Chapter 24 Adela
There's a study carrel on the third floor of the library, tucked into the political science section by the window, that I've quietly claimed as mine over the past two weeks.
The light is good here, and the noise is minimal, and nobody has challenged me for it yet.
It's become a kind of refuge — the one place on campus that feels like mine without any history attached to it.
I have my laptop open, three books stacked beside me, and a coffee going cold at my elbow.
For the first time in weeks, I don't feel like I'm walking around with a gaping hole where my life used to be. I feel present. Grounded. Like I'm actually inhabiting my own body instead of just piloting it through the motions.
Beckett texted this morning — something simple about practice running late, but he'd call later. I read it twice, a small smile pulling at my lips before I could stop it.
Whatever's happening between us, it's real. And that makes everything else feel almost manageable.
Almost.
I sink back in my chair and scroll through my phone instead of doing the research I'm supposed to be doing.
My photos app opens without thinking — Maeve, Penelope, Elena, all of us somewhere sunny and loud and completely unbothered.
Long gone are the afternoons we'd spend laughing about nothing.
I miss them, but something stops me from reaching out.
I keep thinking about Julian's face outside that parking lot.
The way he almost said something and didn't. I don't doubt he told them what we found on Cody's laptop.
The silence in my messages feels like confirmation.
I set the phone face down and refocus on the screen.
I've submitted a few job applications but haven't heard anything back yet.
I can probably thank my lack of experience.
If nothing comes through soon, I'll have to walk into somewhere and demand an interview, because if I don't land a job like I promised my dad, I don't want to give him any reason to pull me back to Puget Sound.
Not now. Not when I'm this close to something.
I'm researching institutional corruption — specifically how judges and politicians protect each other through layers of legal maneuvering and strategic silence. Trying to understand how Judge Ravenshaw could arrange a hospital transfer with no public record, no questions asked, no oversight.
But everything I'm finding is surface-level. Academic theory. Sanitized case studies. Nothing that explains the actual mechanics of how power shields itself from accountability.
I'm staring at the same paragraph for the fourth time when a book lands on the desk in front of me.
I look up.
A guy is standing there — tall, dark hoodie, hands moving back into his pockets like the gesture was nothing. He doesn't smile. He looks at me with dark eyes.
I look down at the book.
The Prince. Machiavelli. Annotated edition.
I look back up at him. "Can I help you?"
"You've been staring at the same page for twenty minutes," he says. Not unkind. Just factual. "Whatever you're reading isn't working."
The nerve of that is almost impressive. "And this will?"
"If you want to understand how power protects itself," he says, nodding at the book, "stop reading what academics write about it. Read what the people who actually had it wrote for each other."
I glance down at the cover, then back at him. He's still watching me with that same unhurried expression, like he's already decided something and is waiting for me to catch up.
"I didn't ask for a reading list," I say.
"No," he agrees. "You didn't."
He doesn't elaborate. Doesn't apologize for the intrusion or fill the silence with small talk. He stands there, patient and unreadable, and something about that specific quality — the stillness of him — makes my skin prickle in a way I don't like.
I cross my arms. "Do you make a habit of reading over strangers' shoulders?"
"Only when they're looking for something in the wrong place."
I open my mouth to respond and then close it, because the honest answer is that he's not wrong, and something in his expression tells me he already knows that.
"Adela," I say, because the silence has stretched long enough that it needs filling.
He nods once, like he's filing it away. "Theo."
Just the first name. No offer of a last name, no explanation for why he's here or how he knew what I was looking for, no indication that this conversation is going to continue.
He takes a step back.
"The annotations in the margins are more useful than the text," he says, nodding at the book one more time. Then he turns and walks away, hands back in his pockets, disappearing between the stacks without looking back.
I sit with the book in front of me for a moment.
Then I open it.
I try to focus after he leaves.
But I can't concentrate.
My mind keeps replaying the interaction.
There was something about him.
I open the book, read the first page, and read it again. Nothing sticks. I'm still hearing the particular flatness in his voice when he said you're looking in the wrong place — not condescending, just certain, the way someone sounds when they're stating something they've known for a long time.
I glance up toward the stacks.
Nothing. Just shelves.
I look back down at the page.
The annotations are dense — someone's gone through this copy with real intention, underlining specific passages, leaving notes in the margins in handwriting I can't quite read from this angle.
I tilt the book toward the window light and make out two words next to a paragraph about the nature of fear.
They never learn.
I close the book and press my fingers against the cover.
I don't know who he is. Don't know why he was watching me long enough to notice I'd been stuck, or why he had that specific book within reach, or why the whole interaction left me feeling less like I'd been helped and more like I'd been assessed.
I pick up my coffee. It's completely cold.
I pull my laptop back toward me and try to find the paragraph I was on before he appeared. I can't remember where I was. I scroll up, then down, then give up and stare out the window instead.
Theo.