Hazel's POV
Adrian found me two days later at the small café near Professor Larsen's office, the one where we used to sit after seminars and argue gently about restitution theory and whether art could actually repair what violence had broken. He ordered his coffee the way he always did, too much sugar, and sat down across from me like nothing between us had shifted, though we both knew everything had. The café was nearly empty at that hour, just the low hiss of the espresso machine and a student in the corner marking up a stack of papers, and I found the ordinariness of it strangely comforting, a small, quiet room where nothing was on fire.
"You don't have to say it," he said, before I'd found the words myself. "I've known for a while, I think. Longer than you have, maybe."
"Adrian—"
"
