Then she lay, completely still, staring at the ceiling. Her insides were roiling with emotion as she tried to untangle what she was feeling—remorse, guilt, longing? The passion that had sparked so suddenly between them, only to be extinguished just as fast, still smoldered in her chest like something unfinished. Was it just the strange intimacy of the cellar that had made everything with John feel so intense? Or could she really have developed feelings this seismic, this fast?The woman he’d been in love with since first year.Was that true? Because the moment she’d realized he was the Imp—herImp—the boy who had quietly laced her college days with small, deliberate kindnesses without ever taking credit, something inside her shifted. He had been there all along. Not loud. Not showy. Just quietly brilliant, kind—wonderful. And when she let the two versions of him, the man and the memory, fold into one, it was like mixing yellow and blue and suddenly seeing green. And now, staring at the ceiling, she knew what it was she was feeling. She was in love with green.
23
Chloe woke early, eyes blinkingopen, a familiar feeling in her chest. It took her a moment to place it, because it had been a long time since she’d felt this—the urge to write. She showered, then dressed in a blue silk blouse and jeans. She felt delicate but strangely resolute as she picked up her new notebook and pen.
“Can I help you with anything?” Factory-Reset Rob asked.
“No, I’m good. Thank you,” she said. “Are you okay to wait here? I’ll come back for you later.”
“More than okay,” he said cheerfully. “Have a great morning!”
In the corridor, first light crept in soft and gold, slipping through leaded glass windows and painting long, fractured patterns across the pale, worn carpet. Outside, the air was still cool, the grass scattered with tiny beads of dew. The college wascloaked in that brief hush before the world stirs. As she walked toward the library, a blackbird came to perch on the bench in front of her. She paused to watch it, and it cocked its head at her. In literature, a blackbird often symbolizes something: internal change, a death, perhaps an ominous omen. What was this blackbird here to convey? Maybe in real life, you got to decide yourself. So she chose not death, but clarity—a new beginning.
She found the library open and settled down at her favorite table. Then she started to write: scene outlines, character notes, dialogue all poured out of her; she couldn’t move her pen fast enough. She only stopped, hours later, when she heard music coming from the chapel, voices walking through the cloisters. There was a service this morning, and she wanted to go, so she packed up her things.
She didn’t go back to get Rob. It didn’t feel right taking him into a religious building, and she wasn’t ready to reconnect either. While she was still devastated about John, in the wake of his vitriol last night, something else had settled: clarity. Clarity about Rob, how she felt about him. The moral ambiguity that had been gnawing at her for days had lifted, the seesaw of the pros and cons list, wondering about the sex, the money, the secrecy. She was giving him back. It was not what she wanted. Outside the library she saw the same blackbird, waiting for her. It seemed to nod, then took flight, soaring up into the air, free, magnificent. And she knew what it meant. If there was a hole in her life, she knew it was not going to be filled by Rob, by anyone. She needed to fill it herself.
The chapel was half empty, unsurprising after a night of revelry. Chloe sometimes went to church with her parents, but it wasn’t a constant in her life, the way it had been here. At Lincoln, chapel services had felt woven into the tapestry of collegeroutine. She cherished the calm, the music, the time to reflect. In the frenetic buzz of university life, it had been a precious moment of contemplation.
She slipped quietly through the carved wooden door, the scent of candle wax and wood polish unlocking a hundred memories at once. Sean was sitting alone in a pew by the altar. She didn’t hesitate to slide herself in beside him. She wasn’t losing him again, not over an awkward conversation. She needed a thicker skin, she knew that now. In love, in life, and in her professional ambitions.
“Morning,” Sean said, offering her a tentative smile.
“Morning,” she said, smoothing her blouse as she sat.
Her gaze drifted up to the stained glass windows—towering panels of color and light. The prophets and apostles felt like old friends. How many times had she sat here gazing up at their faces? How many people over the centuries had sat in these pews, seeking answers, guidance?
“I’m sorry about last night,” Sean whispered, as more people trickled into the pews around them. “If I was weird at dinner.”
“No,” she said softly. “You were right, it was unprofessional of me to ask.”
He reached out to take her hand. “I hear the imp did you a mischief last night,” he said, raising his eyebrows at her.
“What?” she said too quickly, feeling a flush rise to her cheeks as her mind leaped to John, that unforgettable kiss in the cellar.
“Rumor has it the imp trapped you in the down deep. You missed dessert.”
“Oh. Yes, that,” she said, clasping the smooth oak pew in front of her with both hands. “Maybe this place is a little haunted. Shelves don’t fall over by themselves.”
They fell quiet as the organ began to play. The sound swelled from the antechapel, behind a cedarwood screen.
“Is that John?” she asked quietly.
“You think the chaplain would pass up a chance to have him play?” Sean whispered back. It was hauntingly beautiful, the kind of music that got into your bones and stirred your soul. Perhaps live music was one of the things that was missing in her life. And yet though the organ music was perfectly played, something about it didn’t sound like John. There was a lightness that didn’t feel like him.
The chaplain stepped forward to address the congregation. “How lovely it is to see so many old friends here this morning,” he began. “Old friends from past seasons play a crucial role in shaping and strengthening who we are. It’s why these reunions are so precious. ‘As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another’; so it says in Proverbs. Life might move us forward, but the bonds of friendship do not fade…”
The words landed like a stone on still water. Chloe felt them ripple through her.
Sean leaned in. “This sounds like it was written for me…or do I just have main character syndrome?” he asked, and Chloe had to cover her mouth to stop from laughing.
When the service ended, they walked out blinking into the sunlight that poured across the quad in a warm, yellow square.
“That took me back,” Sean said.
“Me too,” she said, pausing, not in a rush to go anywhere.
“I wanted to say, I will read your script,” he told her. She frowned, confused. “Ifyou tell me it’s good. Fuck it, I’ll take on the project without even reading it ifyoutell me I should,” Sean added, flashing that familiar boyish grin. “I trust your opinion, I always have.”
