Chapter Four

Too Close to Ignore

Ethan had begun to notice that Thursdays felt different from the rest of the week, although for a while he had convinced himself that it was simply because the book club gave him something to look forward to after several exhausting days of lectures, programming assignments and long hours spent staring at screens. It was easier to explain the feeling that way than to admit that the real reason had gradually become impossible to overlook. Maya would be there. Somewhere between their first argument about a fictional character and the walks they had begun taking after the meetings, she had become part of his Thursday routine, and Ethan was starting to realise that routines were dangerous when they involved another person because eventually you began to miss them when they weren't there.

He had never been particularly good at noticing people in the way Maya seemed to notice them. Ethan remembered information easily, especially when it followed a pattern, but people were rarely predictable enough to fit comfortably into one. Maya was different. He remembered the way she pushed her hair away from her face whenever she was concentrating, the expression that appeared whenever someone offered an interpretation she strongly disagreed with but was trying very hard to tolerate, and the fact that she always carried at least one more book than she actually needed. He remembered that she preferred tea to coffee but drank coffee whenever she had been studying too long, that she reread passages she loved instead of simply moving on, and that she had a habit of tapping her pencil against the table whenever she was trying to formulate an argument.

He had no particular reason to remember any of it.

He remembered anyway.

That evening, however, something seemed different about her. Maya participated in the discussion, challenged two interpretations and made everyone laugh at one point when she compared a character's decision to "the literary equivalent of walking into a wall and then blaming the wall," but Ethan noticed that her usual energy disappeared almost as soon as the conversation moved away from the novel. She seemed distracted, and whenever someone asked her a question, there was a tiny delay before she answered, as though her thoughts were somewhere else.

When the meeting ended, people began gathering their books and coats, filling the room with the familiar sounds of chairs scraping against the floor and conversations overlapping one another. Ethan packed his laptop into his backpack and glanced across the table. Maya was still sitting there, arranging her papers with unusual care, stacking them and then restacking them as though the order mattered enormously.

"You okay?" he asked.

She looked up, briefly surprised.

"Yeah. Just tired."

Ethan studied her expression for a moment, then decided not to question it. He had learned quickly that Maya disliked being treated as though she needed to be fixed whenever she was having a difficult day. Instead, he waited until she finished packing, and when she finally stood, he simply picked up his own bag and followed her outside.

The evening was colder than he had expected. A thin breeze moved through the courtyard, carrying the smell of damp stone and leaves, while the windows of the surrounding buildings glowed warmly against the darkening sky. Maya tucked her hands into the sleeves of her coat and walked beside him, her pace slower than usual.

They began with the book, because that was easy.

Maya complained about the ending.

Ethan defended it.

She accused him of being deliberately difficult.

He pointed out that she had spent twenty minutes earlier defending a character who had made considerably worse decisions.

That made her laugh, and for a while everything seemed normal again, but eventually their conversation drifted away from literature. They talked about university, the ridiculous amount of reading their courses required, professors who seemed convinced students had nothing else to do, and the strange experience of being surrounded by hundreds of people while occasionally feeling completely alone.

It was Maya who brought up the subject of expectations.

"My parents keep asking what I'm going to do after this," she said eventually, her voice quieter than before. "Everyone keeps asking."

Ethan glanced at her. "Do you know?"

"No."

There was no embarrassment in the answer, but there was something vulnerable beneath it.

"I don't think that's unusual," he said.

"It feels unusual."

"Why?"

"Because everyone else seems to have a plan."

Ethan almost laughed, but stopped when he realised she was serious. "Most people don't."

"You don't?"

"I have a plan."

Maya looked at him suspiciously. "Of course you do."

He smiled. "It's not a very good one."

That earned another laugh, but it faded quickly.

They reached an old stone bench near the edge of the courtyard, partially hidden beneath the branches of a large tree. Maya stopped and looked toward it.

"Can we sit for a minute?"

"Of course."

They sat down, and for a while neither spoke. Ethan didn't find the silence uncomfortable. If anything, he preferred it. The university seemed different when they weren't surrounded by the noise of lectures and students rushing between buildings. Somewhere in the distance, a bicycle bell rang, followed by laughter, and the soft rustling of leaves filled the spaces between their breaths.

Maya eventually began talking again, this time about herself rather than university. She told him that sometimes she felt as though she was constantly trying to become the version of herself that other people expected, and that the harder she tried to appear certain, the more uncertain she actually became. She laughed once while saying it, almost apologetically, as though she were embarrassed that the conversation had become serious.

"You don't have to make it sound less important," Ethan said.

She turned toward him.

"What?"

"If something bothers you, you don't have to make a joke about it halfway through."

Maya stared at him for several seconds, and Ethan immediately wondered whether he had said the wrong thing.

Instead, she smiled.

"You really listen, don't you?"

He looked down at his hands. "I try."

"No, you actually do."

Ethan didn't know what to say to that, so he let the silence return.

After a moment, Maya shifted slightly closer. It wasn't dramatic enough to draw attention, and neither of them acknowledged it, but Ethan became aware of the change almost immediately. Their shoulders were now close enough that they occasionally brushed whenever either of them moved, and he found himself strangely conscious of the warmth beside him despite the cold air.

Maya continued talking, though her voice had become quieter. Ethan listened without interrupting, occasionally answering when she asked what he thought, and somewhere in the middle of the conversation she rested her head lightly against his shoulder.

For half a second, Ethan went completely still.

He hadn't expected it.

Then he relaxed, careful not to move suddenly enough to make her uncomfortable.

"Is this okay?" she asked softly.

"Yeah."

He meant it.

They stayed that way, talking in low voices about books they loved, places they wanted to visit and the strange possibility that none of them would have their lives figured out as soon as they pretended. Maya's voice occasionally faded into silence, and Ethan found himself watching the courtyard instead of his phone, surprised by how little he wanted the moment to end.

He became aware of small details he hadn't consciously noticed before: the warmth of her shoulder against his, the faint scent of her shampoo when the wind shifted, the sound of her turning a page in the book she had eventually pulled from her bag, and the way her breathing gradually became slower as she relaxed. None of those things should have mattered to him, yet his mind stored them away with the same irritating precision with which it remembered everything else he considered important.

Eventually Maya lifted her head.

"Sorry."

"For what?"

"I kind of forgot you were there."

Ethan smiled. "That's probably the nicest thing anyone's ever said to me."

She laughed, shaking her head. "You know what I mean."

"I do."

They stood, collecting their things, and began walking toward the library again. The distance between them felt different now, although neither tried to define why. They were still walking along the same path they had taken the previous two Thursdays, beneath the same old buildings and the same dim university lights, but Ethan couldn't shake the feeling that something had shifted.

At the library entrance, Maya turned toward him.

"Thanks for staying."

"Anytime."

She smiled, and for a moment Ethan thought she might say something else, but instead she simply turned toward the doors.

He watched her disappear inside before adjusting his glasses and continuing in the opposite direction.

It occurred to him, rather inconveniently, that he was beginning to look forward to Thursdays for a reason that had very little to do with books.

And that was probably something he should have been more concerned about than he was.