun sometime."

"I don't have anything to wear."

"Borrow something of mine."

I gave her a flat look. We both knew exactly how that would end  me splitting seams she'd never forgive me for, stretching her leggings into something closer to a tarp. Hard pass.

She sighed, dramatic as ever. "You'd look fine in literally anything."

"Everyone here looks like they run marathons for fun, Nadia. I don't want to stand in a crowded basement feeling like the before picture."

She rolled her eyes but didn't push further. I turned back to my laptop and scrolled through my inbox, landing on a new message addressed to the whole class.

Everyone

Tonight's reading will be followed by a short five-question check tomorrow morning. Come prepared. Email me with questions.  Professor Vance

"Nobody's checking outfits at a frat party," Nadia said, already halfway out the door. "Half of them will be too drunk to notice what anyone's wearing. You show up, they see your face, that's it, you're golden. Come on."

I grabbed my textbook off the desk instead. "Next time. I've got a reading check tomorrow."

"Who assigns a quiz on literally the second day?"

"Professor Vance."

Her eyebrows shot up. "Wait, you have Vance? Isn't he unfairly attractive to a professor?"

"You know him?" I asked, genuinely curious, since as far as I knew she wasn't even taking a mythology class this semester.

She hesitated a beat too long before answering, opening her mouth and then closing it again. "Saw him around. Heard about him from a friend in his class." She was already backing toward the hallway. "Anyway, have fun with your homework. You're coming next time, no excuses. Bye!"

The door clicked shut, and I let my shoulders drop, exhaling. That had gone smoother than expected. She usually didn't give up on dragging me anywhere that easily.

I didn't let myself dwell on it. I sat down, cracked open the textbook, and studied straight through until close to midnight. Nadia still wasn't back, though she'd warned me she probably wouldn't be until well past two. I told myself that was just what people did in college. Stayed out. Lived a little. I wasn't sure I believed it.

I'd just shut my book and climbed onto my bed when my phone buzzed with a new email.

Rue

Have you come across this one? [link]  Rowan Vance

I bit down on a smile before I could stop myself, cheeks warming for absolutely no reason I wanted to examine too closely. He hadn't signed off as "Professor Vance" the way he had in the class-wide email earlier. Just his name. His actual, first name.

Rowan Vance.

Emailing me. After midnight.

It probably meant nothing. It was probably some standard thing professors did, sending reading suggestions to students who seemed interested. But the idea that he might've been sitting somewhere thinking about our conversation late at night did something reckless to my pulse. I pressed my legs together without meaning to, the same way I had earlier that afternoon watching him jog across the quad, breathless and flushed, right before he'd caught me staring.

I clicked the link before I could talk myself out of it. It opened with a book called Bound in Ash, focused on Hades and the myths surrounding his exile, a version of the story I hadn't come across in any of my usual reading.

I made a mental note to grab it from the library the next morning, then typed out a reply before I could second-guess it.

Professor Vance

added it to my list right now. Thanks for the recommendation. Best, Rue

I stared at the sign-off, deleted it, retyped the exact same thing, and stared at it again. Too formal? Not formal enough? He hadn't bothered being formal with me, but I didn't know what that meant, exactly, or if it meant anything at all. I hit send before I could spiral further and set the phone face-down on my stomach, staring up at the ceiling with an idiotic smile I couldn't quite shake.

Here I was  a first-year who'd skipped her first college party to lie in bed getting butterflies over a late-night email from a professor twice her age. It was a fantasy with an expiration date built right into it, but it still felt nice. Felt like the kind of attention I hadn't gotten much of anywhere else in my life.

I switched off my lamp and had just closed my eyes when the phone buzzed against my stomach again. I lifted it, angling the screen away from my face so the brightness wouldn't blind me, and went completely still.

I think you'll like it. It's one of my favorites.  Rowan

No last name this time. No title. Just Rowan.

Something in my chest did a slow, stupid flip. I hugged the phone to my chest, grinning at nothing, then made myself put it on the charger and set it face-down before I did something even more ridiculous, like reread the message another six times.

I couldn't let myself get carried away over an email. I was building an entire narrative out of nothing, and if I wasn't careful, that narrative was going to start running the show. Tomorrow, I'd thank him properly for the recommendation, pick up the book from the library, and let this whole thing quietly fizzle out into nothing more than a first-week crush brought on by too much studying and not enough sleep.

I hadn't scraped together every cent of tuition on my own, without a dime from either of my parents, just to blow it on a fantasy that could never actually go anywhere.