Chapter 2

Stella:

His hand stayed raised, steady and unhurried, while I stood frozen at the podium with the clicker still pressed against my palm.

The lecture hall had gone quiet in that particular way classrooms do when students sense drama brewing, when forty-some undergraduates collectively hold their breath because something interesting might actually happen during an eight AM psychology lecture.

I could ignore him. I could call on literally anyone else—the girl in the third row who always sat with her hand half-raised, the guy near the window who looked like he'd actually done the reading.

But ignoring a front-row student with his hand up would be obvious, would be weak, would be exactly the kind of thing that gets noticed and whispered about in the campus coffee shop later.

"Yes?" My hand tightened around the marker until my knuckles went white.

He leaned back in his chair with an ease that made my jaw tighten, one arm draped casually over the back of the seat beside him. The morning light caught the edge of his jaw, and for a split second I was back in that hotel room, watching dawn creep across unfamiliar features.

"I was just wondering, Professor Morrison—when you talk about people developing trust issues from inconsistent behavior, does that apply to adults too? Like, what if someone has this intense connection with another person, and then that person just... vanishes the next morning? Leaves cash behind like they're paying for services rendered?"

The classroom went dead silent.

My fingers went numb around the clicker.

He wasn't.

He wouldn't.

"Could you be more specific?" The words came out before I could stop them, and I immediately wanted to snatch them back, swallow them whole, pretend I'd never opened my mouth.

His smile was all innocence and sharp edges, but his eyes—his eyes were doing something that made heat crawl up my neck. "Sure. Let's say two people meet at a party. Maybe one of them has had too much to drink, feels vulnerable, and the other one helps them out. Takes them somewhere safe. They end up sharing a hotel room—nothing happens, just two people in the same bed—but then one of them wakes up and panics. Leaves six hundred dollars on the nightstand and disappears before sunrise."

Someone in the back row made a strangled sound.

A girl near the window whispered something to her friend, and they both turned to stare at me.

"Six hundred dollars seems oddly specific," someone muttered, and scattered laughter rippled through the room.

My face burned, but I kept my expression locked down tight. I'd survived worse than this—dissertation committees, faculty reviews, my mother's pointed questions about why I was still single at twenty-eight. I knew how to maintain that mask of professional detachment even when every nerve ending screamed.

"That's quite a detailed scenario," I said, my voice cutting through the whispers like ice. "But what you're describing isn't about trust issues. It's about shame. The person who left the money was trying to rewrite what happened—turn a moment of vulnerability into a transaction they could control."

I clicked to the next slide, not caring that it didn't match what I was saying.

"When someone can't handle emotional ambiguity, they try to quantify it. Make it simple. Money for a service. No feelings, no complications, no need to face the other person in the morning and figure out what any of it meant."

I met his eyes, held them.

The air between us felt charged, dangerous.

"So to answer your question—the person who got left behind probably feels confused. Maybe insulted. But the person who ran away and left the money?" I paused, let the silence stretch. "That's the one with real problems. That's someone who's so terrified of connection that they'll do anything to avoid it. Even if it means treating another human being like a transaction."

The classroom had gone quiet again, but this time it was different. This time they were leaning forward, engaged, because this had stopped being a lecture and started being something else entirely.

Something that felt too raw, too exposed.

His smile had faded, replaced by something darker, more intent. "But what if the person who got left behind didn't mind? What if they understood why the other person ran? What if they wanted to tell them it's okay, that nothing happened, that there's nothing to be ashamed of?"

My throat went dry.

The way he said "nothing happened"—like he was trying to convince me, or maybe himself.

"Then they should probably keep that to themselves," I said, each word carefully measured. "Because the person who ran has made it very clear they don't want to have that conversation. And continuing to push would be crossing a boundary."

"Even if the boundary is based on a misunderstanding?"

"Especially then."

We stared at each other across the lecture hall, and I swear I could feel every single student's attention ping-ponging between us like we were the most interesting thing they'd seen all semester.

"Any other questions?" I asked the room at large, deliberately breaking eye contact. "About the actual course material?"

Silence.

"No? Then we're done for today. Read chapters three and four for Thursday."

The scrape of chairs and rustle of backpacks filled the hall with blessed noise. I busied myself with shutting down my laptop, organizing my notes, doing anything that would justify keeping my eyes down and away from the stream of students filing out.

Most of them left quickly, shooting curious glances back at me and whispering to each other. A few lingered to ask questions about the upcoming assignment, but their eyes kept darting toward the front row where he still sat, watching me with an expression I couldn't read.

And then they were gone too.

Except for one.

I didn't have to look up to know he was still there. I could feel his presence the same way you feel someone standing too close behind you in line, that awareness that prickled at the back of my neck and made my shoulders tense.

"Professor Morrison?"