The bell rang at four, and nobody moved.
Alex closed his book and waited for Kelly to say what she always said. See you tomorrow. Read Chapter six. Don’t be late. But she stayed at her desk with her hands folded, and her eyes went from Alex to Jerry and back again.
"Before you go," she said, "there’s something I need to tell you."
Jerry looked up from his book. Alex set his pen down.
"Today is my last day here," Kelly said. "The other students too. We’re returning to the academy this evening."
The room went quiet.
"Why?" Alex asked.
"Only a week remains." She said it evenly, like she was reading from a page. "We have our own preparations to make. The Foundation will take over from here. Their staff will run the final days and the evaluation."
Alex nodded slowly. It made sense. She was a student, after all, with her own path to walk. She had been lent to them for a while, and the loan was up.
"It’s been nice getting to know you both," Kelly said.
Jerry shrugged. He stared at his book, then turned a page, plainly uninterested. Whatever he felt, he kept it locked away.
Alex was different. He watched Kelly’s face as she spoke, and something in it caught him. There was no sarcasm in her voice. No edge. It was the first time she had said anything to them without a layer of cool distance over it, and he could hear the difference.
’She means it,’ he thought. ’This is the most honest thing she’s ever said.’
She stood and pushed her chair in. For a second she seemed to search for something else to add.
"I wish you both the best of luck," she said. "Really. I hope..." She stopped, then tried again. "I hope someday we can fight side by side."
Alex stood as well.
"Same to you," he said. "I hope so too."
Kelly held his eyes. Then she stepped around the desk and held out her hand.
He looked at it for a moment. It was small, with slender fingers and a faint callus along the palm, the mark of years of training. He took it.
Her grip was firm and warm.
It was only then, in that quiet second with his hand wrapped around hers, that Alex saw her.
Not the girl who had marched them through the compound. Not the teacher who had thrown a stack of books on his desk. He saw her properly, for the first time.
Her eyes were blue, a clear, bright blue, the color of a lake under morning sun. Her hair was light blue too, pale as frost, cut short at the jaw and framing a small, sharp face.
There was a tiny scar above her left eyebrow that he had never noticed. Her lips were pressed together in a way that made her look stern, but he saw now that it was only nerves.
She was beautiful.
’Oh,’ Alex thought.
It hit him all at once. His heart gave one heavy thud, and his throat went dry, and he could not remember how to let go of her hand.
’I think I might really like this girl.’
The thought was so sudden and so clear that it frightened him.
Kelly tilted her head slightly. "Alex?"
He blinked and let go.
"Sorry," he said. "Right. Good luck."
"You too."
She stepped back and picked up her bag. She gave Jerry a short nod, which he returned without looking up. Then she walked to the door, and paused there with her hand on the frame.
"Study hard," she said, without turning. "And try not to skip the boring ones entirely."
Alex almost laughed.
"I’ll try."
The door closed behind her with a soft click, and her footsteps faded down the corridor.
For a long moment Alex stood where he was. The room felt bigger without her. The chair had been pushed in neatly.
"Are you coming?" Jerry said.
"Yeah."
But he did not go to the gym.
He followed Jerry up the stairs, and at the third floor he peeled off toward their room and let himself in. Jerry glanced at him but said nothing, and went to the top bunk with his book.
Alex stood in the middle of the floor. Then he dropped and did his push ups on the boards, counting quietly. Fifty. Then sit ups. Then squats, until his legs burned. It was a full session, done in cramped space with no machines, and it was not enough. His body was tired but his head was not.
He sat down on the bunk and picked up a book.
The words did not go in.
He read the same line three times. The letters swam, and he saw a shade of pale blue where the page should have been. He turned a page. He turned it back. His eyes moved down the paragraph and stopped, and he found himself staring at nothing.
’What’s wrong with me?’
He had read for hours a day for three weeks. He had read through headaches and hunger and exhaustion. But tonight he could not get through a single Chapter, because every time he tried, he saw her hand held out across the desk.
He gave up and set the book on the floor.
He lay back and stared at the slats of the bunk above him. Kelly. He said her name silently. It felt strange in his mouth.
’How did I not notice?’
She had been right there, in front of him, for three weeks. Every day. She had handed him books and pushed him to keep going and stood at the door of the gym while he trained. She had brought him food when he refused to eat. She had asked him what happened, and reached out to touch his face, and he had flinched like she was going to hit him.
’She was worried,’ he thought. ’The whole time. And I was too busy being miserable to see it.’
She was smart, and stubborn, and sharper than anyone he had met in this world. She was also kind, in the quiet way that did not announce itself. She was beautiful. He had known it in some part of himself, but he had not let it in. He had been too locked inside his own head.
’A beautiful and wonderful girl,’ he thought. ’And I didn’t even see it.’
He turned onto his side. The window showed a strip of dark sky, and somewhere behind it, miles away, a school full of students was packing bags. She was probably on the road by now.
He had said good luck. That was all. He had shaken her hand, and stammered, and let her walk out the door.
’I should have said something.’
What, exactly, he did not know. Though he was glad she had been his teacher.He hoped he would see her again. He did not want her to go.
But he had done nothing. He had stood there like a stone.
’Idiot,’ he thought.
Above him, the bunk creaked as Jerry rolled over. The room settled into silence.
Alex lay awake a long time with his fists clenched under the blanket. When sleep finally took him, he went under angry, furious with himself, for the one move he had not made.