Silver hadn't expected the memory to leave marks, but Eli's expression outside that café had somehow lodged itself under her skin with the persistence of a splinter that refused to work its way out.
It had been just a look—his jaw tight with what might have been anger or disappointment, his eyes sharp with something she couldn't identify before he'd turned and disappeared into the geometric shadows cast by Yale's Gothic architecture. But she couldn't shake the image, couldn't stop replaying that moment when their gazes had met across the distance and something had shifted in the air between them.
The memory followed her through the walk back to her residential college, Weston's easy chatter filling the silence while she nodded at appropriate intervals without truly processing his words. It lingered even after she'd crawled into bed, Americus's scattered sequins catching light from the desk lamp and creating tiny constellations across their stone walls.
