Chapter 24
Vincent
I had read her question document three times before I finally reached my apartment from work.
The pages were messy and defensive, full of gaps she should have been ashamed to show anyone. She had written down basic terms beside question marks, copied phrases from Katherine’s proposal into the margins, and made small notes to herself in language so blunt it made me smile.
Look this up properly. Ask what pathway actually means here. Don’t ask him this, he’ll be smug.
That last one had been underlined twice.
The rain followed me from Westgrave to the garage and then into the elevator, clinging to my coat and darkening the cuffs of my sleeves. Blackwater had a talent for making weather feel deeply depressing. I always hated the perpetual rain; it was rare to get a single sunny day.
My apartment sat on the top floor of an old converted building near the cliffs, close enough to Bellamont that I could see the highest towers from the east-facing windows when the weather was clear.
It had been built for some shipping family before shipping families became donors and donors became plaques on university walls.
Now the building housed professors, visiting fellows, and the occasional divorced financier who wanted ocean views without enduring conversation with actual neighbours.
I had chosen it because it was quiet; that had once been enough.
The apartment opened into a long living room with dark wood floors, tall windows, and shelves built into the walls from floor to ceiling.
The furniture was expensive but not decorative, selected for usefulness, proportion, and the absence of unnecessary softness.
A black leather sofa faced the fireplace.
A long table near the window held stacks of papers, two open books, and the laptop where Céline’s document still glowed faintly in the shared folder.
It should have felt peaceful. Instead, when I removed my coat and hung it beside the door, the apartment felt wrong.
Nothing had been moved or touched or warmed.
No ridiculous white cat screamed in the hallway.
No damp coat lay over the back of a chair because its owner had been too angry to hang it properly.
No expensive perfume lingered beneath the colder scent of rain.
No girl stood in the middle of the room pretending she had not come because she wanted to, eyes sharp with fury and mouth still remembering mine.
The apartment was exactly as I had left it. And for the first time in years, that irritated me.
I loosened my tie and walked to the windows.
Beyond the glass, Blackwater disappeared into rain and darkness; the harbour lights blurred below, Bellamont’s silhouette barely visible through the storm.
Somewhere on campus, Céline was probably walking back to her dorm with her laptop pressed against her side, Katherine’s work lodged somewhere under her ribs where it would not let her rest.
Why did Katherine write this?
A better question than she knew.
I had expected shame to make her defensive. It had.
I had expected humiliation to sharpen her. It did.
But I had not expected her to sit alone in the library and actually begin the work.
Not pretending. Not performing. Not hunting for an easier way around the problem, but actually trying.
Badly, perhaps, but still honestly. I was impressed by her ability to put in effort rather than rely on just obedience.
Obedience was simple. It required pressure, timing, and consequence. But effort revealed something more, because effort meant she still wanted to become something beyond what she had stolen.
I opened my phone. Her last message remained on the screen from earlier.
Céline : Stop reading my private notes.
I looked at it for a long moment, then typed before I could decide not to.
Vincent: Come here.
The message was delivered immediately. For three minutes, there was nothing. Then her reply finally appeared.
Céline: Absolutely not.
I smiled faintly.
Vincent: Bring your laptop.
Céline: I would rather throw it into the ocean.
Vincent: That would be unfortunate. You finally started using it properly.
The dots appeared, disappeared, then appeared again.
Céline: Do you ever get tired of being like this?
Vincent: No.
Another pause.
Céline: I’m going home.
Vincent: You are going to the dorm.
Céline: That is my home.
I stared at that longer than I should have.
The dorm was not her home. It was a temporary arrangement filled with two girls who loved her well, a cat that loved her better, and walls too thin for the kind of life beginning to close around her.
It was another hiding place, warmer than Thad’s apartment, kinder than the Montgomery estate, but still temporary. Still not mine. Ours.
For several minutes, I did not touch it. Then it buzzed.
Céline: I’m not coming to your apartment.
I picked up the phone again.
Vincent: You know where it is?
Céline: Unfortunately.
Vincent: Then come here.
Céline: Why?
There were many answers. Because I was restless.
Because the rooms felt wrong without the possibility of you entering them.
Because I had begun imagining where your cat would sleep.
Because I wanted to see whether the ridiculousness from your library notes existed beyond library walls.
Because I wanted you near enough that I could stop wondering what grief did to your face when no one was watching. I typed none of that.
Vincent: Because you need help understanding Katherine’s proposal.
This time, she did not answer.
* * *
When the buzzer rang downstairs twenty-six minutes later, I was elated.
She arrived soaked, furious, and carrying her laptop like a weapon.
The elevator doors opened directly into the private vestibule outside my apartment, and for half a second she stood there beneath the overhead light, rainwater clinging to her hair and the shoulders of her coat. She had not brought an umbrella.
“You are unbearable,” she said the moment I opened the door.
“You came. Though I suppose I made you come twice today.”
“I came because I need the work,” Céline says, ignoring my jab.
“Yes, that you do.”
“Not because you told me to.”
“Of course.”
“Don’t agree with me when you don’t believe me.” Her eyes narrowed.
“I believe you came because you found a justification that preserved your pride.”
She rolled her eyes and stepped inside without waiting for an invitation.
“I hate your apartment.”
I looked around the room. “You’ve seen it for four seconds.”
“It looks exactly like you.”
“That does not explain why you hate it.”
“It absolutely does. Also, do not mention what happened in the office today. Any more references and I will leave immediately.”
She removed her coat and hesitated for half a second, looking for a place to put it.
I took it from her before she could object and hung it beside mine.
She watched the movement as if I had done something intimate.
Perhaps I had. Her gaze moved through the living room, over the shelves, the fireplace, the papers on the table, the tall windows where rain crawled down the glass.
Céline could recognize taste even when she resented the person possessing it.
“This is very professor-with-boundary-issues,” she said.
“I was told the category is popular.”
“With the police, maybe.”
She walked farther in, her laptop held against her chest, and stopped near the windows. The rain reflected softly against her face, turning her features pale and almost severe. She looked tired. I disliked it. She deserved to look warm and radiant, with the world at her fingertips.
I moved to the table and opened the proposal file.
“Sit.”
She glanced at the chair, then at me.
“Ask nicely.”
“No.”
“Then I’ll stand.”
“Suit yourself.”
She stood for approximately fifteen seconds before sitting down with obvious irritation. I did not smile. It would have been unkind, and I needed to get into her good graces.
We worked for almost an hour. She argued more than she listened at first, which was inefficient but still ended up becoming useful.
Her questions were not elegant. They were not Katherine’s questions.
Katherine’s mind had moved cleanly through systems, cutting away ornament until only structure remained.
Céline’s mind moved through resistance. She approached understanding like someone testing every door for traps before admitting one might open. But she learned faster when angry.
I had suspected that. Now I knew for sure.
“No,” I said, turning her laptop toward her. “You’re confusing stress response with adaptation again.”
Her jaw tightened. “Because the paper uses both.”
“The paper distinguishes them.”
“The paper assumes the reader has a personality disorder and enjoys suffering.”
“Most competent research does.”
“I hate molecular biology.” She rubbed at her forehead.
“You chose bioscience.”
“I chose survival. Bioscience just happened to be standing nearby with respectable employment prospects.”
I looked at her in surprise because this was the first honest response I got from her. She seemed to realize what she had said a second later and glanced away, fingers tightening around the edge of the laptop. There she was again. The artist in hiding.
I closed the paper in front of me.
“Why didn’t you study art?”
Her face changed immediately with embarrassment, perhaps, or grief.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You draw.”
Her eyes snapped back to mine. “Who told you that?”
“No one.”
“Then how would you know?”
“Your hands.”
She stared at me. I reached for her left hand before she could pull it away.
She stiffened at the contact but did not retreat.
Her fingers were cold from the rain, nails neatly shaped, skin soft except for the faint callus near the middle finger where a pencil or brush would rest after long use.
I turned her hand slightly, observing the mark.