The wrong Guy
945 Words
October hit, and the campus got cold fast. The trees outside the library turned gold and red, then dropped their leaves all over the quad in one night.
Elena, Maya, Jamal, and Priya fell into a routine. Study sessions in the library basement every Tuesday and Thursday, cheap pizza on Fridays that Maya paid for with her barista tips, and Maya dragging everyone to karaoke whether they wanted to go or not.
“Live a little!” Maya said one Friday, shoving a microphone into Elena’s hand at K Bar. “You’ve been in grumpy math mode for weeks. Sing something embarrassing.”
Elena sang badly on purpose and got a laugh. Caleb cheered the loudest, clapping like she’d just won a concert.
Afterward, they walked back together. Campus was quiet at 11 PM, just the sound of leaves crunching under their shoes and the distant hum of the city beyond the gates.
“You seem better,” Caleb said. “Less… distant.”
“I am,” she said. “I think I needed the break.”
He stopped walking and turned to face her under the streetlight. His expression was careful, like he’d been rehearsing this.
“Elena, can I ask you something?”
She nodded, her stomach tightening.
“Are you waiting for someone?”
The question hit too close. She looked away, focusing on a crack in the sidewalk.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean,” Caleb said carefully, “you’re here. You laugh, you study, you let me walk you home. But it’s like part of you isn’t. Like you’re waiting for something to change. Like you’re standing still and hoping the world catches up.”
She didn’t answer right away. The honesty in his voice made it harder to lie.
“Yeah,” she said finally, quiet. “I guess I am.”
Caleb nodded, like he’d expected it. He didn’t look angry. Just resigned.
“Okay. I just needed to know. Because I like you, Elena. And I don’t want to be the guy you settle for while you wait.”
She felt guilty, sharp and immediate. He deserved more than half of her.
“I don’t want you to feel like that,” she said. “You’re good to me. You’re good, period. You deserve someone who’s all in.”
“But?”
“But I can’t give you what you deserve right now,” she said. “Not when I’m still… stuck.”
Caleb exhaled and smiled, small and sad.
“Fair. I’ll back off. Friends?”
“Friends,” she agreed, and it felt like relief and loss at the same time.
He bumped her shoulder lightly.
“Friends. And if you ever want to talk about what you’re waiting for, I’m here. Even if it’s dumb. Even if it’s a professor on sabbatical.”
“It’s not dumb,” she said quietly.
---
Life with Caleb as just a friend settled into something easier.
He still saved her a seat in class. He still brought coffee, but now he’d drop it on her desk and say friend fuel before walking away. Maya approved.
“See? He respects the boundary,” Maya said. “Unlike some people.”
Elena didn’t reply.
She started tutoring at the math help center two nights a week. It felt good to explain things again, to see the moment when a student’s face lit up and they got it. She was good at it. Maybe better than she was at being a student.
But every time someone said Dr. Cole used to explain it like this, her chest tightened.
She didn’t see Adrian that month.
But she saw his name.
He published a paper in Annals of Mathematics. It hit the department mailing list, and Maya forwarded it to their group chat with a single message: He’s still brilliant and infuriating. Also, I hate that I read the abstract and understood none of it.
Elena read the abstract at 2 AM. Didn’t understand half of it. Read it again anyway. She memorized the title like it was a password.
Two weeks later, a package arrived at the library desk with her name on it. No return address. The handwriting on the label was familiar in a way that made her fingers shake.
Inside was a notebook. Old, worn, leather cover scuffed at the corners. Familiar handwriting on the first page: Problem Set Solutions – Advanced Analysis.
She flipped it open. Page after page of proofs, cleaner than hers, but with margin notes that sounded like him. You overcomplicated this. Start here. Check the definition.
On the first page, in pen:
_For when you need to remember you’re better than this class.
– A.C._
No date. No signature beyond the initials.
Elena closed the notebook and held it to her chest, sitting on the floor of the library staff room like a kid with a secret.
Maya found her there ten minutes later.
“Okay, what is it?” Maya asked, kneeling beside her.
“He didn’t forget,” Elena said. It wasn’t a question.
Maya looked at the notebook, then at Elena’s face.
“Then what are you going to do about it?”
“I don’t know,” Elena said. “Wait, I guess. Nine months isn’t over.”
Caleb was right. She was waiting.
And Adrian hadn’t forgotten her either.
The tension wasn’t gone.
If anything, it was worse now that he was letting her know he was still there, still watching from wherever he was.
Outside, it started to rain. The same kind of rain as that night in his office.
Elena didn’t move.
- Writer
