Chapter 5
697 Words
Celina
Celina balanced her phone between shoulder and ear as she crossed the quad, morning mist clinging to the grass like a half-remembered dream.
“School’s good,” she said. “Busy. Hard. The good kind of hard.”
Her mother hummed warmly on the other end of the line, the sound layered with distant wind and the faint clink of metal—another dig site, another temporary home.
“And the new job?” her mum asked. “You’re not overdoing it, are you?”
Celina smiled, adjusting her bag. “It’s actually interesting. I’m in research support—translations, archival cross-referencing. I like it. It feels… useful.”
She didn’t mention the pool house.
Didn’t mention the vast, empty mansion she slipped in and out of like a ghost.
Didn’t mention how temporary everything still was.
“That’s good darling,” her mum said. “You’ve always needed to feel anchored.”
Celina swallowed.
There it was. The thing she never quite said out loud.
They talked a bit more—about classes, deadlines, her dad’s latest discovery somewhere sunburnt and remote—until her mum laughed softly.
“And is there anyone special?” she asked, casual but hopeful.
Celina hesitated, then snorted. “Define special.”
“Oh,” her mum said immediately. “There is someone.”
“Not really,” Celina said, grinning despite herself. “Just… a man-shaped problem.”
“A problem?”
“Tall,” Celina said, counting on her fingers.
“Dark. Broody. Emotionally unavailable. Jumps into pools without warning.”
Her mum laughed outright. “He sounds dramatic.”
“He is,” Celina agreed. “And confusing. And rude. And—” she stopped herself. “Anyway. Nothing’s happening.”
But something was.
She ended the call a few minutes later and leaned against a stone wall, staring up at the grey Seattle sky.
She’d never stayed anywhere long enough for things to happen.
Her childhood had been a patchwork of tents, short leases, borrowed homes. Languages learned quickly because goodbyes came faster when you could speak to people. Friendships were shallow by necessity. Relationships—nonexistent.
Why start something when you’d be gone in six months?
But Seattle was different.
She wanted different.
She wanted routine. Familiar streets. A place that remembered her. A future that didn’t pack up every season.
And somehow, impossibly, Elliot—Mr Tall, Dark, and Troubled—had become tangled in that want. A disruption she hadn’t planned for. A pull she didn’t understand.
She pushed off the wall and headed inside.
The elevator was packed at the end of the day, bodies close, voices overlapping, exhaustion buzzing in the air.
Celina stepped in just before the doors closed.
“Celina!” A woman from her department—Maya, bright-eyed and sharp—grinned at her. “We’re grabbing drinks tonight. You in?”
Celina blinked. “Drinks?”
“Girls’ night,” Maya said. “You look like you could use the break.”
Celina laughed. “I don’t really do—”
“Come on,” another woman chimed in. “First round’s on me.”
Celina hesitated, then felt something loosen in her chest.
“Okay,” she said. “Yeah. I’m in.”
“Good,” Maya said. “Seven. Don’t bail. I'l text you the address.”
The elevator hummed.
Only then did Celina notice him.
Elliot stood at the back, tall enough to see over everyone, face carefully blank, hands in his pockets. He hadn’t looked at her once.
But she felt him.
Felt the attention like heat against her spine.
She shifted slightly, aware that he’d heard every word.
Girls’ night.
Drinks.
Out in the world.
Good.
Let him hear.
Let him wonder.
As the doors opened, she stepped out without looking back, unaware of the way Elliot’s jaw tightened—
—or how the idea of her laughing somewhere without him lodged sharp and unwanted in his chest.
For the first time, Celina felt something dangerous and exhilarating settle in her bones.
She was done letting him run.
Next time, she decided, she would corner him.
And she would demand answers.
- Writer
