Chapter 4 Proximity

No one made me go.

That was what made it worse.

I had six good reasons to turn around before I reached the study room at the end of the second-floor hallway. Unfortunately, none of them were stronger than my bad judgment.

My bag was clutched against my side. My pulse was acting like it had personal problems.

This is tutoring, I told myself.

Academics. Temporary. Totally normal.

Which would have been more convincing if I didn’t feel like I was on my way to make a terrible decision in perfect school uniform.

The study room sat quiet and half-hidden beside the library annex.

I stopped outside the door and stared at the thin strip of light beneath it.

I could still leave.

That was the part I hated most.

No one was forcing me.

I could turn around, go back to the dorm, fake a headache, and dedicate the rest of my life to avoidance.

Instead, I stood there like someone about to ruin her own peace on purpose.

Nothing about this felt optional.

Nothing about him ever did.

I exhaled once, then pushed the door open anyway.

The room was too small for good decisions.

One table. Two chairs. A whiteboard. Shelves full of untouched reference books.

The door clicked shut behind me, and suddenly the air felt thinner.

Isaac was already there.

He sat at one side of the table, calm and still, like being alone in a room with him was not the kind of thing that should come with a warning label.

He looked up when I walked in.

No smile. No greeting. Just that steady look that made silence feel less like silence and more like pressure.

I set my bag down and pulled out my notebook.

“This room is too small,” I muttered.

“You came in anyway,” he said. That was annoyingly true.

“It’s called obligation.”

“Is that what this is?”

I looked at him and instantly wished I hadn’t. He looked too composed. Too aware. Like he already knew this was not going to stay academic for long.

I sat down across from him.

“Let’s just get this over with.”

“Sure,” he said.

He sounded like he didn’t believe me.

The problem was, neither did I.

I opened my notebook and turned it toward him.

“If we’re doing this,” I said, “then we’re actually doing this.”

He glanced at the page. “You say that like this is painful.”

“You asked me to tutor you in a room the size of a bad idea. So yes.”

Something in his expression almost shifted. I pointed at the notes.

“Your problem isn’t the material. It’s that you skip steps because you assume you’ll still end up right.”

“That sounds like a compliment.”

“It absolutely isn’t.”

He went quiet, and for one hopeful second, I thought he was finally paying attention.

Then I looked up. He wasn’t looking at the notebook.

He was watching me.

Not casually. Not vaguely. Just fully, like my face was somehow more interesting than the thing I was explaining.

My stomach dropped in the most irritating way possible.

“You’re not paying attention.”

“I am.”

“To the lesson?” A beat passed. Then he said, 

“You talk differently when you’re explaining something.”

I stared at him. “That is not relevant.”

“It is to me.”

That was a terrible answer.

I looked back at the notebook because eye contact suddenly felt unsafe.

“Well, maybe try being interested in the actual content.”

“I am interested,” he said.

No, he wasn’t.

That was the problem.

I reached for my pen at the same time he reached for the notebook.

Our hands stopped just short of touching.

The pause hit me instantly, sharp and stupid and completely out of proportion.

I went still. So did he.

The room seemed to hold its breath with us. Air-conditioning above, distant noise outside, my heartbeat choosing chaos.

This is ridiculous, I told myself.

And yet I could feel the space between us like it meant something.

Slowly, I looked up. He was already watching me.

His gaze dropped briefly to my mouth, then back to my eyes, and that tiny movement did horrifying things to my ability to function.

I pulled my hand back first.

“I need that,” I said.

His fingers shifted to the edge of the notebook instead.

“Do you?”

The words were low. Calm. Barely anything.

But the way he said them made one thing painfully clear.

This was no longer pretending to be tutoring.

Neither of us moved.

Then Isaac leaned closer. Just enough to make my entire body notice.

My breath caught before I could stop it.

He looked at me like he heard that too.

I should have said something smart. Sharp. Academically humiliating, ideally.

Instead, I forgot every functioning thought I had ever owned.

“This is inefficient,” I said finally.

His mouth almost moved. “Is it?”

“Yes.”

“In what way?”

I stared at him. “In every way.”

That answer should have helped. It didn’t.

He was still too close now, one hand resting near the notebook, his gaze steady enough to make the whole room feel smaller than it already was.

“This is tutoring,” I said, mostly to remind myself.

“Is it?”

There it was again—that calm, unfair tone that made every question sound like a challenge.

I swallowed. “You’re impossible.”

“And yet,” he said quietly, “you’re still here.”

That landed harder than it should have.

Because he was right. I was still here.

And that was the part I didn’t know how to explain.

The silence after that felt different.

I could hear the distant muffled sounds of students leaving for the day, but all of it had gone strangely soft at the edges, like the room had narrowed down to one table, one breath, one terrible lack of space.

Isaac’s eyes dropped to my mouth again.

My pulse lost all remaining professionalism.

This is where mistakes happen, I thought.

This is where smart girls ruin their lives over boys whose faces make self-preservation feel embarrassingly optional.

I should move.

I knew that. Logically. Clearly. In full academic detail.

But logic had become embarrassingly unavailable.

He leaned in just slightly more, close enough now that I could feel the shift in his breathing, and suddenly the room wasn’t a study room anymore.

It was a line. A bad one. A dangerous one. The exact kind my father had warned me not to cross.

I should stop this.

I didn’t.

His voice, when it came, was low enough to feel like part of the silence.

“Clara.”

Just my name. That was somehow worse than if he’d said anything else.

I looked at him, and for one reckless second, I forgot every reason this was a bad idea.

“This has to stop,” I whispered.

It came out weaker than I wanted. Less like a decision. More like a plea.

His gaze held mine.

Then, calm as ever, he said—

“Then stop me.”