Chapter 31
Thirty-One
OLIVER
My red pen hovered over the paper, suspended between correction and surrender.
The student had written that dark energy was responsible for the universe's accelerating expansion, but they'd confused the mechanism, claiming it exerted a ‘ negative gravitational pull ’ rather than creating positive pressure.
A simple error. Easily corrected. That was the thing about theory: it was clean, contained, predictable.
In practice, though? I couldn’t fix a damn thing.
The silence of my apartment pressed against my ears like the vacuum of deep space—absolute, unyielding, devoid of anything resembling life. I'd once found comfort in this stillness. Now it felt like a sentence.
Three weeks since I'd returned from Norman.
Three weeks of going through the motions, moving through the world like a ghost—teaching classes, grading papers, eating meals I couldn't taste.
Three weeks of telling myself this hollowness would pass, just as it had after every other loss.
It hadn't.
I set the pen down, removed my glasses, and pressed the heels of my palms against my eyes until bursts of light exploded across my vision.
The stack of ungraded papers loomed on my desk, a monument to the mundane existence I'd once found satisfying. Twenty-two papers. Twenty-two students whose understanding of astrophysics mattered to someone, somewhere.
Just not to me. Not tonight.
My phone lay face down beside the stack, deliberately positioned so I wouldn't see the screen light up. Not that it would. Emmet had stopped calling after I'd answered his insistent calls with a message stating I was fine.
Tobias was slower to get the hint, texting nonstop even after I'd ignored thirty-seven invitations to grab a drink and "talk about it." Thirty-seven. In three weeks. It would have probably been seventy, but most nights he was booked.
And Zahra...
Zahra was gone. As she should be.
I pushed back from the desk, the chair legs scraping against worn linolium, the sound painfully loud in the apartment's stillness.
Not quiet. Not peace.
Just an eerie emptiness.
My phone pinged once. The sound was for an email, not a text.
I flipped it over with an exasperated sigh, reading the preview on the screen. It was from Ryan’s business email.
Subject line: Deed Transfer Complete.
A bark of laughter escaped me, harsh and unfamiliar in the quiet room. Perfect timing. The universe's cosmic joke at my expense.
I'd won.
After all these years, all the sacrifices, all the planning—I'd won.
The house my grandfather built, the one my parents had let rot out of spite, was mine.
The evidence Davidson had compiled had been enough to force a private settlement rather than risk exposure of their embezzlement scheme.
No drawn-out legal battle, no public scandal.
Just a quiet capitulation and a deed transfer.
I should feel triumphant. Vindicated.
Instead, I felt hollow. Empty in a way that defied scientific reason.
I wandered to the kitchen, running my hand along the laminate countertop, feeling its cheap texture beneath my fingertips. Everything in this apartment was temporary, chosen for function rather than attachment. I'd lived here for eight years and owned nothing I'd miss if it disappeared tomorrow.
Except for the red ceiling stain in my bedroom that looked like Jupiter's Great Red Spot. That, absurdly, I might miss.
I pulled a glass from the cabinet, filled it with water, and drank it standing over the sink, staring at nothing. The water tasted metallic and bitter. Like the taste of failure.
I'd failed Emmet, placing my vendetta above his needs. Failed Zahra, manipulating her trust for my own ends. Failed my grandparents' legacy by turning their house into a weapon rather than a home.
Failed myself by becoming exactly what I'd sworn I'd never be—someone who used others as a means to an end.
Just like my parents.
The glass slipped from my fingers, clattering in the sink, but miraculously not breaking. I gripped the edge of the counter, breathing hard through my nose, and fighting the wave of nausea that accompanied the realization.
Stillness. Just like at Davidson’s house .
His wife gone, his children estranged, nothing but regrets and the dying echoes of a life that used to have meaning.
Emptiness. Hollowness. Loneliness.
Was that my future? Was that what I was building toward with each carefully calculated decision, each emotional withdrawal, each refusal to evolve beyond the rigid structures I'd created to survive?
I pushed away from the counter and walked to the bedroom, not bothering to turn on the light. The glow from the streetlamp outside was enough to navigate by, casting long shadows across the floor, stretching reality into distortions.
I flopped down on the bed fully clothed, staring up at my stain. In the dim light, it looked more like Jupiter's Great Red Spot than ever—an atmospheric storm that had raged for centuries, a constant in a system of change.
Alyssa used to joke that it was the only reason I stayed in this drafty apartment—for my celestial blemish on the ceiling. My good luck charm, she’d call it, and I’d answer that it brought her to me, to my bed, to having these conversations into the night with the most amazing woman.
She'd laugh, roll her eyes, and say, “You and your perfect words.”
In many ways, Alyssa was my ideal match—her love of sci-fi and space operas, her genuine interest in my work, her lighthearted and easy acceptance of my quirks. But she was just another person I acted out a part for.
In the end, it was why she left.
I hadn't understood then. Or maybe I hadn't wanted to understand. Because those perfect words? I’d used them just as easily on every woman who’d booked me after Alyssa walked out of my life. Until Zahra.
I could never bring myself to play a part for Zahra. For her family, for Ryan, even for Emmet, sure. But once it was just me and her, all pretense was stripped.
Alyssa had moved on years ago, and it was fine. I'd been fine. I still had my apartment with its clunky mattress, the draft that whistled through the window frame in winter, the water pressure that dropped to a trickle without warning. These small predictabilities of what could go wrong.
And now?
Now I had the deed to a house I'd never live in. A victory that tasted like ash. A life that seemed to be collapsing inward like a dying star, crushing everything that mattered under the weight of my own gravity.
My phone buzzed from my desk again. Probably another email about the deed transfer. Tax implications or insurance requirements, or some other administrative detail that should matter but didn't.
I closed my eyes, feeling the weight of exhaustion in every cell of my body.
I should sleep. I hadn't slept properly since before Norman.
Since before Zahra had looked at me and seen the truth I'd tried so hard to hide—that I was still that broken boy, measuring my worth by what I could give rather than who I could be.
Sleep wouldn't come. Instead, memories flooded in, unbidden and unwelcome.
Zahra at fourteen, laughing as we lay on a boulder in the mountains on the outskirts of Norman, pointing out constellations as her parents made tea on a burner to warm us in the chilly night air.
Zahra at the coffee shop, determination hardening her features as she proposed her fake relationship scheme.
Zahra in this very room, caring for me when I was sick, her hand cool against my fevered brow.
Zahra dancing with me, her body fitting against mine like it was designed to be there.
Zahra standing up to Ryan, magnificent in her fury, needing no one to save her.
She'd been evolving all this time, growing, changing, becoming more fully herself with each challenge, while I remained fixed. Unchanging. A still planet in an ever-expanding universe.
In astrophysics, we studied stellar evolution—the life cycles of stars from formation to death.
Some stars burned bright and fast, exploding in supernovae, scattering their elements across the cosmos.
Others burned slower, steadier, following predictable paths through their main sequence before expanding, contracting, and eventually fading.
But they all changed. Developed into something more. It was the fundamental nature of existence—adaptation, transformation, growth.
Except for me. I'd refused to evolve, clinging to the safety of stasis, the certainty of isolation. I'd chosen to be a dead star, cold and dark, rather than risk the chaos of change.
And what had it gotten me? This empty apartment. This hollow victory. This ache that seemed to have no beginning and no end.
I sat up abruptly, sick of my own thoughts, the circular reasoning that led nowhere. I needed air. Needed movement. Needed something to break this paralysis of spirit.
My feet carried me back to the desk, to my phone, still displaying the email notification about the deed.
I picked it up, swiped away the notification, and found myself staring at my lock screen—the Crab Nebula.
A supernova remnant. One of the brightest objects in the universe, with beautiful tendrils of light expanding outward that continue to shine brilliantly long after its transformation.
The aftermath of her devastation should have left nothing but ruin. And yet, she expanded—brilliant and untouchable—scattering light across the universe, her reach strong enough to illuminate even the parts of me that should have been long dead.
My finger hovered over the phone app. It was late—well past midnight. Too late to call anyone. Too late for a lot of things.
I tapped it anyway.
Scrolled to her name.
Pressed call before I could talk myself out of it.
It rang once. Twice. Three times. Kept ringing until I reached her voicemail.
Her voice, professional and measured, so different from the way she'd spoken to me in private moments. Before I ruined everything.
The beep sounded, and for a second, I nearly hung up. What was there to say that could possibly make a difference now? But my mouth opened of its own accord, words spilling out before I could censor them.
"Zahra..." My voice cracked on her name, a suppressed sob trying to force its way up my throat. My hands were shaking, the phone barely steady enough to capture my words. "Jesus... I did everything right, Zahra. I followed every rule. I bled for justice. And I still lost."
I sank down onto my chair, bending forward as if physically wounded. My fingers sank into my hair and tightened.
"I thought if I was strong enough, if I never needed anyone, then nothing could hurt me again. But you, you looked at me like I was someone worth saving. And I didn't believe you. I didn't believe I could be loved without being destroyed."
My voice broke completely then, the walls I'd spent a lifetime building crumbling under the weight of this terrible clarity.
"I'm sorry.” It was barely a whisper, the weight behind my ribs growing, pressing down on my vital organs, making it hard to breathe. “For everything. Not for loving you. Not for needing you. Just for being too afraid to show it when it mattered."
I pressed my hand against my chest, feeling the hollow space where something vital used to be.
It wasn't the weight of a rock crushing my insides; it was the gravitational singularity of a black hole—an infinitely dense point warping the very fabric of my existence, drawing everything into its inescapable abyss.
"I've broken too many pieces off myself to help others feel complete. But you, Lumina? What I gave you cracked me open, left me hollow in places I can't fill on my own."
The truth of it hit me with physical force, stealing my breath. This wasn't just about losing Zahra. This was about losing myself, piece by piece, year by year, sacrifice by sacrifice, until there was nothing left worth offering, nothing left worth keeping.
"I have no regrets, but I have nothing left worth giving. Nothing left for you to love back." I swallowed hard, forcing out the last words. "I just wanted you to know I understand now, and that I won’t try to dull your shine.”
I ended the call, let the phone fall from my numb fingers onto the floor, and dropped my head into my hands.
The silence rushed back in, but it felt different now. Less like a vacuum and more like the moment after an explosion, when dust and debris hang suspended in midair, waiting to settle into new formations.
I'd broken one more rule tonight. I'd shown weakness. Vulnerability. Need.
And the universe hadn't collapsed around me.
I slugged back to bed, too exhausted to even remove my glasses, and stared at my ceiling. Jupiter's Great Red Spot. A storm that had raged for centuries, unchanging. Until recently. Scientific observations had shown it was shrinking, that it could potentially disappear altogether in our lifetime.
Even the most constant things in our universe were changing. A lesson written by my beloved stars that I had somehow failed to learn.
But not tonight. Tonight, I would sleep in this empty apartment, surrounded by the artifacts of a life I'd chosen not because I loved it, but because I feared anything else. Tonight, I would surrender to the grief of losing Zahra, of losing myself, of winning a battle while losing a war.
I closed my eyes, surrendering to the exhaustion that had been building for days. For years, maybe.
As consciousness slipped away, one last thought surfaced—not of Zahra, not of the house in Norman, not of all I'd lost or failed to gain. But of stars. Of evolution. Of the miraculous fact that even in death, stars created the elements necessary for new life.
Perhaps there was hope in that, somewhere.
But hope would have to wait for tomorrow. Tonight, there was only darkness and the slow drift into another restless sleep.