Étoile

Chapter 8

Chapter 8 — Invisible Fractures

Silence had settled between them like a wall—thick, suffocating, and deliberate.

Stella stood at the far end of the law library corridor, arms folded tightly across her chest like armor. Her eyes moved across the shelves as if searching for a book, but Julien knew she wasn’t reading any titles. She was avoiding looking at him—just as she had been since their argument in criminal law class two days ago.

He remembered it all too clearly. She had corrected him—publicly—on a case interpretation, citing a newer precedent with surgical precision. The room had gone quiet, and his pride, already fragile from a sleepless week, had snapped. He’d fired back with a biting remark about her always needing to prove she was the smartest person in the room. The class had laughed. She hadn’t.

Since then, she hadn’t spoken to him. No sarcastic jabs, no eye rolls, no petty comments in the study group. Just silence. And strangely, he hated it more than the arguments.

“Are you planning to ignore me until the end of the semester,” he said finally, stepping closer, “or just until I beg you to speak again?”

She turned toward him slowly. Her dark eyes didn’t waver.

“I’m not waiting for your begging, Julien. I just want some respect. Maybe a concept that’s foreign to you.”

He scoffed lightly, masking the guilt gnawing in his stomach.

“You corrected me in front of the entire class. What did you expect? That I’d thank you for the humiliation?”

“I expected you to act like a grown-up. Have a discussion, not turn everything into a public duel.” She narrowed her eyes. “But I forgot—Julien Astor doesn’t lose arguments. He turns them into performances.”

He took a deep breath, trying to resist the urge to fire back. There was a deeper layer to her anger, he could sense it. This wasn’t just about a classroom spat.

“Look,” he said, voice lower now, more careful. “I crossed a line. I know. I shouldn’t have snapped at you like that. But maybe you could try not being so... perfect all the time.”

She blinked. That caught her off guard.

“Perfect?” she repeated, incredulous. “You think that’s what this is about? Me trying to be perfect?”

Julien shrugged, unsure now. “You always have the right answer. You always show up early, turn in work two weeks in advance, raise your hand like it’s a competition—”

She let out a short, sharp laugh. “You think that’s about being perfect? Julien, I do those things because I have to. I don’t have your last name. I don’t have your father's connections. I don’t get to be careless and still be taken seriously.”

There it was. The fracture beneath her control, the tension behind every well-timed answer and perfect grade.

“I have to work twice as hard to be seen half as capable,” she said, her voice calm now, but heavy with truth. “So no, I won’t apologize for correcting you. And I don’t need your forgiveness either.”

Julien’s jaw tensed. He hadn’t realized how differently they lived inside the same walls. He had always assumed her excellence came from arrogance. Not necessity.

He looked at her more closely now—not the confident, sharp-tongued rival he’d constructed in his head, but the woman who carried invisible weights he’d never bothered to see.

“You’re right,” he said after a moment. “I was a jerk. And I didn’t think past my own ego.”

She studied him, as if trying to detect sarcasm. But for once, there was none.

A heavy breath escaped her lips, and the tension in her shoulders dropped just slightly.

“I’m not looking for an apology,” she said. “I just want us to stop turning everything into a battleground.”

Julien nodded slowly. “Maybe we don’t know how to talk without fighting.”

“Maybe we never tried.”

The silence that followed wasn’t hostile this time. It was filled with the quiet realization that something between them had shifted.

“Do you want to study together?” he asked, more hesitant than usual.

She raised an eyebrow. “Since when do you ask me that nicely?”

“I’m evolving,” he said with a crooked smile. “Painfully.”

Stella sighed but motioned toward a study table by the window. “Fine. But if you bring that arrogant smirk into our session, I’m walking out.”

“No smirks. Promise.”

They sat down, opening their casebooks and laptops. For the next hour, the library was filled with the rustle of pages, the tapping of keys, and—for the first time—collaboration.

Julien was surprised by how efficient they were when they weren’t trying to one-up each other. Stella explained complex legal concepts with clarity that even the professors sometimes lacked. He asked questions, she answered without condescension. Occasionally, she challenged his ideas—but this time, it felt like sharpening a blade, not throwing one.

At some point, their fingers brushed when they reached for the same statute book. A small, fleeting contact, but enough to make both of them glance up. Their eyes met. Neither looked away for a beat too long.

“Can I ask you something?” he said, voice low.

She tilted her head. “Depends. Is it rhetorical? Or are you actually curious?”

He smirked, but gently. “Actually curious. Why law? Why this path?”

Stella leaned back, as if measuring how much she wanted to give away.

“My mother was a paralegal. She worked in a firm where no one ever bothered to learn her name. But she knew every clause, every case file. She used to tell me, ‘If you want to change the world, learn how it writes its rules.’”

Julien nodded slowly. “That’s... poetic.”

“It’s survival,” she replied. “And you? I assume you were handed a gavel at birth.”

He chuckled. “Almost. My father’s a judge. My grandfather was one, too. They expected me to follow the same script.”

She watched him carefully. “Do you want that life?”

“I don’t know,” he admitted. “Sometimes I feel like I’m just acting out a role I didn’t choose. But with you...” He stopped himself, suddenly aware he was saying too much.

“With me?” she prompted.

“You make it feel real. Like this isn’t just a performance.”

For a moment, her expression softened. Then, as if catching herself, she looked away.

“We should get back to the sentencing doctrines,” she said, flipping a page.

“Right,” he agreed, but he was still watching her.

They studied until the sky turned a dusky gold outside the window. Students around them began packing up, murmuring quietly. But Stella and Julien lingered, neither of them willing to be the one to end it.

As she finally stood to leave, gathering her notes, Julien hesitated.

“Stella?”

She turned back.

“I meant it,” he said. “About you making this feel real.”

Her eyes searched his face for a long moment. Then she nodded, almost imperceptibly.

“I know.”

And with that, she walked away—back straight, head high, just as always. But this time, Julien could tell: the wall between them had cracked. Maybe not broken, not yet. But enough for something to begin.

Something neither of them could name