By the end of the hour, I had corrected three catastrophic interpretations ofThe Prince, written half a page of notes for my supervisor, and managed to not throw a dry erase marker at anyone. A success by most standards.
When the room finally emptied, I packed up slowly, mentally sorting the rest of my day.
Office hours.
Archive notes.
Library.
I paused, fingers stilling over the zipper of my bag.
I was going to the library because I had work to do. Because a chapter of my thesis was due in twelve days. Because my apartment was too quiet, campus coffee was too expensive, and the library had better heating than my building.
I was not going because a tall, sharp-eyed man with a cane had looked at me like I was a puzzle instead of a project.
That would have been ridiculous.
Still, when I checked my reflection in the dark screen of my phone before leaving the room, I caught myself smoothing a hand over my sweater where it clung over my hips and stomach.
I stared at myself.
“Oh, for God’s sake.”
By the time I got to the library, I was already annoyed with myself.
I crossed the main floor, weaving between tables scattered with laptops, half-drunk coffees, and students who looked like they had not slept since the Clinton administration. My usual spot by the east windows was free, which should have felt like a win. Instead, my gaze flicked automatically toward the table where I had met Pietro.
Empty.
Of course it was.
I told myself not to be ridiculous, dropped my bag onto the chair, and sat down hard enough to make a girl at the next table glance up. I muttered an apology, pulled out my notes, and tried to focus on fourteenth-century Italian succession laws instead of the fact that my body seemed capable of recognizing disappointment before my brain did.
This was absurd.
I met the man once.
Once.
He helped me get a book off a shelf, looked at me like I was more interesting than I probably was, and managed to become the most persistent thought in my week.
I opened my notebook with more force than strictly necessary.
I pulled my thesis notes from the bottom of the pile and spread them across the table with more purpose than I felt.
The key, I had written in my last chapter draft, was that it never felt like control from the inside. It felt like belonging.
I stared at the sentence until it stopped making sense, then looked up at the empty table across the room.
Pietro.
I only knew his first name, and the fact that he studied something in the business school. I knew he had a man who followed him at a careful two-table distance and pretended to be on his phone. I knew he had looked at me in the library like I was a problem, and that I had come back to the same table three days in a row on the slim and humiliating chance that he might do it again.
I knew almost nothing concrete about him.
I had come back anyway.
I pulled my glasses off and pressed two fingers to the bridge of my nose.
