Fern squeezed her eyes closed. “Alex,” she said on a shuddering exhale, “there’s something I need to tell you.”
His heart jumped as hope took up residence. Would she agree to fight for a future together? Would she give him a chance?
“When you met my sister, at my father’s party,” Fern continued, her eyes glistening. “It wasn’t—”
The door to the lecture hall burst open, causing them both to start and jump away from each other as an older man with wild gray hair and a tweed suit poked his head into the room. “What are you doing here?”
“I’m sorry, Professor Hawkins,” Alex called, immediately recognizing one of the senior mathematics faculty. “Final preparations for tomorrow, sir.”
Hawkins squinted and nodded with recognition. “Mr. Carroway, you will do better with a good night of sleep.” He cast his gaze over Fern. “Uninterruptedsleep.”
Alex glanced at Fern as her cheeks turned crimson. “Of course, sir, thank you.”
The pair hastily gathered their things and exited the room, Hawkins trailing them silently and bidding farewell as they exited the examination hall. The shouting reached Alex’s ears before they set foot on the street and he groaned. Fern stiffened by his side and looked at him quizzically.
“Trashing,” he said, answering her unspoken question with the tone of a graduate student who had seen too much nonsense from younger students over the years. “They’re celebrating the last day of examinations and the start of summer. After this, they’ll all go bathe in the Thames.” He sighed. “It doesn’t show the best side of Oxford.”
“You don’t participate?” Fern asked as they stepped onto High Street and took in the sight. Hundreds of students packed the streets, throwing confetti and shredded papers while passing around bottles of wine and champagne as they processed along the front of the examination buildings in a makeshift drunken parade.
Alex smiled, remembering Henry pulling him from his room to join the festivities during his first year. “I did during my undergraduate days, but recently I’ve celebrated by sleeping for several days in a row.”
It took a moment for him to feel Fern pressed to his side, her entire body petrified. He dropped his gaze to her face and tensed. Her eyes were round and glassy, and all the color had drained from her cheeks. He took her clammy hand and squeezed. “They’re harmless, stay by my side and we’ll slip through.”
Fern bobbed her head as he led her forward, but as soon as they reached the edge of the group another crowd of students pushed in behind them, effectively trapping them in the mass. The mob swayed and pushed, and he heard Fern groan by his side. A protective instinct overwhelmed Alex and he reached to put his arm around her waist.
But it was too late. The crowd jostled forward, and Fern was pushed from his side, caught up in the swell of bodies. “Fern!” he cried, his voice lost in the joyous shouts surrounding him. Her eyes caught his, wide and full of panic, as she drifted further away.
Alex threw his weight into the bodies around him, ignoring the protesting students as he battled towards her. Every nerve in his body fired, adrenaline rushing with the need to help her, to protect her. A moment later he lost sight of her in the mass of students. Fear twisting in his gut, he lunged forward and tripped, stumbling to his knees.
There she was, curled in a tight ball among the teeming mass of legs, her face tucked into her knees as she was buffeted from all sides. He kneeled before her, gripping her upper arms. “Fern, you have to get up,” he said into her ear. He was big enough to avoid significant injury in this crowd, but Fern’s slight form could be trampled by the unwitting drunkards around her.
She didn’t move or respond, the trembling of her shoulders the only sign of life. “Fern,” he repeated, more harshly this time. “Stand up, you’ll be hurt.”
“Go away,” she hissed, and he stiffened. Did she expect him to leave her like this?
“No,” Alex insisted, leaning forward and forming a protective wall around her with his body. “I’m not leaving, you’re coming with me.”
The exuberant laughter and shouting surrounded them in a dramatic counterpoint to the panic rushing through Alex as he stared at Fern’s inert body. He put his hands on her shoulders and she released her knees to push off his hands, tumbling to her side and rolling up once more.
“I—I don’t want—I don’t—” Fern stammered, shaking violently enough to make her teeth chatter.
“I’mnotleaving,“ he repeated, picking her up and pulling her into his chest like a child. Alex shouldered his way past the raucous celebrants, carrying her out of the street and into a small garden, sitting heavily on the wrought-iron bench under a sagging willow. His heart pounded in his ears as he fought to stabilize his breathing as his instincts to protect her fired.
Fern had not yet moved, her arms still wrapped around her knees as her entire body vibrated. “Fern, sweetheart,” he murmured, stroking his hands over her back, her hair. “You’re safe, it’s over.”
She did not seem to hear him or at least didn’t respond. He traced his hand down her back, smoothing over each vertebra like pearls on a string. “I’m here, Fern,” he repeated, again and again like a mantra. “I’m not leaving.”
It seemed like an eternity before she relaxed, opening up like a creature emerging from its shell. Her wide eyes took him in and he gave her a slow smile. “There you are,” he whispered, pushing her hair behind her ear and pausing to rub his thumb over the smooth petal of her earlobe.
“You—you—” A shuddering breath fell out of her lungs and she collapsed against his chest, burying her face under his chin. “You didn’t need to do that,” she whispered. “I told you to go away.”
He chuckled, loving the feel of her relaxing into him, her cheek against his heart. “Did you honestly think I would walk away?”
“I didn’t want you to see me,” she said, her uneven breath feathering over his neck.
Alex touched his fingers to her chin and lifted her face to meet her eyes. “What happened?”
She averted her eyes and worried her lower lip between her teeth. He dragged his thumb along her lip to release it and was rewarded with a hint of a smile. “You know how I can get…overwhelmed. After what happened in the lecture hall….” A pink blush spread under the freckles on her cheeks and across her nose, and Alex traced it with the pads of his fingers. He couldn’t seem to stop touching her. “All the shouting, and the people,” Fern continued, her eyes fluttering, “it gets to be too much and I—my body stops. I can’t move, or think.” She sighed. “I lose my temper and shout or hit.” She sat up suddenly. “Did I hit you?”
