Norman didn't remember walking back to his dorm.
One moment he was standing under the stone archway with rain dripping down his spine and Professor Brandon's thumbprint still burning against his throat; the next he was pushing through the heavy glass doors of Hawthorne Hall, sneakers squeaking on the linoleum, water pooling around his feet like evidence.
The lobby smelled of burnt popcorn from the microwave and the chemical sweetness of someone's vanilla body spray. A group of sophomores lounged on the sagging couches, phones glowing against their faces. They glanced up as he passed, registered the drowned-rat look of him, and immediately looked away again. Norman was grateful. He didn't have the energy to explain why he looked like he'd been hit by something much bigger than weather.
He took the stairs instead of the elevator. Four flights. Each step echoed the thud of his heartbeat. By the time he reached the fifth floor his thighs burned and his lungs felt raw, but at least the cold had started to feel like something external instead of something that had crawled inside his chest and set up residence.
Room 512.
The door was already ajar.
He pushed it open with his shoulder.
Inside, the small double was a war zone of controlled chaos. Clothes spilled across the unmade beds, textbooks balanced precariously on the desk corners, and an open bag of sour gummy worms lay abandoned on the windowsill like a peace offering. His roommate, Caleb, was sprawled on his own bed in nothing but basketball shorts and a hoodie, headphones clamped over his ears, one foot tapping an erratic rhythm against the footboard.
Caleb looked up when the door banged shut behind Norman. He tugged one ear cup down.
"Jesus, you look like you got mugged by a lake."
Norman dropped his backpack. It hit the floor with a wet slap.
"Rain," he managed.
Caleb snorted. "Understatement of the century. You good?"
No.
Absolutely not.
Not even close.
But Norman forced a smile anyway, the kind that felt like stretching a rubber band too thin. "Yeah. Just… long first day."
Caleb studied him for a second longer than necessary, dark eyes narrowing behind the smudged lenses of his glasses. Then he shrugged and went back to whatever playlist was currently blasting through his headphones. Crisis averted. For now.
Norman peeled off his soaked shirt without bothering to close the bathroom door. The mirror fogged instantly from the heat of his skin meeting cold air. He avoided looking at his own reflection. He didn't need to see the flush that still hadn't left his cheeks, or the way his pupils were blown wide even now, hours later.
He turned on the shower, cranked it to scalding, and stepped under the spray.
The water hit like punishment.
He stood there for a long time, letting it pound against his shoulders, trying to wash away the memory of gray eyes and low voices and the exact pressure of a thumb against his pulse point.
It didn't work.
When he finally shut off the water, his skin was red and stinging. He wrapped a towel around his waist, stepped back into the room, and found Caleb watching him again.
"You sure you're okay?" Caleb asked, quieter this time.
Norman rubbed the back of his neck. "Why wouldn't I be?"
"Because you've been standing under that shower for twenty-three minutes and you still look like you saw a ghost."
Or a god.
Or a mistake.
Or both.
Norman laughed. It came out brittle. "First-day nerves. You know how it is."
Caleb didn't look convinced, but he let it drop. He pulled the headphones completely off and sat up, stretching until his spine cracked.
"So. How was Intro to Modernist Poetry? You survive the infamous Duke Brandon?"
Norman's heart lurched at the name. He turned away under the pretense of digging through his dresser for dry clothes.
"He's… intense."
"Understatement," Caleb said, grinning. "My cousin had him last year. Said the man could silence a room just by walking into it. Also said he grades like he personally hates you, but if you impress him he'll write you a rec letter that'll get you into grad school anywhere you want."
Norman pulled on a faded black hoodie and loose sweatpants. The fabric felt too soft after the violence of the rain. "He seems fair."
Caleb raised both brows. "Fair? Dude, most people say terrifying."
Norman shrugged, trying to look casual. Trying to look like his pulse wasn't racing again just from saying the man's name out loud.
He sat on the edge of his bed, pulled his knees up, and wrapped his arms around them. The room suddenly felt too small. The air too thick.
Caleb watched him for another beat, then sighed and flopped back onto his pillows.
"Anyway. There's a lit club thing tomorrow night. Guest speaker. Guess who?"
Norman's stomach dropped.
"No."
"Yup. Your new favorite professor."
Norman pressed his forehead against his knees. "I'm busy."
"You're literally not. You told me your only commitment tomorrow is breathing."
"I could start smoking. That's a commitment."
Caleb laughed. "Come on, man. It's in the old reading room in the library. Free coffee. Free snacks. And you get to stare at Professor Hot-and-Stern for two hours without getting called out for it."
Norman lifted his head just enough to glare.
Caleb held up both hands. "I'm just saying. Opportunity."
The word hung between them like smoke.
Opportunity.
For what, exactly?
To humiliate himself again?
To stand in the back of a room and watch Duke Brandon speak with that same quiet authority, the same controlled movements, the same voice that seemed to reach inside people and rearrange things?
To risk being noticed again?
Norman's fingers dug into the soft fabric over his knees.
"I'll think about it," he muttered.
Caleb grinned like he'd already won. "That's code for yes."
Norman didn't argue.
He couldn't.
Because the truth was clawing its way up the inside of his throat and he didn't trust himself to open his mouth.
Later, after Caleb had disappeared to the lounge to play Mario Kart with the guys down the hall, Norman sat alone at his desk. The lamp cast a weak yellow circle across his notebook. The same notebook from class.
He flipped it open.
Professor Duke Brandon.
I'm in trouble.
The ink had smeared where his wet fingers had brushed the page earlier. He stared at the words until they blurred.
Then he picked up his pen.
He didn't write anything coherent.
Just fragments.
Gray eyes like storms.
Voice like smoke.
Thumb on my throat.
I can still feel it.
He kept writing until the pen ran dry. Until the page was covered in jagged little confessions no one would ever see.
Then he tore the page out, folded it three times, and tucked it into the back pocket of his jeans.
He didn't know why.
Maybe because throwing it away felt like admitting defeat.
Maybe because keeping it felt like a promise.
He stood, crossed to the window, and pushed the glass open. Cold air rushed in, smelling of wet earth and pine. The campus lights glittered below like scattered stars. Somewhere out there, in one of the faculty houses or maybe still in his office, Duke Brandon was probably grading papers. Or drinking black coffee. Or staring at the rain the way Norman was staring at it now.
Wondering if he'd made a mistake.
Wondering if he'd crossed a line he couldn't see.
Wondering if he would do it again.
Norman closed his eyes.
The wind tugged at his damp hair.
And somewhere deep inside his chest, a small, reckless voice whispered,
You're going to that club meeting tomorrow.
You're going to stand in the same room as him again.
You're going to let him see you.
And when he does…
The thought trailed off into darkness.
Norman opened his eyes.
The rain had stopped.
But the storm inside him had only just begun.
He turned away from the window, crossed to his bed, and dropped face-first into the pillow.
He could still smell rain on his skin.
He could still feel the ghost of a thumb against his pulse.
And as sleep finally dragged him under, the last coherent thought he had was simple, sharp, and terrifying.
Tomorrow.
Tomorrow he would see Professor Duke Brandon again.
And God help him, he couldn't wait.