The Confrontation

She waited three more days before she actually did it.

Not because she was nervous — or that’s what she told Priya, at least, who raised an eyebrow every time Rhona claimed she was “just choosing the right moment” instead of stalling.

“The right moment,” Priya repeated, unpacking her lunch across from Rhona in the library café. “It’s been three days, Rhona. How many ‘right moments’ does a hallway offer exactly?I want to know”

“I have a strategy.”

“Your strategy is avoidance with extra steps.”

“It’s called patience.”

“It’s called you’re scared.”

Rhona didn’t argue that one, mostly because she didn’t have a good comeback for it.

But that afternoon, walking out of Contracts, she saw him ahead of her in the hallway — alone, for once, not surrounded by the usual cluster of people who seemed to gravitate toward him without him doing much to earn it. It felt like the kind of opening she wasn’t going to get again anytime soon.

She caught up to him before she’d fully decided to.

“Hey.” Her voice came out steadier than she felt. “Can I ask you something?”

He turned, and up close he was more unreadable than she’d expected — not unfriendly, exactly, just carefully composed, like he’d already decided how this conversation was going to go before she’d said anything at all.

“Sure.”

“Why do you keep staring at me in class?”

If the directness caught him off guard, he didn’t show it. “I don’t know what you're talking about.”

“You do, though.” Rhona crossed her arms. “I’ve noticed it for weeks. You look, and then the second I look back, you’re suddenly very interested in your notes.”

“Maybe you’re imagining it.”

“I’m not imagining three weeks of it.”

A flicker of something crossed his face — amusement, maybe, or something closer to being caught. “Maybe I just look around the room a lot. It's a big lecture hall.”

“Convenient answer.”

“It’s the truth.”

“Is it?"

He didn’t answer right away, and for a second she thought she’d actually gotten somewhere. Then his expression settled back into that same easy composure, like a door quietly closing.

" I think you’re reading into something that isn’t there,” he said. “But if it's bothering you, I’ll be more careful about where I look.”

It wasn’t quite an apology. It wasn’t quite anything, really — just enough of an answer to end the conversation without actually resolving it.

“Fine,” Rhona said, because she didn’t know what else there was to say to that. “Forget I asked.”

“Already forgotten.”

She turned and walked away before he could see how unsatisfied that answer left her, telling herself the whole way back to her room that she'd gotten what she came for — an answer, even a flimsy one — and that should be enough.

It wasn’t.

“So?” Priya asked the second Rhona walked in, already sitting up from where she’d been sprawled across her bed. “What happened? What did he say?”

“He denied it.”

“Of course he denied it.” Priya rolled her eyes. “Men always deny it. That's like, rule one of staring at someone. What else did he say?”

“That maybe I was imagining it. That the lecture hall is big and he just looks around a lot.”

“That’s the weakest excuse I’ve ever heard.”

“I know.”

“Did he seem embarrassed at least? Like you’d caught him?”

Rhona thought about it — the flicker in his expression, gone almost as fast as it appeared. “Maybe. For a second. Then he just went back to being unbothered about the whole thing.”

“Interesting.” Priya tilted her head, studying Rhona in that way she did when she was building toward a theory. “So he’s either actually clueless, which I doubt, or he knows exactly what he’s doing and just doesn’t want to admit it.’

“Why would he not want to admit it?”

“I don't know. Maybe he likes you and doesn't want to deal with what that means. Maybe he’s got something going on already. Maybe he just likes being mysterious for the fun of it. Men are weird like that sometimes.”

“Helpful theory,” Rhona said, dropping onto her own bed. “Very scientific.”

“I do my best you know.”

Rhona stared at the ceiling for a while after that, replaying the conversation more than she wanted to admit. She’d expected either a real denial that actually convinced her, or some kind of confession. What she got instead was somewhere in between — enough to know he was hiding something, not enough to know what.

“You’re thinking about it again,” Priya said, not even looking up from her book.”

“I am not Priya.”

“You have your thinking face on. I know your thinking face by now.”

“I don’t have a thinking face.”

“You absolutely do. It’s the same face you make during exams when you’re not sure of an answer but refuse to leave it blank.”

Rhona didn’t dignify that with a response, mostly because it was accurate.

She told herself it didn’t matter. That whatever Adrian Cole was or wasn’t doing, it wasn’t worth losing sleep over.

She fell asleep eventually. But not before she found herself wondering, one more time, what exactly that flicker in his expression had meant.