Chapter 2

Ian headed out at 6:45 am.

He even put on a baseball cap. Right before leaving, he stood in front of the hallway mirror for three seconds, then yanked the brim a little lower.

He cursed himself under his breath. He was just dropping off a hard drive, not breaking into a bank. Emily had already cleared things with her lab mates—he just needed to show up, pick up the hard drive, and head straight to the humanities building.

Somehow, he'd ended up bringing a thermal flask along. Inside it was pork and parsnip soup he'd made that morning. It was supposed to be his own lunch, but there was an extra bowl's worth in the pot. Throwing it out felt wasteful, so he'd poured it into the flask.

It wasn't like he'd made it especially for anyone. At least, that was what he told himself.

At 7:45 am, Ian stood outside the humanities building. He hadn't been here in three years.

The building was still the same, but the gray-white walls looked more worn than he remembered. The bulletin board by the entrance had a new pane of glass and was plastered with this semester's course schedules and lecture posters.

He looked down at his phone and texted Emily. "I'm here. Come down and get it."

She only replied a minute later. "Ian! My advisor just moved our group meeting up! I'm stuck! Can you bring it up? Third floor, Room 312!"

Ian stared at the message. His thumb hovered over the screen, frozen.

Third floor. Room 312.

He took a breath, steadied himself, and pushed open the main door. He headed upstairs past the second floor and arrived on the third floor. After a left turn at the end of the hallway, he spotted Room 312's plaque hanging over the doorframe.

The metal door was shut. A narrow, horizontal window with metal blinds was set into it.

Ian stepped up to the door and lifted his hand to knock. Before his knuckles even touched the metal, a voice cut through the door.

"…This is the data model you spent a whole week on?"

Ian's raised hand stopped midair. The voice was clear, cool, and razor-sharp.

"You can't even manage a proper logical loop. Did you sleepwalk your way through all four years of undergrad, Emily?"

It was her. Cynthia.

He knew that voice. He'd heard it across countless nights. Her voice when she leaned on his shoulder and read him her first draft; her voice when she was furious that he'd scored badly in calculus; her voice at 2:00 am, telling him not to sleep yet and to help her check if her argument tracked.

But he'd never heard it like this—full of absolute authority, hard and unyielding. It was like a wall shutting him out.

Compelled by something he couldn't name, he leaned toward the slit between the blinds. The gaps were barely half an inch wide but just enough to glimpse the room inside.

A woman in white stood with her back to the door. She had a laser pointer in her right hand, and it was aimed at the packed graphs and charts on the projection screen.

Her back was straight, shoulder blades pressing clear, lean lines through the fabric. Her hair was pulled into a low ponytail, the ends resting on her left shoulder.

She was much thinner than before.

The Cynthia in his memory hadn't been like this. She'd always been slim, but her cheekbones hadn't stuck out so sharply, and her chin hadn't been this pointed.

Emily sat in the front row with her head down and her face flushed. She was too nervous to even spin the pen in her hand.

Cynthia lowered the laser pointer and flipped to the next slide. Her tone didn't soften at all. "Redo the entire data-cleaning pipeline from scratch. I want it on my desk by next Wednesday. If you can't deliver, don't bother coming back."

The air in the room seemed to freeze.

Ian took a step back.

Cynthia wouldn't look back. She was a rising star in her field now and one of the youngest professors with her own grad students. She was at the top of the social pyramid.

He looked down at himself. A hoodie, cargo pants, and sneakers dotted with dried cement… He had to be on-site at a construction project that afternoon to check on a remodel, so he'd just thrown on his work clothes when he left the house.

When they'd broken up three years ago, at least he'd still been a college student, still sharing the same campus with her. Even then, they'd barely managed to exist in the same world.

Now, he didn't have that flimsy illusion to hide behind.

Ian backed up until his shoulders touched the hallway wall. He was about to text Emily to tell her to come out and get the hard drive when a guy in glasses came around the corner with an armful of books and almost ran into him.

"Sorry… Oh, hey. Are you looking for someone?" the guy asked.

Ian froze for half a second, then shoved the hard drive and the flask into the guy's arms.

Talking twice as fast as he normally did, he said, "I'm Emily Carrigan's brother. Could you give these to her? The hard drive is what she needs and the soup… Whoever wants it can have it."

Before the guy could get another word out, Ian had already turned and walked away in a hurry, looking somewhat desperate from behind.

He never looked back, so he didn't see Cynthia suddenly stop mid-sentence inside Room 312 the very second he turned away. She tilted her head just a fraction and glanced toward the door.

Outside the blinds, in the hallway, all that remained was a disappearing figure. He wore a gray hoodie and a baseball cap, and he was quickly striding away. That silhouette lingered in her field of vision for less than a second before it turned the corner into the stairwell.

Cynthia stared at the empty hallway for two full seconds, her fingers tightening around the laser pointer without her realizing.

"Professor Lynch?" Lauren White, one of her grad students, called softly.

"…Let's continue."

Cynthia turned back and flipped to the next slide, her expression neutral.

…

When the group meeting finally ended, Emily slumped in her chair like her soul had left her body.

Her junior, Brandon Green, pushed his glasses up and handed over the hard drive and the flask. "Your brother dropped this off. There's soup, too."

Emily took the hard drive and silently cursed herself. Then, she glanced at the flask before twisting the lid open. The rich aroma of pork and parsnip soup drifted out.

"And where… is my brother?"

"He left. Said he had something at work."

Emily sighed and set the flask on the table. Out of the corner of her eye, she caught Cynthia packing up her things. The latter looked awful. Her face and lips were pale, and her left hand kept drifting to her stomach, pressing it lightly.

Emily stared at the flask for a couple of seconds, her brain running an internal cage match.

Oh, screw it.

She picked up the flask and walked over to Cynthia, holding it up near her own face like it was a shield. "P-Professor, my brother made this soup this morning. It's good for your stomach. Would you… like some?"

She regretted everything the second the words left her mouth. Her legs locked, ready to bolt at any moment.

Cynthia stopped what she was doing and glanced down at the flask, then up at Emily. "No."

"Oh, okay. Sorry to bother—" Emily had just started to retreat when a sharp cramp shot through Cynthia's stomach.

The pain made her brows crease, and her right hand shot out to brace against the table. Emily froze.

Cynthia closed her eyes for a moment before holding out her hand. "Give it to me."

Emily hurriedly passed her the flask.

Cynthia unscrewed the inner lid, and a light, clean fragrance floated up. She didn't smell garlic.

It was pork and parsnip soup without garlic or onions. The broth was clear, with just a thin sheen of oil on top.

She picked up the spoon, scooped up a spoonful, and took a sip. The temperature was perfect—neither too hot nor too cold. The parsnips had been simmered until they practically melted on her tongue, and all the flavor of the pork had sunk into the broth. It was rich and clean, without any unnecessary spice getting in the way.

Out of everyone she knew, there was only one person who always cooked and made soup without garlic. Because she'd mentioned to him that garlic made her nauseous. She'd said it only once.

And that man had vanished from her world without a trace three years ago.

"The soup… is really good." Cynthia lifted her head and forced a grimace at the thoroughly petrified Emily. "Thank you. I'll finish it in my office."