Nine Month
969 Words
Adrian left two days after the last lecture.
No goodbye email. No text. Just an out-of-office reply that said On research sabbatical. Returning Fall 2027.
Elena told herself it was better this way. Nine months of no emails, no accidental meetings in the hallway, no 8 PM office hours that ran until 10. Nine months to get him out of her system.
It didn’t work.
She threw herself into finals and passed with a 97% average. She took a summer job at the campus library, shelving books and avoiding the math department wing entirely. She deleted his number twice and re-typed it into her phone both times. The second time she didn’t even know why. Habit, maybe. Or hope she didn’t want to name.
The worst part was the quiet.
No one challenged her in class the way he did. No one said show me where you start and made her feel like her messy scratch work mattered. Her new professors were nice. They were also forgettable. They graded her, nodded, moved on.
Her roommate, Maya, noticed first.
“You’ve been quiet,” Maya said one night in August, tossing a bag of chips onto Elena’s bed. “Like, too quiet. Even for you. You used to argue with the fridge if it was running too loud.”
“I’m fine.”
“You say that like a robot.” Maya sat down, cross-legged, pulling Elena’s blanket up around her knees. “It’s Dr. Cole, isn’t it? You’ve been staring at his faculty page since he left.”
Elena didn’t deny it.
“He’s on sabbatical,” she said. “It’s not a big deal.”
Maya gave her a look, sharp and knowing.
“If it wasn’t a big deal, you wouldn’t have deleted and re-added his number twice.”
Elena froze.
“How did you—”
“I share your iCloud, i***t. I saw the recent calls log.” Maya paused, her voice softening. “You’re in love with your professor, aren’t you?”
“I don’t know,” Elena said honestly. The words felt heavy in the air between them. “I think I’m in love with the way he saw me. Like I wasn’t just another ID number. Like the messy parts of my brain were worth cleaning up.”
Maya squeezed her hand.
“Then you’ll figure it out. But for now, you need to live your life. He’s gone for nine months. You’re not. You don’t get to pause yourself because he hit pause on his.”
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Fall semester started without him.
Elena took advanced analysis and hated it. The professor lectured from slides and never stopped to see if anyone was following. He’d say any questions? and look annoyed when someone raised their hand. She got an A anyway, but it felt hollow. Like winning a game she didn’t care about.
She started running in the mornings. Just to fill the time. Just to stop thinking.
It helped for about forty minutes. Then the endorphins wore off and she was back to wondering what Adrian was doing. Was he teaching at whatever university hosted him? Was he thinking about her? Did he regret saying her name like that?
That’s when Caleb showed up.
He was in her study group for topology. Third year, engineering major, tall, easy smile, always brought coffee for everyone and remembered how everyone took it. He noticed she sat alone before class and started saving her a seat by the window.
“You’re quiet,” he said on week three, sliding a coffee across the table to her. “But when you talk, you’re right. Every time.”
Elena shrugged, taking the cup.
“I just pay attention.”
“Most people don’t.” He grinned. “Black, no sugar. I noticed.”
She didn’t correct him. She did take it. The coffee was perfect.
Caleb wasn’t Adrian. He didn’t make her feel like she was solving a problem she wasn’t supposed to solve. He made her laugh with bad engineering jokes and stories about his little sister. He walked her to her dorm when it rained, holding his jacket over her head. He asked about her brother, remembered his name was Luis, asked how his classes were going and actually listened to the answer.
It was normal. Safe. Predictable in a way that made her chest stop hurting for a few hours at a time.
And that was the problem.
Because when she was with Caleb, part of her was still checking the door, waiting for Adrian to walk in. Part of her was still comparing every conversation to the ones she’d had at 9 PM in that office, when the world outside felt like it had stopped.
Maya noticed that too.
“You’re softer with him,” she said one night while they were doing laundry. “But you’re not lit up. You’re not…”
“Not what?”
“Not you when you talk about math with him,” Maya said. “With Caleb, you’re nice. With Dr. Cole, you’re alive.”
Elena didn’t have an answer for that.
She started spending more time with Maya’s other friends. There was Jamal, a music major who could play anything by ear, and Priya, a chem student who always had snacks and terrible puns. They dragged Elena to campus events she’d never have gone to alone.
At a fall fair, Jamal convinced her to try the dunk tank.
“One throw,” he said. “For your honor.”
She hit it on the first try.
“See!” Priya yelled. “You’re not dead inside!”
Elena laughed, but later that night she was back to staring at her ceiling, counting the cracks. Nine months felt like a lifetime and no time at all.
- Writer
