LETTER'S THAT LED ME BACK TO YOU
The next three weeks were a masterclass in professional avoidance and emotional exhaustion. Elara perfected the art of the neutral gaze and the concise, syllabus-approved response. In class, she was just another student: focused, brilliant, and untouchable. In the halls, she was always in a hurry, managing to be ten steps ahead or behind him at all times.
Adrian, to his credit, maintained absolute formality. He delivered lectures clearly, kept his distance, and treated her like any other student, but the patience in his eyes was a palpable, silent pressure, a question mark he left hanging in the air.
The peace broke with the mid-semester paper.
He graded her critical analysis on the existentialism of Kafka with an A-minus, a score that was mathematically impossible given her previous grades. He left only one comment in the margin, written not with the red pen, but in soft graphite pencil: Good work, but where is the emotional stake? See me during office hours.
It was a deliberate, targeted provocation. He hadn't just graded the paper; he had graded her heart.
She found herself outside the TA office in the annex building an hour later, heart hammering against her ribs like a trapped bird. She knocked once, sharply, and pushed the door open.
Adrian was alone, grading a fresh stack of essays, the scent of library dust and mint tea filling the small room, just as she remembered from the night he gave her the letter. He looked up, his expression softening instantly from TA-formal to Adrian-private. "Elara. Thank you for coming. I wasn't sure you would."
"I came about the A-minus," she said, her voice sharp, steady, and utterly cold. "I disagree with the assessment that my analysis lacked emotional stake. It's a critical essay on the absurdity of modern life, Adrian, not a personal journal entry."
Adrian set his red pen down and leaned back, his gaze steady, challenging. "It lacked stake because I know what you're capable of, Elara. Your writing used to burn with passion, even when you wrote about something as dull as 18th-century agrarian structure. This feels… safe. Your arguments are technically perfect, but your language is protected. Like you built a wall around the prose."
She crossed her arms, fighting the immediate sting of truth. "Maybe I learned that passion isn't worth the cost of the aftermath."
"Don't punish your work for my mistakes," he said softly, leaning forward, the distance on the desk shrinking. "That's not fair to the writer you are. That writer is incredible."
"And what about the TA I have to report to?" she challenged, stepping closer to the desk. "Is that fair to the student I am? Docking my grade to force a conversation?"
Adrian flinched, a flicker of pain crossing his face. "No, it's not. It was childish. I just... I needed to know you were still alive in there." He stood, walking around the desk to stand opposite her. "I'm not asking for a second chance right now. I'm just asking for truth. I told you I left because I was afraid of holding you back. Do you want to know what else I was doing while I was gone? I was writing to you, too."
Elara's breath hitched, the unexpected revelation stealing her ability to retort. "What?"
"I kept a journal," he admitted, his eyes dropping to the desk. "It's full of letters I never sent. Letters about my scholarship, about my guilt, about every single day I wished I could take it back. I knew I couldn't write you a single real email, because I had convinced myself that would ruin your healing process, but I couldn't stop talking to you, either. I was just as much a coward as you felt I was."
His honesty was a fissure in her carefully constructed defense, splitting the wall she had built.
"Why didn't you just tell me that night in the library?" she whispered, the question loaded with two years of silence.
"Because you were looking at me like I was a ghost, Elara. I needed you to hear the basic apology first. Now, I need you to understand that while I was gone, I learned what true distance is. And it wasn't the thousands of miles of ocean between Munich and Arven. It was the silence I created between us. And I hate it."
He pushed a piece of paper across the desk—not a letter, but a new, neatly typed office hour schedule.
"Here's the deal," he said, meeting her eyes, the vulnerability heavy and genuine. "We can't avoid each other. It's unprofessional and it's exhausting, and it's making us both miserable. From now on, you come to my office hours every Friday, same time. We spend the first twenty minutes discussing your project, and the next twenty discussing the silence. No accusations, just answers. You ask whatever you want about the fellowship, about the guilt, about the letters, and I promise, I will tell you the absolute truth, even if it makes me the villain."
Elara looked at the schedule, then at his earnest, tired face. This wasn't a fix, but it was an invitation to stop bleeding and start stitching the wound closed. It was a promise of open communication, something they never truly mastered before.
"Okay," she said, nodding slowly, a heavy weight lifting off her shoulders for the first time in two years. "But Adrian... you don't get to be noble anymore. You get to be honest. That's the only way back into my life."
"Honesty," he agreed, picking up his red pen, but not to grade. "I can do that. Starting now."