Julian lasted five days.
Five days of rigid silence, of pretending Amelia Reyes was just another student in a sea of restless faces. Five days of reciting his lectures with military precision, his gaze nailed to the screen, his hands locked behind his back to keep from trembling.
But discipline had never felt this much like drowning.
The Dean’s notice still sat in the drawer of his desk, its edges worn from where his fingers had traced it over and over. A formal reminder that his every move was under scrutiny. Colleagues passed him in the halls with polite nods that seemed sharper than before, their eyes lingering half a second too long. He heard the whispers in the breakroom—nothing direct, not yet, but a murmur here, a question there.
And always, always, Amelia.
She didn’t fade as h
