Adam sat on one of the benches at the central atrium of the campus, elbows resting on his knees, hands loosely clasped as he stared at nothing in particular across the open space.
Students passed through in loose clusters, voices echoing softly off the high glass ceiling, but it all blurred into background noise he didn't bother tracking.
Okay. So that happened.
He replayed it again, because apparently his brain had decided that was the plan for the next hour.
Church. The double-take. White hair in a pew like it belonged there. The walk. The conversation that somehow worked, right up until it didn't.
The punch.
He exhaled slowly through his nose, shoulders dropping a fraction.
One step forward. Two steps back. Every time.
It wasn't even the punch itself that bothered him, not really. He could live with that. He'd earned that.
It was the part before it. The part where it had felt… easy.
Like they'd found something that worked.
And then I stepped on a landmine I didn't even know was there.
He tipped his head back slightly, eyes tracking the light filtering down from above.
Is there a pattern? Or am I just guessing and occasionally getting lucky?
That was the part that got under his skin.
He didn't mind not knowing things. He minded not knowing if there was something to know.
He drew in a slow breath and let it out again, quieter this time.
I have no idea what I'm doing.
The admission sat there, simple and unprotected, and he huffed a small, almost embarrassed breath at himself before letting his gaze drop back down.
Footsteps approached from the stairs to his right, lighter than most, unhurried in a way that felt familiar.
Aiva stepped down from the East wing, a faint trace of soil still dusting the side of one of her gloves, her hair tied back loosely as she crossed the atrium and spotted him.
"Well," she said, easing onto the bench beside him, her shoulder brushing his lightly. "That's not your usual 'everything is fine' face."
He glanced at her, one corner of his mouth lifting despite himself.
"I have a face for that?"
"You have several," she replied easily. "This one's my least favorite."
He let out a quiet laugh at that, shaking his head.
"Good to know."
She leaned back slightly, stretching her legs out in front of her.
"I hate winter," she said, out of nowhere, her tone shifting into something more conversational. "It's the worst season for gardening. Everything just… stops."
Adam turned his head toward her, following the pivot without questioning it.
"You were upstairs?"
"Trying to convince myself the plants are still alive," she said. "They technically are. They're just… waiting."
She paused, then smiled a little to herself.
"I almost used magic today," she admitted. "Just a little. Enough to push a few of them back early."
"Almost?"
"I didn't," she said. "It feels wrong. Like skipping ahead in a story just because you're impatient."
Adam considered that, something in the comparison landing cleanly.
"There's something nice about waiting for them to come back on their own," she added, softer now. "Even if it takes longer."
He nodded once, a small, genuine thing.
"Yeah," he said. "That makes sense."
She looked at him then, properly this time, her eyes settling on his face with a quiet focus that didn't miss much.
"You're sad," she said.
It wasn't a question.
Adam blinked, a reflexive half-smile already forming.
"I'm fine," he said. "Just... thinking."
She didn't move.
"Adam."
There was no pressure in it, just certainty.
He let the smile drop a little, exhaling through his nose.
"It's nothing," he tried again, weaker this time.
Aiva tilted her head slightly, watching him the way someone watches a door they know isn't actually locked.
"You don't sit like that when it's nothing," she said gently. "You usually do this when you've run out of options."
He let out a quiet breath at that, the resistance draining out of him in a way that felt less like giving in and more like admitting she was right.
"Okay," he said. "Yeah. That one."
She waited.
He scrubbed a hand lightly over the back of his neck.
"I ran into Luna this morning," he said. "At church."
Aiva's eyebrows lifted just slightly, interest sharpening.
"At church?"
"Yeah."
He huffed a small, disbelieving laugh.
"She was just… there. Sitting in the back like it was normal."
"And?"
"We talked," he said. "Walked back here together. It was actually… good. Easy, even."
Aiva didn't interrupt, her attention steady.
"And then I said something stupid," he finished. "About her mom."
He shifted slightly, wincing faintly at the memory.
"She punched me."
Aiva blinked once.
"Hard?"
"Not playful," he said dryly.
A breath of silence followed that, not empty but deliberate, Aiva letting the shape of it settle before stepping in.
"And now you don't know what that means," she said.
"Exactly," Adam replied, a hint of frustration slipping through. "I don't know if I'm doing something wrong every time or if that's just… part of it."
He looked over at her, expression open in a way he didn't usually bother with.
"I don't know what I'm doing with her."
Aiva let that sit for a moment, her gaze drifting slightly as she turned the thought over in her own way.
Then she smiled, faint and knowing.
"Luna isn't confusing," she said. "She just doesn't explain herself."
Adam let out a small breath through his nose.
"That's a generous way to put it."
"It's an accurate way to put it," Aiva corrected gently, then shifted slightly on the bench, angling toward him.
"She leads with the part of herself that pushes people away," she continued. "Not because she actually wants them gone, but because it's the fastest way to find out who's going to stay."
Adam's brow furrowed slightly as he listened.
"She says things she doesn't mean exactly the way they sound," Aiva went on. "She'll tell you she doesn't care, and then she'll show up anyway. She'll act like she's bored, and then she'll remember something small you said three days ago that nobody else noticed."
She glanced at him briefly, then back ahead.
"She tests people," she said simply. "Not on purpose, not like a game. It's just how she exists. If you leave, that confirms what she already expects. If you stay, she starts… adjusting."
Adam leaned back slightly, processing.
"So the punch is… what, part of that?"
Aiva's lips curved faintly.
"The punch is you hitting a nerve," she said. "Those are real. You don't get a free pass on those just because you didn't mean to."
"Good to know," he muttered.
"But everything else?" she continued, her voice warming again. "The fact that she was there at all. The fact that she walked with you instead of leaving. The fact that she didn't just shut the conversation down the second it got uncomfortable."
She shook her head slightly.
"That's not nothing."
Adam glanced at her.
"She said she was just curious."
Aiva smiled.
"She probably believes that," she said. "Or at least, it's the version she's willing to say out loud."
She paused, then added, softer, "People like her don't announce what they feel. They… orbit it."
Adam let that sit, something about the phrasing catching his attention.
"Orbit it," he repeated.
"They get close," Aiva said. "They circle. They stay just inside a space where they can leave if they need to, but they don't."
Her hand drifted absently to her chest as she spoke, fingers resting lightly over the fabric without any visible awareness of the gesture.
"They watch," she added. "They notice. They pick at you a little, see how you react, see if you're still there after."
Adam followed the thought, nodding slowly.
"That sounds exhausting," he said.
"It can be," she agreed. "But it also means that when they don't leave… it matters y'know?."
She turned to him fully then, her expression open and certain in a way that didn't invite doubt.
"You don't need to impress her," Aiva said. "You don't need to figure out the perfect thing to say. Just… be there. Let her decide how close she wants to get."
Adam studied her for a second.
"You're making this sound a lot simpler than it feels."
"It is simpler," she said. "It's just not easier."
He huffed a quiet laugh at that.
"Okay. Fair."
She held his gaze for a beat longer, then smiled, softer now.
"And for what it's worth," she added, "you really don't have anything to worry about."
He raised an eyebrow.
"That confident?"
"She went to your church," Aiva said plainly. "She pays attention to you. She lets you be around her without trying to get rid of you."
Her hand pressed a little more firmly against her chest for a second before easing again, the movement subtle enough to pass unnoticed.
"She likes you," she finished.
Adam blinked.
"That feels like a leap."
"It's not," she said. "It's just… something you learn to see."
He tilted his head slightly.
"And you know that because?"
Aiva's smile turned faintly amused.
"Because I'm a girl," she said. "we notice these things in each other."
Adam considered that, the tension in his shoulders easing just a fraction as the pieces shifted into a shape that made more sense than what he'd been working with alone.
She showed up.
The thought landed differently now.
She didn't have to.
He sat up a little straighter, something like direction settling into place.
"I don't have to fix it," he said slowly. "I just… don't leave."
Aiva's smile widened slightly.
"Exactly."
He let out a breath that felt lighter than the ones before it, a small, genuine grin breaking through.
"Okay," he said. "I can do that."
He pushed himself up from the bench, energy returning in a way that felt earned instead of forced.
"Thanks," he added, glancing down at her. "Seriously."
"Anytime," she said.
He nodded once, already half-turned toward the dorm path, his mind moving ahead of him now.
"I'll see you later."
"Later," she echoed.
He headed off across the atrium, pace quickening as the idea took hold, his focus narrowing toward whatever came next.
Aiva watched him go, her expression soft and unreadable in equal measure, the space beside her on the bench suddenly feeling a little wider than it had a moment ago.
The atrium settled back into its quiet rhythm around her, distant voices and footsteps weaving through the open space without touching her.
Her hand remained where it had drifted, resting lightly against her chest, fingers curved over the spot beneath her clothing.
She sat there for a long moment, unmoving, her gaze lowered slightly as something unspoken passed quietly through her expression, not quite forming into anything clear enough to name.
The light shifted subtly across the floor as the clouds outside thinned, the pale winter sun filtering in at a different angle.
Aiva drew in a slow breath, her fingers pressing just a fraction more firmly before easing again, the gesture small and absent, like something her body had decided before she did.
She didn't move to follow him.
She didn't move at all.
The bench held her in place, the quiet of the atrium settling around her as she sat with whatever that feeling was, unexamined and unresolved, her hand still resting over her chest as the moment stretched and then simply… stayed.