Later that afternoon I made my way to the cafeteria, my shoulder still ached under the fresh bandage, a deep, slow throbbing that sharpened when I moved my arm too much. I kept it close to my side as I carried my tray to a quiet table near the window and sat down carefully.
The room was full of students eating and talking about completely ordinary things. I kept my head down and picked at my food without much appetite.
I had eaten maybe half of it when a chair scraped across the floor on the other side of my table and Calder sat down.
I looked up, already tensing. But the face across from me was not the one I had been bracing for, his eyes were quieter than usual and the hard set of his jaw had loosened.
He looked tired in a way that went deeper than one bad night, and he wasn't lean
