Morning settled over the university like a held breath. Mist pooled in the garden paths, softening the edges of the world. Bells rang out from the chapel tower, each note slower than the last, as if the day itself had not yet made up its mind to begin.
Emma sat near the back of the lecture hall, not in her usual place by the window. Her notebook lay open, but her pen hovered uselessly above it. Professor Hart's voice echoed across the chamber in dull cadence, his words scattering like dust over stone.
She wasn't really listening.
She was thinking of smoke.
Jason's name wasn't in her mouth, but it had made a quiet home in her mind — tucked between stray glances and unfinished thoughts. It was absurd, she told herself. One meeting, and already he hovered over her like fog over the garden wall.
A few rows behind her, Andrew watched.
He noticed the change: how she sat further away than usual, how her fingers no longer twirled her pen in that way they used to when she was focused. There was distance — not rudeness, just… shift.
When the bell rang, Emma gathered her things slowly, distracted. Outside, the air was cold and damp. Andrew caught up beside her, matching her pace.
"Walk with me?" he asked.
She smiled faintly. "Always."
The courtyard stones were still slick with dew. They didn't speak at first — their silence comfortable, but heavier than it had been before. Around them, the world moved in soft motion: carriages rattled in the distance, students rushed toward noon lectures, birds called from somewhere high and hidden.
"I found that café you mentioned," Andrew said after a while. "The one with the red chairs and the piano in the back."
She glanced sideways. "You went?"
He nodded. "Thought of you."
A pause, then her voice came quieter. "I've been meaning to go."
"We still could."
"Maybe next week," she said, too quickly.
The words landed between them like cold rain. Andrew looked ahead. They were passing the old sycamore tree now — the one they always passed, its bare limbs stretched like fingers over the path.
Emma stopped suddenly. "Do you believe in fate?"
He turned toward her. "Fate?"
She nodded. "Like… maybe some people are meant to cross your path, whether you're ready or not."
Andrew didn't speak right away. He watched her face — the way her eyes were distant, like she wasn't really asking about philosophy.
"I think people arrive," he said finally. "But what you do after they show up? That's choice."
Emma didn't answer. Her gaze fell to her boots.
He added, voice softer, "The ones that matter stay. You choose them. They choose you."
"I don't know if it's always that simple."
"It's rarely simple. But it's still true."
A wind brushed past them, tugging at her coat. She wrapped it tighter.
Back in her room later that evening, Emma sat at her window, hands curled around a cup of tea gone cold. The fog had thinned, and the sound of music drifted from across the square — soft piano notes bleeding through stone and silence.
She closed her eyes.
It was Andrew. She knew it.
He played not for show, but to feel. Always had. His hands told stories better than his mouth ever tried to.
And still, she thought of Jason.
She hadn't seen him that day — not near the chapel, not in the courtyard, not even in the halls. And yet the memory of him — the way he stood with smoke curling around his shoulder, his voice calm and amused — lingered.
Maybe it was nothing.
Maybe it was something.
And maybe she didn't want to know which just yet.
Across campus, Andrew remained at the piano well into the blue of dusk. He let his fingers fall across the keys without plan, improvising in the dark.
He didn't play loud, didn't play fast.
But the notes said everything he wouldn't say aloud.
And he didn't stop until the candle beside him burned out.