She leaned against the edge of my desk, looking at the title page.
“Adaptive Cellular Response Under Chronic Environmental Stress,” she read aloud. “That sounds so sensational.”
“It’s not.”
“It absolutely is.”
I turned the paper face down.
Céline watched the movement.
For a second, something passed across her face that made my hand tighten around the page. Hunger, maybe. Not for the science itself. Céline did not hunger for methods sections or literature reviews or the satisfaction of a hypothesis structured cleanly enough to hold. She hungered for what the proposal represented.
A door.
Another door with a nameplate she wanted to pry loose and carry away.
“You should apply too,” I said, because I was stupid enough to still believe generosity could cure my resentment.
She laughed. “To Moreau’s lab?”
“Why not?”
“Because he would see through me in thirty seconds.”
The honesty startled us both.
Then she smiled, and Céline returned so quickly I almost wondered if I had imagined Selena speaking at all.
“Besides,” she said lightly, “I’m not trying to suffer professionally.”
But she kept looking at the proposal.
I should have hidden it better.
Maybe part of me wanted to believe I did not need to.
* * *
I found out two weeks later.
Professor Moreau’s lab decisions were posted at noon.
I knew I would be selected.
That is not arrogance. It was just facts. My grades, my research experience, my recommendations, the proposal itself. There were very few things in my life I trusted without qualification, but my own competence was one of them.
I opened the email in the university library.
Accepted students were listed alphabetically.
Hart, Elias.
Martin, Céline.
Price, Julian.
No Montgomery.
