"His silence was deafening."
The aftermath of Eli's silent treatment in lecture hall had left Silver feeling like she was walking through campus with a target painted on her back. Every corridor conversation seemed to pause when she passed, every glance felt loaded with speculation about why the hockey captain was suddenly avoiding someone he'd spent months circling in complicated emotional orbit.
Sterling Memorial Library offered temporary refuge from the whispered rumors that followed her between classes. The Gothic reading room stretched before her with its familiar comfort of oak tables positioned beneath tall arched windows, natural light filtering through glass that had witnessed decades of student crisis and academic breakthrough. The quiet was broken only by the gentle scratch of pens across paper and the occasional rustle of pages turning, the kind of productive silence that belonged to spaces designed for serious intellectual work.
