The Touch That Unearthed Me

Chapter 4

By Thursday morning my brain had turned into a very specific kind of noise. Not panic. Not calm either. Just a constant, low drone. The kind that sits behind your thoughts and never fully switches off. Like a distant engine you can feel rather than hear.

I woke up five minutes before my alarm, staring at the ceiling like it might offer answers if I looked hard enough.

For once, money was not the problem. Deadlines were not the problem. The future was not the problem.

Friday was the problem.

Or rather… he was.

I lay there listening to the building come awake around me. Pipes muttering. Footsteps overhead. Someone in the flat upstairs dropping something heavy and swearing loudly over it. The radio in the tailor’s shop downstairs crackled faintly through the floor, muffled voices humming just out of clarity.

Ordinary sounds. Safe sounds. The sort that usually grounded me.

This morning they all felt too thin.

My phone buzzed on the bedside table.

Talia: Are you alive?

I rolled onto my stomach and typed back with my face half buried in the pillow.

Me: Unfortunately.

Three dots appeared instantly.

Talia: Coffee before class. Ten minutes. I’m outside. Do not pretend you are dead.

I groaned, rolled onto my back, and stared at the ceiling again like it might intervene.

“No,” I muttered to no one.

My phone buzzed again.

Talia: If you do not come out I will start yelling embarrassing things outside your building.

I sat up immediately. She knew me too well… as I knew her. And that is definitely something she wouldn’t hesitate to do.

Ten minutes later I was outside in jeans and a sweater, hair still damp from a rushed shower, mascara vaguely symmetrical if you squinted. The air smelled like rain and wet pavement, sharp and clean in a way that made my lungs feel wider.

Talia stood by the gate with the hood of her jacket pulled up and a thermos clutched triumphantly in both hands.

“You look haunted,” she said brightly. “Points for commitment to the aesthetic.”

“I am just tired,” I said.

“You were thinking about him,” she replied without missing a beat.

I took the thermos from her and drank like my life depended on it.

“You do not know that.”

“Your face does,” she said. “Your face is a terrible liar.”

We walked toward campus together, the morning grey thick and low above the rooftops. The pavement was slick from recent rain and the air had that heavy, charged smell like the sky was deciding whether to start again.

“So,” she said carefully, “how is the epic saga of Lydia Versus Her Unacceptable Attraction going?”

“I do not have an unacceptable attraction,” I said automatically.

She made a sound somewhere between a snort and a sigh.

“Lydia. You stare into the middle distance like you’re in a tragic painting. And you’ve been doing it for days.”

“I am just stressed,” I said. “And tired. And under-caffeinated.”

“Please,” she said. “If attraction were a crime, you would already be doing life without parole.”

I tightened my grip on the thermos. “He isn’t a crush,” I said too fast.

She glanced sideways at me. And then she said nothing.

It was worse than teasing.

“Lyd,” she said after a beat, softer now, “you know you are allowed to want things. Even stupid things. Wanting is not illegal.”

“Acting on it would be,” I muttered.

She squeezed my arm. “Good,” she said. “That is responsible. Impressively so. But you are still going to tell me every single detail of whatever happens next.”

“There is nothing to tell,” I said.

She only smiled.

My first class of the day was ‘Intro to Conservation’, which I usually loved. Today it felt like I was sitting inside fog.

The lecturer’s voice drifted over my head while diagrams of climate-controlled vaults sat untouched in my notebook. My pen traced nonsense lines in the margins while my mind replayed completely unhelpful things.

The angle of his jaw when he spoke. The way he folded his sleeves like it was muscle memory. The heat that had rushed under my skin the last time his attention had settled on me too long.

I shifted in my chair, discomfort curling low and slow in my stomach.

This is ridiculous, I told myself. This is not a romance novel. This is a campus. He is a person. You are a functional adult woman and you can survive having a hot professor.

The thought did nothing to cool the slow ache under my ribs.

After class, I stayed behind for a question about an assignment. When I stepped back into the corridor outside the staff offices, I immediately regretted it.

Dr Gray’s door was half open.

I did not mean to look… but I did.

He was inside, standing beside his desk, one hand on the chair back, the other holding a pen. A woman stood in front of him, glasses sharp, expression sharper, a stack of folders tucked against her chest.

They were talking in low voices. Professional. Dry.

And yet something in my chest twisted at the sight of him there in that world behind closed doors. With other adults. Other priorities.

He belonged much more easily behind that desk than he did in my stupid head.

As if sensing pressure, his eyes flicked to the doorway. Our gazes met. For half a second. Then he looked away.

It was nothing.

It felt like everything.

I turned and fled before my thoughts started writing poetry where it did not belong.

By lunchtime, the sky finally committed and rain came down in steady silver sheets. The cafeteria buzzed with damp coats and clattering trays. Everyone else moved normally. Laughed. Complained. Existed.

I was vibrating under my skin.

I checked my email out of habit. And my stomach dropped.

From: Lucien Gray

Subject: Friday lab session

The room around me dulled.

Ms Hawthorne,

This is a brief reminder that the introductory lab session will begin tomorrow at 16:00 in the artifacts laboratory. Attendance is required for all students assigned to the Methods practical.

Please come prepared with your lab notebook, appropriate footwear, and the assigned reading from last week.

Regards,

Dr L Gray

All students.

Assigned.

Methods practical.

The words settled in like a slow, quiet devastation.

It was not just me.

Of course it was not just me.

I had been carrying this delicate, ridiculous hope all week that tomorrow meant something else. Something smaller. Something private. Something that was never promised. The reality hit sharp and unwelcome.

A group session. Rows of benches. Voices. Movement. Distance.

Heat crept up my neck, embarrassment burning hotter than disappointment.

God, Lydia. Of course it was never just you.

I swallowed and forced air into my lungs. I should not reply. There was nothing to say. And yet my fingers hovered anyway.

I typed the reply like it might wound me.

Dear Professor Gray,

Thank you for the reminder. I will be there.

Regards,

Lydia Hawthorne

I stared at the screen like it had personally betrayed me.

Why did two calm sentences sting like rejection.

“I hate myself,” I muttered.

“What now?” Talia asked, sliding into the seat across from me.

“I replied to an email.”

She blinked. “The audacity.”

“It was from Dr Gray.”

Her expression sharpened instantly. “Oh.”

“It’s a group session tomorrow,” I said, too quickly, as if speed would make it hurt less.

Her eyes flicked to mine. “Oh,” she repeated. Softer.

“Yes,” I said. “Oh.”

“Well,” she said carefully, “that does not mean it is suddenly boring. He will still be there.”

“I know,” I snapped, then exhaled. “I know. I just… thought it was going to be different.”

“Different how?”

I shook my head. “Stupider.”

She studied me for a moment. “Lyd… did you want it to be just you?”

I did not answer. Which was answer enough.

Talia reached across the table and squeezed my wrist. “That doesn’t make you stupid. It makes you human.”

I swallowed past the tightness in my throat. “It makes me embarrassed.”

“Welcome to attraction,” she said. “It is deeply inconvenient.”

By the time my museum shift began, the rain had softened into something quieter. The entrance hall echoed with half-empty footsteps. Lou sat at the front desk filling in a crossword with militant seriousness while I updated labels that no one except unpaid interns ever seemed to read.

For an hour, my brain quieted.

Then, on my way to the staff room, I passed the artifacts lab. A pale light glowed through the frosted glass. A shadow moved behind it.

Long shoulders. The bend of a neck.

It could have been anyone.

It was still him in my body before my mind caught up.

The awareness was immediate.

A tightening. A pull. A warmth I did not want.

“You imagined it,” I whispered. But my skin did not believe me. I moved on. Left the light behind. Carried him with me anyway.

At home, my bag hit the floor and my laptop came out instantly.

Refresh. Nothing. Again. Still nothing.

I told myself to stop. I did not. Then the email appeared.

From: Lucien Gray

Subject: Re: Friday lab session

My breath hitched.

Ms Hawthorne,

Thank you for confirming.

Given your stated interest in field methods, you may find it useful to review the section on handling protocols in the course reader before tomorrow’s session. It will not be directly assessed, but familiarity will make the practical work more efficient.

L G

I reread it until the words blurred.

He had noticed me. Separately. Inside a group.

That did not make sense, and yet it felt important.

I replied before my better judgment could object.

Thank you, Professor. I will review it tonight.

I appreciate the recommendation.

My finger hovered. Then I sent it.

I closed my laptop like it might burn me and pressed my palms flat against its cool surface. “Get a grip,” I whispered to the empty room.

My body did not listen.

It felt too aware. Too awake. Like something inside me had shifted and refused to settle back into place. My skin buzzed in places it never buzzed for anyone. My thoughts kept circling back to a man who had done nothing more than write my name in an email and somehow managed to undo me.

I showered slower than necessary. Let the water run down my spine longer than I should have. Tilted my head back and closed my eyes like I could rinse him out of my head if I just stood there long enough. Steam curled around me, thick and warm, but it did nothing to calm the way my pulse kept misbehaving.

I imagined his hands once. Just once.

The thought hit so suddenly it knocked the breath from my lungs. Not even anything scandalous. Just his fingers at my wrist... That quiet firmness. The way he looked at me like he was trying not to.

I swore muttered curses at myself and turned the water colder.

It did not help.

I dried my hair slowly, mechanically, my mind somewhere else entirely. The mirror fogged and cleared again, leaving my reflection looking flushed, unsettled, like I had already done something I could not undo.

I put on pajamas that were softer than necessary. Looser than necessary. As if my body was preparing for something it did not have permission to expect.

When I lay down, my laptop sat dark on the desk across the room, an innocent rectangle that had carried his words across invisible distance straight into my bloodstream.

You may find it useful to review the section on handling protocols.

Handling.

The word should not have done what it did to me.

I rolled onto my side and pressed my face into my pillow like that might smother the train of thought. It did not. My imagination betrayed me with stupid clarity. His voice low and even. Saying my name the way he always did. Carefully. Like he knew it belonged to something fragile.

What would it sound like softer… Closer.

I squeezed my eyes shut.

Tomorrow, I told myself.

This is about tomorrow.

A group lab. Other students. Academic work. Normality.

Still, my body did not understand the lecture my brain was giving it. My stomach fluttered under my ribs for reasons that had nothing to do with nerves and everything to do with the simple, traitorous truth that I wanted him. In ways I could not afford. In ways I refused to name.

The quiet in my room curled around me, heavy and intimate, like it knew things I was not ready to say aloud.

For the first time that week, the silence did not feel empty.

It felt like being touched… without being touched at all.

And that somehow made it worse.