Between Us

Chapter 20 — His Father

Zane's father arrived on a Friday afternoon in a black car that was too clean for campus roads and parked in a way that suggested he was used to people moving around him rather than the other way around.

I know this because Zane texted me at 2:47pm saying he's here and I happened to be walking past the main gate at 2:49pm and saw the whole thing.

Mr. Carter was tall — Zane got that from him. Well dressed in the way that announced itself without trying. He stood outside the car and looked at the campus with the expression of someone taking an inventory.

I kept walking.

At 3pm Zane texted again: library steps. 30 minutes. if you're still okay with this.

I typed back: I'll be there.

I went back to the hostel first.

Not to change — I looked fine, I was always fine — but to sit for ten minutes and be honest with myself about what I was walking into.

Zane's father was complicated. I knew this from 2am conversations and careful pauses and the specific way Zane's shoulders got tight when his phone showed a particular contact name. I knew that Mr. Carter had opinions about his son's choices — his course, his friends, his future — and that those opinions were delivered with the kind of certainty that didn't leave much room for other possibilities.

I also knew that Zane had asked me to be there.

Not as a performance. Not as a strategy.

Just — be there.

So I would be.

Denise found me sitting on my bed at 3:15 with my bag already on my shoulder.

"You're going," she said.

"Yes."

She sat beside me. Didn't say anything for a moment. Then — "You're nervous."

"I'm fine."

"Ava." She looked at me. "It's okay to be nervous."

I looked at my hands. "What if he doesn't—" I stopped.

"Doesn't what?"

"Doesn't think I'm—" I tried again. "Zane has this whole world. The car, the family, the — weight of it. And I'm a scholarship student from—"

"Stop." Denise's voice was quiet but firm. "You are the most capable person I have ever shared a room with. You got here on your own. Everything you have you built." She held my gaze. "Don't shrink yourself before you've even walked in the room."

I breathed.

"Okay," I said.

"Okay." She stood up. "Go. And stand up straight."

Zane was already at the library steps when I arrived, and his father was with him.

They were talking — or rather Mr. Carter was talking and Zane was listening with that careful neutral expression I recognized as the one he wore when he was managing something.

Zane saw me first.

Something in his face shifted — settled. Like a breath released.

He met me halfway, which I appreciated.

"Thank you for coming," he said quietly.

"Of course."

He looked at me for just a second — checking, the way he always checked — and whatever he saw made him nod once.

Then we walked over together.

Mr. Carter was exactly what I'd expected and slightly more than that.

Sharp eyes that assessed quickly. A handshake that was firm and evaluating. He looked at me the way people look at things they're deciding the value of.

"So you're Ava," he said.

"Yes sir."

"Zane's told me about you." He said it neutrally, giving nothing away. "Biological sciences?"

"Yes sir. On scholarship."

Something moved in his expression — brief, unreadable. "First year?"

"Yes."

"And you plan to do what with it?"

I held his gaze. "Medicine. Eventually. The long version."

He was quiet for a moment.

"The long version," he repeated.

"It requires patience and a plan," I said. "I have both."

We walked — the three of us — through the campus, and Mr. Carter asked questions the way people ask questions when they're actually conducting an interview. About my courses, my family, my goals, my understanding of where hard work actually leads in the real world.

I answered everything directly.

Not aggressively — I wasn't trying to fight him. But I didn't shrink either. I thought about what Denise had said and I stood up straight and I gave him honest answers and let them land where they landed.

Zane stayed mostly quiet beside me, but I could feel him — that specific awareness I'd developed over weeks, the way you learn someone's presence like a language. Every time his father pushed a question slightly too hard Zane's hand would find mine briefly, just a second, just enough.

I kept going.

At some point Mr. Carter stopped walking.

We were near the science block. He looked at the building for a moment and then at Zane and then at me and then back at his son.

"You seem settled," he said to Zane. Like he was surprised by it. Like he'd come expecting something different and found something that didn't match his forecast.

Zane said nothing.

"More settled than last year," his father said. Quieter now. Something in his voice that wasn't quite softness but was adjacent to it.

"I am," Zane said simply.

Mr. Carter looked at me briefly.

I looked back at him steadily.

He made a sound that wasn't quite agreement and wasn't quite concession but was somewhere in that territory.

Then he said — to Zane, not to me, but loud enough — "She's straightforward."

"She is," Zane said.

"I respect that." He looked at the building again. "I don't always make it easy. I'm aware of that."

It was possibly the most honest thing he'd said in an hour.

Zane was quiet for a moment.

"I know," he said.

Something passed between them — complicated, layered, years of things unsaid compressed into a few seconds of silence.

Then Mr. Carter straightened. Looked at his watch. "I have a call at six." Back to business, the softness already sealed away. "I'll see you at dinner. Both of you, if she's available."

He walked toward the main gate without waiting for an answer.

Zane and I stood there.

I exhaled slowly.

"Both of you," Zane said, mostly to himself.

"Is that good?" I asked.

He turned to look at me. His expression was doing several things at once — relief and something older than relief, complicated and real.

"Yeah," he said quietly. "That's good."

We stood there for a moment longer than necessary.

The campus moved around us — students and late afternoon light and the distant sound of someone's music from an upper window.

"You didn't shrink," he said.

"Someone told me not to."

"Smart person."

"Very." I looked at him. "Are you okay?"

He considered the question honestly, the way he'd learned to with me. "Getting there," he said.

I nodded.

He looked at me for a long moment.

Then — "Thank you. For today. For—" he stopped, started again. "For being exactly who you are."

I didn't know what to do with that for a second.

So I just said — "Always."

He smiled.

We walked to dinner.