"Loneliness makes you reckless."
The message wouldn't stop glowing in her head, burning like phosphorescent ice against the back of her eyelids every time she tried to sleep. You deserve better than him. Silver had reread Carroway's text a dozen times without meaning to, lying in the narrow confines of her tower room until the vaulted ceiling blurred into shadow. The ancient stones held the cold like a grudge, seeping through the diamond-paned windows until her breath misted in the dark.
She knew she should delete it, that keeping it was feeding something dangerous growing in the hollow space Eli had carved out with his parting cruelty. But loneliness had sharp edges, and she was tired of cutting herself on them. The Gothic walls of her dorm seemed to press closer with each passing hour, their medieval bulk designed to contain centuries of academic suffering. Tonight, they felt like a prison.
