Adrian noticed the absence before he let himself acknowledge what it meant.
Elena hadn't come to office hours in eight days, hadn't lingered after class the way she'd fallen into the habit of doing, hadn't sent so much as a one-line email about her thesis progress despite a deadline bearing down fast enough that her silence felt deliberate rather than simply busy. She answered questions in seminar when called on, competent and precise as always, but something in her had gone carefully guarded, the openness he'd grown accustomed to over three months replaced by a polite, professional distance that felt, to him, like a held breath.
He told himself it was finals stress. He told himself a great many reasonable things over the course of that week, and believed almost none of them.
"You've be
