Chapter 8
Chapter Eight
“Ah, I don’t want to keep studying!” Amanda complained, stretching her arms to shake off the fatigue.
Augustine smiled, amused.
“This last exam will be hard,” David said.
The three walked across campus on their way to the cafeteria for a quick break before returning to their studies in the library.
“At least we’ll get a long weekend after! Do you have any plans?” Augustine asked. Soon they would have four delicious days off, and she didn’t intend to waste them.
“Not much, honestly,” Amanda replied. “I had planned to go to the beach, but maybe I’d rather stay and catch up on my dissertation.”
“I’ll go visit my girlfriend. This long-distance thing is killing me,” David said.
“Right! She left already? And you’re going to see her right away? Now this is a man in love!” Amanda joked flirtatiously. “How lucky your girlfriend is to have someone like you… I hope to have that same luck one day.”
Augustine laughed, but didn’t say much. She tried to stay focused on her friends’ conversation, ignoring the parallel conversations of their respective A’aruin.
They entered the cafeteria and sat near the window with a view of the street.
David offered to go buy the coffee and Amanda accompanied him to help carry the drinks.
Augustine blinked several times upon seeing Alderian sitting in front of her, looking at her with a calm smile.
He had remained in silence all day while she was focused on studying, conscious of her difficulty in adapting to her new situation.
Alderian’s silent yet gentle presence felt easy and comfortable, as if having him by her side were the most natural thing in the world.
They looked at each other without saying a word in a tacit agreement that recognized each other’s presence in the middle of the bustle, as if, for an instant, the rest of the world did not exist. Alderian seemed to enjoy being observed, having no qualms about holding her gaze fixed in a brazen, irresistible way.
The moment’s atmosphere broke when Milán sat in front of her, smiling, abruptly occupying the place Alderian had occupied a second before.
“How is everything, little Augustine?” he said with a familiarity that, in that instant, she found irritating.
“We’re studying for the exams. My friends are coming soon,” she responded, looking sideways at Alderian, who observed him coldly.
“Do you have plans to do something next weekend? Maybe you’d like to come with me to my family’s country house?
” Augustine felt surprised to receive such an invitation, and Milán probably noticed it because he immediately added, “Of course, it wouldn’t be just the two of us; we can invite more people, if you want. ”
“I appreciate it, but I already have plans.”
“Oh, I see.” For a second, she saw a cloud of cold annoyance in his eyes, but he quickly adopted his usual good-natured attitude again. “One day you should accept one of my invitations. I feel hurt that you keep rejecting me,” he added, smiling.
“I’m sorry.” She didn’t know what else to say, and she wasn’t even sure she should apologize for something like that, but Milán’s tone made her feel guilty.
“Don’t apologize to this guy. You’re too kind when you shouldn’t be,” Alderian said, annoyed.
“Don’t worry. Now that I think about it, you’ll probably be working on your channel, right? I saw the last video you uploaded. I left you a comment,” Milán added as he stood, not losing his smile. “See you. If you change your mind, just text me.”
Augustine watched him walk away and took her phone to check her channel notifications.
There were many views and comments, as always, but she still hadn’t had time to read them all.
Scanning quickly, she found Milán’s comment: “Last night I stayed up until three in the morning watching your videos over and over again. You are so beautiful that it’s impossible to stop looking at you. ”
At first glance, she could read it as a compliment, but the phrase “over and over again” turned her stomach, and a shiver ran down her back.
“I hope he hasn’t really been watching your videos all night,” commented Alderian, who read the message over her shoulder. Augustine hoped the same.
She put on her headphones on the bus back home and started watching the video where Milán had commented.
She couldn’t help but notice her own eyes, lit with enthusiasm, while she explained how she set up the chain reaction procedure.
She paused the playback on a scene where she was seen full-body, explaining the design before starting it, and felt horribly exposed.
She reread Milán’s comment and wondered, with a knot in her stomach, what exactly he saw when he looked at her through the screen.
“Don’t torture yourself anymore, stop watching the video,” Alderian asked, sitting by her side.
Augustine sighed and, to Alderian’s surprise, held the phone to her ear as if she were talking to someone, before answering without looking at him.
“Since you’ve been here for so long, surely you know that only my closest friends know I have a YouTube channel, and that during the early years I never showed myself in the videos.
Perhaps it was a matter of time before someone else discovered what I do, but I still feel ashamed, although I know I shouldn’t feel this way. ”
“What are you doing? Did you forget what we talked about?” Alderian asked.
“Well… I don’t think anyone has a way to know who I’m talking to right now. You’re more suspicious than me right now.”
Alderian grumbled something she didn’t quite catch and didn’t speak again the whole way, evidently having a lot of respect for whatever the High Council could do to them.
Ten minutes later, Augustine was looking for her keys in her bag in front of her house gate. While she rummaged through her things, Alderian leaned against the wall, right by her side. No one was on the street, and only then did he dare to speak.
“Haven’t you thought that maybe the comment was just a way of speaking? He wasn’t necessarily watching the video for hours; it could just be an unfortunate comment, but not entirely accurate.”
Augustine didn’t look at him. The metal gate creaked when she pushed it open.
She picked up the mail from the ground in the small front garden.
“It might be as you say. Perhaps it’s just an innocent comment from a fan, like so many others…
but there is something that bothers me. It’s a very unsettling feeling. ”
Without waiting for Alderian, she turned on the garden sprinklers and went inside.