“I’m actually—”
She hesitated, fingers picking at the cuff of her glove.
“I was looking for Dev.”
Every part of me went still.
“Oh,” I said, too fast, too clipped. “Right. Okay.”
She winced again, like she’d felt the edge in my voice.
“It’s not—” she started, voice small. “It’s nothing bad. I just… need to talk to him. About something he said yesterday.”
My throat tightened. “He’s asleep.”
“Oh.” She nodded, stepping back like maybe she should leave. “Sorry. I shouldn’t have—”
“Seph.”
I opened the door wider.
“You can come in and wait.”
She froze in the hallway, eyes flicking up to mine with a mixture of guilt, exhaustion, and something else. Something like apology.
“Are you sure?” she whispered.
God.
Like I would ever say no.
“Yeah,” I said softly. “Come in.”
She stepped past me—carefully, like she didn’t want to brush against my skin—and the faintest hint of cold air followed her, a reminder of the woods, of her bruised cheek, of everything she wasn’t telling me.
I shut the door behind her.
And the ache in my chest twisted—quiet, deep, and sharp—because she hadn’t come for me.
But she still came to my door.
And that felt like something I wasn’t allowed to want.
She walked to my couch slowly. The leather creaked under her weight — sleek, dark, and noticeably bigger than the one in her dorm. Our suite was larger too, one of the old wings the Institute actually bothered to maintain. The kind they reserved for students with names that mattered.
Across from the couch sat the remains of my flat-screen: a jagged spray of glass where Ash’s last temper tantrum had sent it crashing to the floor. The stack of games beneath it still stood perfectly neat, like they didn’t realise the world abovethem had ended. In the corner, our small kitchen hummed quietly — outdated but working, which was more than Seph could say for hers.
She trailed her fingers over the back of the couch like she wasn’t sure if she was allowed to touch it.
“Your place is much bigger than mine,” she murmured.
“Dev’s family has money,” I said. “Plus I inherited some from my dad.”
“Lucky you.”
She sat primly — too primly — like she was afraid of leaving a mark.
“Do you want a drink? Coffee?”
