Chapter 6
Evelyn's POV
The car pulled up in front of my building, and I gathered my bag, fingers still resting on the zipper. Liam reached over and unclipped my seatbelt, then turned to look at me, the overhead light catching the bridge of his nose and sharpening every angle of his face.
"Professor, don't delete me when you get upstairs."
I looked out the window. There was a damp shadow on the pavement below. "I won't delete you."
"Good." His fingertip traced the edge of the steering wheel. "Though back in the lounge, you weren't nearly that decisive."
I turned to look at him. "What answer do you want?"
"The truth," he said. "Were you avoiding me all night, or were you thinking about something else?"
He always did this — laid out the options, then fixed his eyes on me and waited, as though expecting me to walk into whichever one I chose.
I looked at those blue eyes of his while the streetlights slid past the window one by one, and something in my chest grew restless.
"I'm not looking for a relationship," I said. "Not in the near future."
The words, once out, brought a surprising lightness. The car went quiet for half a second.
Liam's throat moved. Then, after a moment, he laughed. "Near future — how long is that, exactly? A week? A month? Until I graduate?"
"I didn't say there was a deadline."
"That sounds exactly like you." He lifted a hand and rubbed the back of his neck, looking at me with something between amusement and resignation. "All right, let me rephrase. Professor — can I still ask you out?"
I meant to say no. But those eyes, blue as deep water, looked at me with something open and unguarded in them, and the word wouldn't come.
I said nothing. He pressed his lips together in a quiet smile, exhaled, and reached down to the passenger footwell, pulling out a slim paper bag.
"In that case," he said, "I'd like you to have this." He held it out. "Friday evening. A movie. Nothing formal — just something to take the edge off."
I looked at the ticket visible through the opening of the bag, a flash of silver lettering in the shifting light. Something to take the edge off. Nobody asks a woman to the movies for that reason.
"I'm not going," I said.
"You won't even think about it?"
"No."
His smile faded gradually. His fingertip rested on the ticket for a moment, then he pressed the bag into my palm anyway. "I already bought it. If you won't come, throw it away."
I moved to hand it back. He laid his hand over mine and stopped me. "Don't argue with me in the car, Professor. I've already lost enough tonight."
There was nothing I could say to that.
The door lock clicked. He reached past me and pushed it open, and the cold air came in all at once, loosening something tight in my chest. I stepped out and stood on the curb, glancing back at him once.
He had his hands on the wheel, chin tilted up. "Go on."
I walked into the building. Only when I reached the corridor did I realize I was still gripping the paper bag, the corner soft and creased where I'd been holding it too hard.
I took the ticket out and stood in front of my door for a long moment, looking at it. Then I folded it in half and dropped it into the hallway trash can along with the bag.
The next morning, I had just poured my coffee when someone knocked. A man I didn't recognize was standing in the hallway holding a bunch of white tulips and a takeout bag, condensation still beading on the plastic. He said someone had paid him to bring it. I looked at the card. No name — just a single line: Don't go to class on an empty stomach.
I stared at those words for two seconds, then carried everything inside.
When I got to my office, there was another bunch on my desk, identical to the first, which prompted the teaching assistant in the next office to lean over and look three separate times. By ten o'clock, the hallway had its own quiet current of speculation — someone was apparently pursuing the most difficult professor in the Literature Department.
"Whoever it is knows this building too well to be from another school," one voice said.
"Could be someone from the hockey team," another replied, lower. "That breakfast place is right next to the training rink."
Nina came in around noon carrying a stack of forms, glanced at the flowers without breaking stride, and made a small sound of disapproval.
"Do you know who sent them?" I said.
"I don't." She set the forms down and picked up the card, scanning it with an expression that registered no particular surprise. "But if you really want to know, you could always ask that very good-looking young man by the training rink entrance."
I looked at her.
She pulled her chair closer and kept her voice low, fighting back a smile. "Don't look at me like that. I'm not saying anything. I'm just observing that the number of people who know this building well enough to do this is fairly limited. And Liam was in early this morning, in an unusually good mood. Could be a coincidence. Could be he got the address wrong."
She let that hang in the air, deliberately.
Before I could respond, footsteps came down the hallway — unhurried, distinct. My pen stopped moving. I looked up, and through the glass door I caught a familiar silhouette passing by. Liam wasn't in his team jacket; his coat was thrown over one shoulder. A young woman walked beside him, ponytail high, a folder tucked under her arm, laughing easily at something he said.
They passed my office doorway without stopping — barely a second — as though they were just going by on their way somewhere else. But Liam tilted his head slightly, and his gaze passed over the door as if he hadn't seen me at all. The woman said something, and he looked down and answered her, and the two of them walked on together.
Nina leaned back in her chair and watched me with an expression that was almost a smile. "Busy guy, isn't he?"
I didn't answer. My pen pressed down against the page and left a spreading blot of ink, and as it bloomed outward I couldn't quite tell whether the distraction was incidental or something else entirely.
I called on Liam during lecture. He was turning a page of his notes, thumb pressed against the corner, looking as though it hadn't occurred to him that I might call his name at this particular moment.
"Tell the class when a narrator begins to lose credibility."
The room went still. A few pens hovered in the air. Someone in the front row looked at him, then at me.
Liam set his pen down and stood, the chair legs scraping once against the floor.
"When she starts avoiding what she actually wants to see."
His gaze came straight across the room and held. Somewhere in the back, someone laughed — very softly, then stopped.
I tightened my grip on the chalk. White dust worked into the creases of my fingers, leaving a pale line across my palm.
"Elaborate."
"For instance," he said, unhurried, "she sees something clearly, but pretends she didn't. She cares, but insists it doesn't matter. She keeps it up until she can't even convince herself anymore. And at that point — why would anyone else believe her?"
A low, collective breath moved through the room.
I brought my gaze back to the board and turned to the next page.
"Sit down."
Liam didn't sit. He watched me until I had finished the page, then lowered himself back into his chair.
When the bell rang and the students filed out in a rush, he didn't move. I gathered my course book without looking up.
"Why are you still sitting there?"
"Waiting for you."
"I don't have time."
"You do," he said. "You just don't want to look at me right now."
I looked up.
He was leaning against the desk at the back of the room.
"Professor," he said, "when you called on me today, you were pressing down on that piece of chalk hard enough to break it. Are you angry? Did I do something?"
I tucked the handout into my folder. "You notice too much."
"You just don't hide it well enough. What are you angry about, Professor? Was it me?"
I walked out. Footsteps followed me down the hallway.
By the time I reached my office and pushed the door open, he had already come in behind me. I set my bag down and turned to face him.
"Get out."
"Why did you call on me just now?"
