Her palm stayed flat against her chest, the wool of her blazer rough under her fingers, her heartbeat a drum she couldn't quiet. The words still hung in the air around her—to give someone like you a reason to watch someone like me—and she could feel the shape of them in her throat, hot and reckless and too true.
The hallway was empty. The single sconce cast its amber light across dark wood, pooling at her feet like something spilled. She could hear her own breathing, too fast, too loud in the silence, and she pressed her palm harder against her chest as if she could push the rhythm back down where it belonged.
She reached up. Her fingers found the collar he'd noticed—the one she'd left unbuttoned deliberately, a small flag of defiance she'd planted before she even walked in. Now she worked the first button through its hole. The fabric tightened against her throat. Then the second. A snug closure that felt like a collar in truth.
The motion was slow. Deliberate. She didn't know if she was hiding from him or from herself.
Behind the door, no footsteps. No sound at all. The silence was heavier than any reprimand could have been, pressing against her back like a hand she couldn't shake.
She let her hand drop from her collar. Her palm was damp. She wiped it against her thigh and immediately hated that she had—a tell he would have noticed, if he were watching. She didn't turn to check. She didn't need to. The door stayed closed.
The hallway stretched in both directions, dark and indifferent. She knew where the dormitories were—he'd pointed them out at the start of the interview, a vague gesture toward the east wing—but she couldn't remember the path. Her mind was still in that office, still on the other side of that door, still on the way he'd closed her file and placed his hand on it like a claim.
She pushed off the wall. Her legs were unsteady beneath her, and she hated that too—the way her body betrayed the calm she was trying to wear. She straightened her blazer, tugged at the hem, and began walking.
The east wing felt farther than she remembered. The sconces cast the same amber light at regular intervals, each one a marker she passed without marking. She didn't look back. She didn't slow. But the silence followed her, heavy and patient, a question she hadn't answered yet.
She stopped. The silence didn't—it kept moving, settling into her chest like something with weight, a question with no shape until now. She heard herself say it, barely a breath: "What do you want from me?"
The words hung in the amber light. No answer. The east wing stretched ahead, dark and indifferent, the sconces casting their same glow at regular intervals. She didn't turn back. She didn't need to. The door behind her stayed closed.
She pressed her palm flat against the wall. The wood was cool, smooth, a polished surface that gave nothing back. Like his desk. Like his voice. Like the way he'd looked at her when she'd said it—to give someone like you a reason to watch someone like me—and hadn't flinched.
Her collar sat tight against her throat. She'd buttoned it. She'd surrendered and called it defiance, and now she couldn't tell which one she'd meant. The silence didn't help. It just waited.
She let her hand drop. The wall was still cool where her palm had been, a ghost of warmth fading fast. She could feel the shape of his office against her back, even from here—the weight of his gaze, the deliberate way he'd closed her file, the way he'd said why you really want to stay like he already knew the answer and wanted her to say it first.
She didn't have one. Not yet. Maybe not ever. But the silence wanted one.
She pushed off the wall. Her legs were steadier now, but something else was unsteady—a seam she couldn't locate, a thread pulled loose in that office that was still unraveling. She started walking again, slower, each footfall deliberate, as if she could measure the distance between herself and that door in steps she could count.
The sconces passed. One. Two. The east wing still felt endless, but she knew it wasn't. She'd reach the dormitories eventually. She'd find her room. She'd close another door.
But the silence followed. It didn't ask again. It didn't have to. It was patient. It was heavy. And it had all the time in the world to wait for an answer she wasn't sure she could give.
Her palm found the collar again before she told it to. The fabric was snug against her throat, each button a small constraint, and she pressed her palm flat against it, the heel of her hand resting just above her pulse point. The pressure was deliberate—firm enough to feel the weave of the wool, the slight give of the fabric where it met her skin.
She held there. The silence didn't move. It pressed back in its own way, a weight against her ears, against the space between her ribs where her heart was still too fast. The collar was warm now from her hand, the wool softened by her body heat, and she could feel the exact shape of each button through the fabric—small, round, hard against her palm.
The question she'd asked still hung in the air around her—what do you want from me—but the silence had absorbed it, swallowed it whole without an echo. She pressed harder. The collar bit slightly against her throat, a gentle pressure that reminded her she was still here, still breathing, still waiting for an answer that might not come.
Her thumb traced the edge of the collar, the seam where the wool met the lining. A small imperfection there—a thread pulled loose, or maybe one she'd created by touching it too much. She pressed her palm flat again, covering it, as if she could smooth it back into place.
The sconce above her flickered once, a brief dimming of the amber light, and then steadied. She didn't look up. Her palm stayed on her collar, the pressure constant, the only anchor in a hallway that felt like it was holding its breath.
Time passed in heartbeats she could feel against her palm—one, two, three, four—a rhythm she tried to slow by pressing harder, as if she could compress the space between each beat until they merged into something quieter. The silence didn't help. It just watched, patient, waiting for her to break first.
Her collar was damp now, where her palm had been pressed too long. She didn't pull away. The warmth of her own body was the only heat in this hallway, the only thing that felt alive, and she held onto it like a secret.
Behind her, the door stayed closed. She knew it would. He'd had his answer from her—or enough of one—and now the silence was hers to carry, hers to fill with whatever she could find. But her hand stayed on her collar, pressed tight, and she couldn't seem to let go.
The sconce flickered again. This time she noticed. A brief pulse of darkness that made the amber light seem thinner when it returned, as if something had been taken from it. She held her breath, waiting for it to happen again, but the light held steady. The silence held steady. Everything held steady except her hand on her collar, and that too was still.
She pressed one last time—a firm, final pressure that left an imprint on her palm when she finally, slowly, let her hand fall. The collar was warm where she'd touched it. The silence was warm where she'd spoken. And the answer she wasn't sure she could give was still somewhere in the dark between them.
She heard the silence shift. Not the sound of it—the weight, the way it redistributed itself in the air when she stopped fighting it. Her hand hung at her side, the imprint of the collar still pressed into her palm like a bruise she couldn't see.
She turned.
Not the full turn—not yet. Just her shoulders first, rotating against the resistance of her own spine, the dark wood of the hallway walls sliding across her periphery until the sconce behind her was at her back and the direction of his door was somewhere ahead, somewhere she couldn't see but could feel, a gravity she'd been walking away from for the last ten minutes without once admitting she was working against a pull.
The floor was the same. The amber light was the same. The distance she'd traveled was measurable in footsteps she hadn't counted, and now she stood at the edge of that measurement, the door somewhere behind the turn she hadn't yet completed.
Her heel lifted off the floor. A quarter inch. A test. The sole of her shoe hovered above the polished wood, and she could feel the shape of the choice in the arch of her foot—toward or away, and the difference between them was only which direction she committed to first.
She set her heel down. Toward.
The first step was the hardest. The second was harder in a different way—a surrender disguised as a decision, her body moving before her mind caught up, the rhythm of her footfalls uneven in the silence. She didn't count them. She didn't need to. She could feel the distance collapsing with each one, the air thickening as she approached the corner she'd rounded minutes ago, the place where the hallway bent and his door became visible.
The sconce at the corner flickered as she approached. She didn't slow. The light steadied as she passed beneath it, and then she was at the turn, the wall ending, the corridor ahead opening into the stretch she'd walked away from.
The door was still there. Closed. The same dark wood, the same brass handle, the same sliver of darkness where it met the frame. Nothing had changed. Nothing had moved. The silence had followed her, but the door hadn't—it had stayed exactly where she'd left it, patient, waiting, holding whatever answer she'd failed to give.
She didn't walk toward it. She stood at the corner, her shoulder pressed against the wall, her hands at her sides, the length of the hallway between her and that door a distance she could close in seconds or leave uncrossed forever. Her collar was cool now, the warmth of her palm long faded, and she could feel the looseness of the fabric where she'd buttoned it—not tight, not binding, just present, a constraint she'd chosen.
She took a breath. Held it. Let it go in a slow release that disturbed nothing. The door stayed closed. The silence stayed patient. And she stayed at the corner, not walking forward, not walking back, suspended in the space between the question she'd asked and the answer she still didn't have.