[ENG.] Azazel - Lucifer's Son

10. Shut out.

"So, dragă, what do you think?"

Sebastian's voice pulled me back to the surface, yanking me out of the spiral of thoughts I'd been sinking into.

I blinked, disoriented, like waking up from a daydream. Only then did I realize I was still sitting at his kitchen table, the afternoon light filtering through the cream-colored curtains, casting golden stripes across the worn wooden floor. My finger had been absently tracing the rim of my tea mug — stone cold by now.

"I think it's a great idea," I replied, forcing a smile as I looked up at him. "We should go to Kingknife one of these nights."

Sebastian shook his head slowly, elbows on the table. That light I knew way too well crept into his dark eyes — the one that meant one of his nostalgia plans was coming, the ones born from childhood memories we both tried to hold onto like precious relics.

"No, Jo." He paused, a faintly melancholy smile crossing his lips. "I meant train the old way, you know?"

He made a vague gesture with his hand, fingers moving through the air as if he could reach out and make those memories real.

"Trees, woods, full days of freedom," he went on, his voice going soft and dreamy. "Like when we were kids."

He got up from his chair with that effortless grace of his that had always made me feel a little clumsy by comparison, and came over to me. The chair scraped lightly against the floor. When he pulled me into a hug, the world seemed to stop for a second. I closed my eyes and breathed in deep, letting myself sink into it.

His scent was so familiar — sandalwood, something fresh like cut grass, a hint of cedar that reminded me of the house we'd grown up in — that for a moment I felt like a kid again, safe, before everything had fallen apart.

"You're right," I murmured into his shoulder, hugging him back. My fingers curled into the soft fabric of his hoodie. "But we've got classes during the week and the White House on weekends."

I felt his hand move slowly up my back, then stop at the nape of my neck. His fingers gently threaded through my hair, carefully working out a knot. It was such a protective gesture — so impossibly tender and deeply familiar — that I found my eyes closing, fully surrendering to the feeling. My breathing slowed, deepened.

"We'll find time, dragă. Don't worry." His voice was barely above a whisper, warm against my hair. I felt his breath on my forehead. "I know what you're thinking, Jolie. We'll have time for that too."

My throat tightened.

"Mamă..."

The word came out strangled, barely a breath that dissolved into the kitchen silence. I felt my eyes sting. Two years. It had been two whole years since I'd last visited my mother's grave, since I'd last taken care of her in the only way I still could. The guilt hit my stomach like a fist.

"I know, Jolie." Sebastian's voice went even softer. I felt his chin rest on top of my head. "We'll go in the summer. We'll have enough money to leave sooner than planned, I promise."

I could feel his smile more than see it — that sad, gentle smile that always hid too much pain — and for a few moments we just stayed like that, holding each other in the middle of his messy kitchen, in the comfortable silence that only years of deep friendship can build. The refrigerator hummed quietly. Outside, a car horn sounded in the distance.

When we finally pulled apart, we both wiped our eyes and pretended it was dust.

We made lunch like two kids left unsupervised, with that forced lightness you use to chase away thoughts that are getting too heavy. Flour ended up everywhere — on the black-and-white checkered floor, on our clothes, even in Sebastian's dark hair, leaving him with white streaks that made him look like an old man. We laughed until we cried over every little thing: the tomato sauce that splattered on the ceiling leaving a red stain that looked like modern art, my completely failed attempt at tossing vegetables in the pan — half ending up on the stove, the other half on the floor — Sebastian's dead-on impression of that screaming chef from the cooking show we always watched together on Tuesday nights.

"'This is a culinary tragedy!'" he bellowed in a fake Italian accent, waving a wooden spoon like a scepter, eyes wide with mock outrage.

I laughed so hard I had to grab the counter to keep from falling over.

We ate until we were stuffed, sitting on his old beat-up couch, plates balanced on our knees, talking about everything and nothing — the most ridiculous people in our program, movies we wanted to see, places we dreamed of traveling. But when the sky outside started turning purple and orange, pink streaks burning between the low clouds, reality called me back with its relentless voice.

"I have to go," I said reluctantly, standing up and stretching.

Sebastian nodded, but I could see the same reluctance in his eyes.

"I'll drive you."

"You don't have to, I can—"

"Jo." He gave me that look that didn't take no for an answer. "I'm driving you."

On the way there I stayed quiet, forehead pressed against the cold passenger window, watching the streets I knew by heart scroll past outside. The streetlights were coming on one by one. Families eating dinner behind lit windows. Normal, everyday life, going on undisturbed while inside me everything always seemed on the verge of collapsing — like a building with a rotten foundation.

"See you tomorrow," he said when we pulled up in front of my building. His hand briefly brushed mine.

"Tomorrow," I confirmed, forcing a smile.

I watched him drive away, his taillights getting smaller and smaller until they disappeared around the corner.

That night I studied on autopilot, sitting at my desk with only the lamp on. My eyes moved across the pages of the lit textbook without actually absorbing any of it. I'd read the same sentence three, four times, and every time I reached the end I'd understood nothing. The letters blurred together, lost meaning.

When I finally went to bed it was past two. But sleep didn't come. I stared at the ceiling in the dark, listening to the ticking of the clock on the nightstand, and the thoughts started spiraling again, unstoppable.

Would I really go back there?

The cemetery with its gray headstones and cypress trees standing like silent sentinels. The smell of wet earth and wilted flowers. Cold marble under my fingers.

Would I really face that raw, bare truth?

I was alone.

Completely, hopelessly alone.

The tragedy that hit my family happened when I was still a child — I was only eight, my mother thirty-four — and nothing, truly nothing in the world, can prepare you for something like that. There are no manuals, no dress rehearsals. You're never ready to accept death, especially when it comes too soon, when it rips away the people you love in the most violent, unexpected way.

Selfishly speaking, we all walk around with this childlike conviction that nothing truly terrible can ever happen to us — an invisible but seemingly indestructible bubble. It's always something that happens to other people, on the news, on TV, never to us. Never to our family. Never to the people we love.

Until that bubble gets obliterated by real life in an instant — one second, one breath, and everything changes forever.

And then comes the inner destruction, slow and unstoppable as flowing lava. The kind that can either bring you back completely reborn from the ashes — like the phoenix in the myths my mother loved to tell me — or leave you suffocating inside them, buried under the weight of what was and will never be again.

I was somewhere in the middle, clinging to an invisible rope above an abyss, desperately trying not to drown in my own ashes. Barely breathing. Holding on. Hoping that maybe, one day, I'd resurface as some kind of hybrid — a flawed crossbreed of painful awareness and deep disillusionment.

I rolled onto my side and hugged the pillow. Outside, a dog barked somewhere in the distance.

I barely slept at all.

The next morning I texted Sebastian at six thirty, still in bed with eyes burning from lack of sleep:

Getting to college on my own today. See you later.

His reply came almost instantly:

Everything okay? Call me if you change your mind.

It took me almost an hour to get ready — which was really saying something for someone who was usually done in twenty minutes. But I'd slept badly that night — or more accurately, not at all, maybe two hours tops — and every glance in the bathroom mirror showed me someone who looked like they'd just crawled out of a shipwreck.

Purple bags under my eyes. Pale, almost waxy skin. Chapped lips. Hair going in every direction.

Makeup. Orange color-corrector first, to neutralize the blue. Then concealer. More concealer because the first layer wasn't cutting it. Foundation. Setting powder. Blush to look at least somewhat alive. Brown eyeshadow to draw attention away from the bags. Mascara. Lip liner.

I looked at myself in the mirror. Better. Not good, but better.

I tried to be methodical about every tiny detail, applying each product with almost obsessive care, all to cover up the obvious wreckage of that sleepless night. It was like trying to rebuild a collapsed wall with scotch tape.

Finally I pulled my hair into a high ponytail — it was way too wild to leave down — spritzed some perfume, that jasmine and vanilla that was the only one that still managed to make me feel even slightly present in my own body. Then I looked at the clock.

Oh crap. Crap. Crap.

I was ridiculously late. Again.

I grabbed my backpack, keys, and phone and ran out of the apartment, nearly forgetting to lock the door.

I drove trying to actually be careful. Hands tight on the wheel, back straight, eyes on the road. But it was really hard to stay calm and focused when my eyes kept jumping nervously from the dashboard clock — 8:47, 8:48, 8:49 — to the road ahead, my foot automatically pressing heavier and heavier on the gas.

Every red light felt like an eternity. I'd sit there drumming my fingers on the steering wheel, muttering "come on, come on, come on" as if it would make the light change faster. The radio was just annoying background noise.

The streets were packed with morning traffic. Moms dropping kids at school. Half-asleep commuters. Buses crawling along at a maddening pace.

When I finally parked in the college lot — badly, at an angle, taking up part of two spots — it was 9:03. I was supposed to be in class at 9:00.

I grabbed my bag and ran. Through the parking lot, up the front steps, down the main hallway with my soles squeaking on the polished floor. Up the stairs two steps at a time, already out of breath, heart slamming against my ribs like it wanted out.

When I reached the door of room 304, I stopped for exactly one second to catch my breath. Then I pushed the door open and walked in.

The silence that followed was deafening, almost physical.

Everyone turned at once, like a synchronized movement. Emily, the blonde girl in the front row, eyes wide. John and Alvin in the back exchanging amused looks, smirks already ready on their faces. Sara looking at me with pure pity.

But it was Stan's gaze — Professor Stan's — that stopped me in the doorway like my feet had been glued to the floor.

Those gray eyes studied me for what felt like forever, moving from my flushed face to my definitely-messy hair to the hand still on the door handle. Some unreadable expression crossed his face — something between amusement and... what else? Disapproval? Interest?

He was leaning against the desk, arms crossed over his chest, a pen between his fingers. Dark navy shirt, sleeves rolled up to the elbows — I noticed that without meaning to — and dark jeans. No jacket today. He looked younger like that, less professor and more—

I cut that thought off.

"Well then." His voice broke the silence like a stone thrown into still water, sending ripples in every direction. His tone was soaked in a very deliberate, very controlled sarcasm. "I hope you got a nice long sleep, Miss Vladă."

Someone giggled in the back. I recognized Ruby's laugh.

"No," I replied, still out of breath, chest rising and falling fast. I swallowed. "Not really."

Stan raised an eyebrow — slowly, deliberately — then crossed his arms even tighter. The corner of his mouth lifted in something that wasn't quite a smile.

"Oh, wonderful then!" He paused, letting that sink in. "You're welcome to stay out in the hall this period and get some rest. I'd hate to feel responsible for any discomfort on your part, Miss Vladă."

His tone was ironic, cutting — but there was something serious underneath it, something sharp I couldn't quite decode.

"What do you mean, stay out in the hall?"

I stared at him, feeling the indignation rising in my chest like a tide. I took a step forward, letting go of the handle. The door clicked shut behind me.

"I need to follow the lesson, otherwise how am I supposed to understand anything when I study?"

"No, Miss Vladă." His voice went sharper, firmer. He pushed off from the desk and took two steps toward me. "There are afternoon sessions for students with obvious difficulties—"

He paused theatrically, and I watched his hands come up, fingers making air quotes with an air of condescension that made my blood boil.

"'Getting a good night's rest.'" Another step. "And trust me, you'll be needing them."

I felt heat flood my cheeks — warm, burning. My hands clenched into fists at my sides. Out of the corner of my eye I caught some classmates exchanging glances, others staring hard at their notebooks pretending not to exist.

"I don't understand." My voice came out harder than I intended. I lifted my chin and looked him straight in the eye. "My grades in your class are excellent."

I held his gaze, chin up, feeling my nostrils flare slightly, my breathing speed up. I was not going to let him get to me. Not him.

Stan took a few more steps toward me — slow, measured — and suddenly the space between us felt dangerously small. I could see the gray flecks in his eyes, a small scar above his left eyebrow that I'd never noticed before, the way his jaw tensed slightly.

"Not anymore." He said it quietly, but loud enough for every single person in that classroom to hear every syllable. His voice was calm — way too calm. "You and your friend are late every single day. At least today, he managed to show up."

With an almost imperceptible tilt of his head, he nodded toward Sebastian, sitting at his desk in the third row by the window.

I turned just in time to catch the expression on his face — one I had never seen before, not even in the worst moments. He was livid. Completely livid. Jaw clenched so tight I could see the muscles working. His knuckles white where he was squeezing the pen hard enough to snap it. His dark eyes, usually so warm, were burning with a rage that actually scared me.

He was defending me, even in silence. Always.

"But I—" I tried to say, turning back to Stan, feeling the frustration close around my throat like a vice, making it hard to even breathe properly.

"You wait outside, for now." He cut me off, his voice flat and final.

And before I could protest any further, before I could say another word, his hand rose — didn't touch me, no, stayed a few inches from my arm — but the gesture was enough. He guided me back gently but firmly toward the hallway, one step, then another, until I was completely outside the classroom.