Hazel's POV
It was in my second week that I met Adrian Cross, a postdoctoral researcher two offices down who brought me coffee on the morning I forgot my own thermos and hadn't yet learned the building well enough to find the department kitchen. He was easy in a way that had nothing performative in it, no calculation behind his kindness, no audience he was playing to.
"You're the one everyone's talking about," he said, handing me the cup. "The mystery scholar with the London Foundation grant nobody can quite explain."
"There's no mystery," I said. "Just someone starting late."
"There's always a story behind starting late," he said, not pushing, just leaving the door open in case I ever wanted to walk through it. I didn't, not yet. But it was the first conversation I'd had in longer tha
