CHAPTER 11

I woke up and nothing was wrong.

It felt so unfamiliar that I lay there a full minute just checking, running through the usual list out of habit — Ephraim, rent, Valerian, work — waiting for the day to hand me its first problem. Nothing came. Just morning light through the blinds and the quiet, strange sensation of a day that hadn't already gone wrong before I'd even gotten out of bed.

I didn't trust it, exactly. Some old instinct in me kept waiting for the other shoe to drop, the way it always eventually did. But for once, I let myself have the quiet anyway, instead of spending it bracing for what might come next.

I made tea I actually sat down to drink instead of gulping between tasks. I picked out clothes without rushing. Small, ordinary things that shouldn't have felt like victories, and somehow did. By the time I left for campus, the sky had that particular soft blue it gets before it fully commits to being a good day, and for once I let myself believe it might actually stay that way.

• • •

Rhydian was already at our usual table when I got to the café, two cups in front of him instead of one. He slid the second one toward me without looking up from his notes.

"I didn't order yet," I said, sliding into the seat across from him.

"I know. Vanilla, extra shot, not too hot because you always burn your tongue on the first sip otherwise." He said it like it was nothing, already turning a page. "You mentioned it once. Weeks ago."

I stared at the cup for a second longer than I needed to. Valerian had ordered for me plenty of times, but always the same thing — whatever he was having, doubled, like my preferences were an inconvenience not worth tracking separately. I couldn't remember him ever getting it right without asking, not once, in two years.

"Thank you," I said, and meant it more than the words probably let on.

"How's the Kessler paper going?" he asked, still not looking up, like he hadn't just casually proven he'd been listening to me for weeks in ways I hadn't even noticed. "You said the outline was fighting you."

"It's still fighting me."

"Send it over tonight if you want a second set of eyes. No pressure."

"Why do you keep doing that?"

He finally looked up, genuinely curious rather than defensive. "Doing what?"

"Offering things without making it a whole thing. Like it costs you nothing."

"Maybe it doesn't," he said simply. "Some things aren't supposed to be complicated."

Small things. That was what kept catching me off guard about him — not one grand gesture, just an accumulation of small, ordinary attentions, none of them performed for credit. He didn't announce that he remembered things. He just did, quietly, the way some people breathe without thinking about it.

"You didn't have to remember all that," I said.

"I didn't try very hard to forget it," he said, and went back to his notes, like the conversation wasn't worth lingering on.

I sat with that for a moment, turning it over. It occurred to me, watching him underline something in the margin, that he'd also asked twice this week about Ephraim's hospital schedule — not with pity in his voice, just practical concern, like he was quietly making sure nothing slipped through the cracks of my exhaustion. I hadn't asked him to keep track of any of it. He just had.

I thought about how differently that landed compared to Valerian, who used to ask about Ephraim only when it was convenient for him to look caring in front of other people, and forgot the details the moment the audience disappeared. Rhydian didn't have an audience right now. There was nobody to perform for across a quiet café table on an ordinary Tuesday. He just remembered things because he'd apparently decided they mattered.

It was such a small difference. It shouldn't have felt as large as it did.

• • •

Neriah found us there an hour later, dropping into the seat beside me with the particular energy of someone who'd already decided the day needed livening up.

"You're smiling," she said, narrowing her eyes at me like she'd caught me at something.

"I'm allowed to smile."

"You are. You just don't, usually. Not the real one." She glanced between me and Rhydian, who was still absorbed in his notes, oblivious or pretending to be. "When was the last time you smiled like that around Valerian?"

The question landed somewhere I wasn't ready for. I opened my mouth to answer and found, with a small, uncomfortable jolt, that I actually couldn't remember — not a specific time, not recently, maybe not in longer than I wanted to admit out loud, even to myself.

"I don't know," I said quietly.

Neriah didn't push it further. She just squeezed my hand once under the table, a small, wordless acknowledgment that she'd noticed the answer mattered more than the silence I'd given her instead. I appreciated that about her more than I usually said out loud — she knew exactly how far to push and when to simply let a thing sit unspoken, trusting I'd get there in my own time.

"Well," she said, lighter now, letting me off the hook, "keep doing whatever you're doing. It looks good on you."

"I'm not doing anything."

"Sure you're not." She grinned, glancing pointedly at the two cups on the table, at the notes Rhydian had turned toward me without either of us discussing it. "You're just accidentally glowing. Totally normal Tuesday behavior."

I didn't have a response for that either, so I just let myself keep smiling, quietly grateful nobody was asking me to explain why. Under the table, Neriah's hand found mine again, just for a second, warm and steady, before she went back to stealing fries off my plate like nothing had happened at all.

• • •

We stayed until the afternoon light started slanting gold through the windows, the three of us drifting between studying and talking about nothing important, and for a few hours I forgot to brace myself for anything. It was such a small thing, forgetting to brace. I hadn't realized how tired the bracing made me until I felt what it was like to set it down, even briefly. Neriah argued with Rhydian about some show I'd never watched, dragging me into a debate I had no business having an opinion on, and I found myself laughing — really laughing, the kind that comes from the chest instead of just the mouth — for what felt like the first time in weeks.

At some point Rhydian asked, almost offhand, whether I had far to walk home, and I mentioned the building near the east side of campus without thinking much of it.

He went still.

"Wait." He set his pen down slowly, something sharpening in his expression. "You mean you're still staying there?"

"Yeah. Why?"

"That block's been a mess for months. Unanswered maintenance requests, tenants trying to get out." He was watching me carefully now, the easy warmth from moments ago replaced by something more focused. "I didn't realize anyone reliable was still managing places over there. Who's your landlord dealing with on your end?"

"My stepmother handles all that. Rent, paperwork, all of it." I frowned, feeling something cold slide quietly under the warmth of the afternoon. "Why does that matter?"

Neriah's brow furrowed. "Wait, is that actually a bad sign?"

"It could be nothing," Rhydian said, though something in his tone didn't quite match the reassurance. "I just know that area's had problems. I'd double check that everything on your end is actually being paid the way you think it is."

I sat there for a moment, turning it over, feeling the pleasant fog of the afternoon start to lift into something sharper. Maevra had always insisted on handling it herself — one less thing for you to worry about, she'd said, more than once, with that same patient smile she used for everything. I'd never questioned it. I hadn't had the time to, and some tired part of me had simply been grateful not to have one more thing on my list.

Now, sitting there under Rhydian's careful, focused attention, I felt the first thread of doubt work its way loose.

"I need to check something," I said slowly, already reaching for my phone.

Rhydian didn't ask what. He just watched my face change, and whatever he saw there told him this wasn't nothing.