Chapter 8 Romeo
ROMEO
She's avoiding me.
The next time we have class together, she doesn’t look up when I walk in. She doesn’t look at me at all until we’re leaving, and I purposely put myself in her path. When I catch her eye, she looks away immediately and keeps walking.
The rejection is a physical thing, a knife sliding between my ribs.
During the next class, I sit through the entire two-hour seminar barely hearing a word, my attention fixed on her.
I can’t help but notice the way she keeps her shoulders hunched slightly forward, like she's trying to make herself smaller.
After class, I try to approach her again, but she's already gathering her things and moving toward the door with quick, purposeful steps.
"Savannah," I call out, but she doesn't stop. She pretends not to hear me, disappearing into the hallway before I can reach her.
I stand there for a moment, my hands clenched into fists, a familiar rage building in my chest. But this time it's different. This time it's mixed with something else—something that feels uncomfortably like panic.
She's pulling away. After everything—after the library sessions, after walking her home, after that moment in the empty classroom when she looked at me like I was the only person in the world who understood her—she's pulling away.
I don't accept rejection. I never have.
When I get home, I text her about our project. We should meet to work on the presentation. Library tomorrow at 2?
She doesn't respond.
I wait an hour, then send another message: Or we could meet at the coffee shop if you prefer. Whatever works for you.
Still nothing.
By evening, I'm pacing my apartment, my phone in my hand, checking it every few minutes even though I know there's no new message. The silence is driving me insane.
I call Luca, desperately needing someone to talk to about this, which I know is pathetic. I’m not a teenage girl. But I can’t stay inside my own head, or I’m going to go insane.
"She's avoiding me," I say without preamble.
"Who?" As if he doesn’t fucking know.
"Savannah. She won't respond to my texts. She won't look at me in class. Something's wrong."
"Maybe she's busy. Graduate students have a lot of work, you know—" His voice is dry, in a way that only he could get away with when it comes to me.
"It's not that." I'm still pacing, unable to stand still. "It's him. Whitmore. He must have said something to her. Done something."
"Romeo—"
"I need to know what he's doing. What he's saying to her. I need—" I stop, running my hand through my hair. "I need to see her. To talk to her. To make sure she's okay."
There's a long pause. Then Luca says carefully, "You're spiraling."
"I'm not spiraling. We talked. She opened up to me. And now suddenly she won't even look at me? Something happened."
"Maybe she realized getting close to you is a bad idea. Maybe she's trying to do the right thing—stay loyal to her fiancé, focus on her studies. Maybe she's pulling back because she knows getting involved with you would fuck up her life." Luca’s voice is flat.
“I could kill you for that.”
“Do you want unconditional support or do you want honesty?” He sounds unruffled, probably because he knows I’m not actually going to kill him. But I'm silent for several long moments, my jaw clenched so tightly it aches.
"Romeo," Luca says, his voice gentler now. "I know you care about her. I can see that. But you need to be careful. If you push too hard, you're going to scare her away. And if Dante finds out you're this obsessed with a Beauregard—"
"I don't care what he thinks."
"You should. He's already suspicious. He knows something's going on with you. And if he decides you're becoming a liability to this family—"
"Let him try." The words come out cold, flat. "I'm not giving her up."
"Be careful," Luca says finally, after another long moment’s silence. "Please. For both your sakes."
I hang up without responding.
The next morning, I'm at the coffee shop before she arrives. I order her drink before she walks in. I've watched her order it enough times to know exactly how she likes it. When she arrives, I'm sitting at a table near the window with two cups in front of me.
She sees me immediately. I watch her freeze in the doorway, and I see the conflict play across her face—the desire to turn around and leave warring with the desire to stay. She approaches slowly, and I can see the wariness in her eyes.
"Hi," I say, keeping my voice casual. "I got you a coffee. I hope that's okay."
She looks at the cup, then at me. "How did you know—"
"You order the same thing every morning." I push the cup toward her. “I paid attention.”
For a moment, I think she's going to refuse it. Tell me this is inappropriate, that I shouldn't be here, that I need to leave her alone.
But then she sits down, wrapping her hands around the cup like she needs to hold on to something. I wish it were me. "Thank you," she says quietly.
"You didn't respond to my texts." I keep my tone neutral. "About the project. I was worried something was wrong."
"I've just been busy. A lot of reading to catch up on." She’s not meeting my eyes.
"Too busy to work on our presentation? It's due soon."
She takes a sip of her coffee, still looking at the table instead of at me. "We can work on it separately. Divide up the sections. It'll be more efficient that way."
"I thought we worked well together."
"We do. I just—" She stops, and I can see her searching for the right words. "I think maybe we've been spending too much time together. People might get the wrong idea."
"What people?"
"Thad. My fiancé. He—" She stops again, and there's something in her expression that makes my blood run cold. "He's concerned about how much time I'm spending with you."
"Concerned." I fight to say it calmly. "What exactly is he concerned about?"
"He thinks—" She's choosing her words carefully now. "He thinks you might have the wrong impression. About our friendship. He wants to make sure there are appropriate boundaries. And he doesn’t want us spending time just the two of us any longer."
I lean back in my chair, studying her—the way she won't quite meet my eyes, the tension in her shoulders. The careful, measured way she's speaking.
"And what do you think?" I ask.
"I think—" She finally looks at me, and I see her eyes are a little bloodshot, like she’s been crying or not sleeping well. Just the thought makes my hands curl into fists with rage, my nails biting into my palms. "I think he's right."
The rejection should make me angry. It should trigger that cold, calculating part of me that doesn't accept no for an answer. But instead, all I feel is that unfamiliar panic again. The sense that I'm losing something I can't afford to lose.
And I don’t believe her. I don’t think this is what she really wants.
"Savannah—"
"I should go." She stands abruptly, leaving the coffee I bought her mostly untouched. "Thank you for the coffee. I'll email you about the project. We can divide up the work."
She's gone before I can respond, leaving me sitting alone with two coffee cups and the growing certainty that Thaddeus Whitmore is a bigger problem than I thought.
—
I find her again that afternoon at the library, on the third floor, in her usual study carrel tucked away in the corner near the ancient history section.
She doesn't see me at first. She's absorbed in her reading, making notes in the margins of a photocopy, her hair falling forward to hide her face.
I watch her for a moment from behind the stacks, and that warmth spreads through my chest again. That dangerous, unfamiliar feeling that Luca called love.
When I approach, she looks up, and I see the flash of something in her eyes—pleasure, quickly suppressed and replaced by wariness.
"Romeo. What are you doing here?"
"Studying." I gesture to the books in my arms. "Same as you."
She presses her lips together. "This is my spot."
"The library is for everyone." I pull out the chair across from her. "Do you mind?"
She does mind. I can see it in the way her jaw tightens, the way her hands clench around her pen. But she's too polite to say so. "It's a free country," she says instead.
We sit in silence for several minutes. She tries to focus on her reading, but I can tell she's aware of me. Every time I shift in my chair, every time I turn a page, she tenses slightly. Finally, she looks up. "Why are you doing this?"
I try to look innocent. "Doing what?"
"This.” She gestures at me, and then more broadly. “Following me. Showing up wherever I am. Buying me coffee. Walking me home. All of it."
I could lie. I could tell her it's a coincidence, that I'm just being friendly, that she's reading too much into innocent gestures. But that won’t help.
"Because I care about you," I say simply. "I see what he's doing to you, and I can't stand by and watch it happen."
She pretends to look confused. "What who's doing to me?"
Fine. We can play this game if that’s what she wants. "Whitmore. Your fiancé. The way he controls you, dismisses your work, treats you like property—"
"You don't know anything about my relationship with Thad."
"I know enough. I know he makes you unhappy. I know you feel trapped. I know—"
"Stop." Her voice is sharp now, cutting. "You don't get to do this. You don't get to decide what's best for me, or tell me how I feel, or—" She stops, taking a breath. "I'm engaged. I'm going to marry him. And whatever you think you see, whatever you think is happening between us—it needs to stop."
The words should discourage me. They should make me back off and give her space, accept that she's made her choice. But all I hear is the uncertainty in her voice. The way she says "I'm going to marry him" like she's trying to convince herself.
"You don't love him," I say quietly. “You told me that yourself.”
"That's not—" She stops, and I can see the conflict in her eyes. "Love isn't the only thing that matters. There's duty, and family, and—"