Noah
Song of Songs 5:6 — I opened to my beloved, but my beloved had turned and was gone; my soul failed me when he spoke.
I woke up cold.
The other side of the bed—the side where Henry should’ve been—was empty, the sheets a tangle of cotton. For a second I thought maybe he’d rolled away in the night, or that he was in the bathroom. I reached out blindly, searching for the warmth of him, but found only wrinkles in the sheets.
I sat up slowly, blinking against the soft gray light leaking through the blinds. My apartment was hushed, the kind of morning silence that presses against your skin, waiting to be broken. The stack of books still towered on my shelves, the mess of last night’s clothes trailed toward the bed, but Henry wasn’t among them.
“Henry?” My voice sounded too loud, ragged.
I padded barefoot to the bathroom. The light was off, the door wide open, the sink dry and spotless. Kitchen next—just a few steps down the hall, past the desk still cluttered with my notes on Song of Songs. I half-expected to find him there, bleary-eyed, fumbling with my ancient coffeemaker. But the counter was bare, the cabinets closed. The place smelled only of old paper and faint cedar, not of him.
Gone.
The word sank in heavy, a stone dropped into my chest.
I leaned on the doorframe, arms braced, fighting the truth of it. No note on the table, no scrawled apology. Not even a scrap of his presence left behind, except—
I went back to the bedroom and sat on the edge of the mattress. The sheets were still rumpled, evidence of his body. His pillow was dented, his scent faint but undeniable. I picked it up, pressing my face into the fabric, breathing him in. It was subtle—soap, a trace of sweat, something clean and human that made my heart lurch against my ribs.
For one dangerous second, I let myself imagine he’d still be here when I lifted my head. That he hadn’t slipped out into the night, carrying all that guilt with him.
My chest ached. I hated it—hated that I cared. I wasn’t supposed to. Relationships had never been my thing. I’d built my life on one-night stands, quick hookups in shadowed corners, the thrill of the chase with none of the mess that followed. I’d never let anyone get close enough to do damage.
But Henry… he wasn’t supposed to feel like this.
He wasn’t supposed to make my heart feel too big for my body.
With a sharp exhale, I hurled the pillow across the room. It hit the bookshelf with a dull thud and slid to the floor, carrying his scent with it. I scrubbed both hands over my face, forcing myself to move, to shake off the wreckage of what had happened.
Enough.
I stood, dragging on jeans, pulling a hoodie over my bare shoulders. The morning air spilling from the cracked window bit at my skin, urging me forward. School wouldn’t wait, and neither would the stack of work I had to get through today.
I told myself I didn’t care. That it was just sex. That Henry leaving was inevitable.
But as I slung my bag over my shoulder and caught sight of the discarded pillow on the floor, the lie tasted bitter on my tongue.
I slid into my usual seat at the table Henry and I had shared since the semester began, the place where we’d first traded hesitant smiles over our open copies of Song of Songs.
Today the chair beside me was empty.
Rebecca sat at the table next to ours, halo braid neat as ever, lips pursed in that faintly smug way that made it seem like she was grading everyone else’s soul. She gave me a glance, just quick enough to register, then bent over her notebook with the kind of exaggerated devotion that could only be for show.
I dropped my bag on the floor and tried not to stare at Henry’s vacant chair.
Maybe I’d been stupid not to ask for his number. Or his address. I’d been too caught up in him, in us, in the impossible closeness of what we’d done, to think about practicalities. Now I had no way to find him.
The door at the front of the room opened, and Dr. Scheinbaum glided in, all cool elegance: platinum bob gleaming under the fluorescents, a slate-gray sheath dress that skimmedher frame, pearls at her throat. Chic, self-possessed, and sharp as a scalpel.
Her eyes flicked over the room, assessing. When they landed on the empty chair beside me, her brows knit almost imperceptibly. She strode toward my table, heels clicking against the linoleum.
“Mr. Miller,” she said in her clipped voice, “where is Mr. Forrester this morning?”
The sound of Henry’s last name in her mouth nearly gutted me. I shrugged, staring at the open book in front of me. “I don’t know,” I mumbled.
For a beat she didn’t reply, but when I risked a glance upward, her gaze was softer than I’d ever seen it. Not pitying, exactly—she wasn’t the type—but knowing. She gave a single, almost imperceptible nod, then pivoted to the front of the classroom.
