The restaurant was louder than Kitty expected, the ambient noise underscored by a persistent, collective wheeze that had been making its way through Campus 2 all week. Half the student body seemed to be battling a late-semester flu, and the sound of muffled coughs competed with the pulsing background music and clinking glasses.
Across the table, her date smiled. He was nice. That was the problem—it made the conversation easy, filled with attentive questions about their upcoming midterms that didn't require any real answers.
"So," he said, leaning back slightly, "you seem... different lately."
Kitty smiled, stirring her drink slowly and watching the ice spin. "Different how?"
"More confident. Like you don't care what people think."
The compliment slid off her. "Maybe I just stopped waiting."
He laughed lightly. "Waiting for what?"
Kitty hesitated. Waiting for someone to decide she mattered enough to chase. She didn't say that. "Nothing," she replied instead, pulling her cardigan a bit tighter against the drafty restaurant air. They drifted into safer academic territory, talking about the chaos of the semester and how half their organic chemistry lab had been hacking through their pipetting sections earlier that week. He made jokes, and she laughed at the right moments, even reaching across the table once to touch his hand. The gesture felt practiced. Empty. When he smiled wider at the contact, guilt twisted in her stomach. She was doing something meaningless on purpose.
Her phone buzzed on the table with a group chat notification. She didn't open it. She already knew what it would be—someone worrying about a group presentation, someone complaining about the flu, someone pretending everything was normal. Someone missing.
"So," he said, breaking the silence, "should we do this again?"
Kitty looked at him, seeing kindness and predictability, and suddenly wanted none of it. "Maybe," she said gently.
When the date ended, she declined his offer to walk her back. The campus lights glowed softly ahead as she walked alone, feeling entirely hollow.
By the next morning, that hollowness had settled into a crisp, focused resolve. June woke early, long before the rest of her floor, driven by a need to think before the day demanded things of her. She skipped the crowded dining hall and headed straight for the library's third-floor private study rooms, reserving a small glass booth to finish editing slides for her afternoon capstone presentation.
As she clicked through the PowerPoint, adjusting margins and text alignments with precise, deliberate movements, her mind replayed the night before. XH standing up. Hesitating. Sitting back down. It wasn't that he didn't care; it was that he feared the storm. June closed her eyes briefly. She had seen this before—men who delayed truth until circumstances made decisions for them. She had promised herself she wouldn't build a future on that.
Leaving the library, she moved through the academic quad with a new, contained deliberation. The campus felt heavy today; in the lecture hall, the professor's voice competed with a chorus of dry coughs and the rustle of tissue packets. June took a seat three rows higher than usual, choosing a spot farther from XH. Not dramatically, just enough.
XH noticed immediately. During the brief intermission before the lab portion of the class, he leaned over the back of her row. "Are you okay?"
She smiled politely, the distance in her expression unmistakable. "Of course."
"You left early last night," he pressed gently.
June looked at him, really looked. "I'm still here," she said calmly, her voice steady beneath the ambient hum of the lecture hall. "I'm just not leaning forward anymore. I don't chase hesitation, XH. I observe it."
XH swallowed, looking as if he'd been hit. "I didn't mean to—"
"I know," she interrupted gently, gathering her lab notebook. "Intent doesn't erase impact."
She walked down to the basement labs before he could offer an apology without change. XH stood frozen for a moment before wandering out toward the vending machines to clear his head. He was staring blankly at the rows of energy drinks when NS appeared beside him.
"You look like hell," NS said calmly, leaning against the brick wall.
XH snorted. "Good morning to you too."
"You didn't go after her," NS said, bypassing any small talk. "Everyone saw."
"I didn't want to make things worse," XH muttered defensively, rubbing his eyes.
NS's gaze sharpened. "You already did. You keep saying things aren't simple, but you're just using complexity as an excuse to do nothing. Choose, XH."
"That's easy for you to say."
"No, it's not. But I do it anyway," NS replied, his voice low and steady. "You think you're protecting people by waiting. You're not. You're forcing them to protect themselves from you."
Down the hallway, the heavy doors of the biology lab swung open. Kitty walked past at a distance, laughing softly with a classmate while holding a stack of graded lab reports. XH watched her go, his chest tightening. "She's not okay," he murmured.
"No," NS agreed, watching her turn the corner. "But she's coping." He nodded toward the glass doors facing the courtyard, where June was crossing toward the engineering building, her posture calm and eyes forward. "And her? She's closing the door. Slowly. Politely."
XH's stomach dropped. "I don't know how to stop hurting people."
"Start by hurting yourself a little. Be uncomfortable. Walk into the storm," NS said, pushing off the wall. "You don't get infinite pauses."
By evening, the friction of the day culminated in the university center's common room. The group gathered out of sheer ritual, though the atmosphere was heavy. A few people were visibly nursing colds, sipping hot tea and coughing into their elbows, while TR tried to inject some energy into the room.
"Okay, no drama rule tonight," TR announced, pulling up a chair.
PL laughed nervously, adjusting a laptop. "That's statistically impossible for this table."
Kitty laughed too, a sound that was bright, polished, and entirely armored. June arrived shortly after, deliberately choosing a seat across from XH instead of beside him. The empty space between them felt massive. XH sat in the middle of it, feeling like he was positioned between two securely closed doors.
At one point, Kitty caught his gaze. Just for a second, an acknowledgment passed between them—not anger, not longing, just a shared understanding of what had been lost. Then she looked away, focusing on her phone.
June stood up first, packing her tablet into her tote bag. "I have an early lab tomorrow," she said calmly.
XH stood up instinctively. "June—"
She paused, looking at him over her shoulder. "Yes?"
"I'm trying," he said, the words feeling small in the crowded room.
June studied him for a long, quiet moment. "I believe you," she replied softly. "But belief isn't the same as safety."
As June walked out, Kitty watched her go, then turned her eyes to XH. "You should go after her," Kitty said quietly, her voice cutting through the ambient chatter of the room.
The words shocked him.
Kitty offered a faint, sad smile. "You always wait too long." She gathered her things, gave a wave to the rest of the table, and left through the opposite exit.
XH stood frozen between the two empty chairs. Two exits. One moment. A cough sounded from a nearby table, breaking his paralysis. For the first time all semester, he didn't sit back down. He took a step forward—not toward either door yet, but forward, finally letting the pressure of the room move him.