[Reader Discretion Advised]

Chapter Four (Sea Breezes)

She was everywhere again.

Not suddenly—but like fog reentering the coast. Soft, slow, and inevitable.

Ari didn’t say anything when she slipped into the desk beside Lena during morning lecture. She just sat—barefoot as always, legs crossed under the seat, pen between her teeth like she was considering biting it. Her shirt hung off one shoulder, revealing the faintest edge of a bruise shaped like a mouth.

Lena tried not to look.

Tried not to want to.

Halfway through the lecture, Ari leaned over and slipped a folded note onto Lena’s notebook. Her fingers brushed Lena’s wrist. Just enough to leave heat behind.

She didn’t wait for a response.

Didn’t even glance.

Lena didn’t open it right away. She finished copying Wren’s quote from the board, her pen moving in a mechanical rhythm she didn’t feel.

When she did open the note, she kept it low on her lap.

One line.

The wall only exists if you believe in it.

No punctuation. No explanation.

Ari didn’t look at her. She was doodling now. A small spiral. Over and over.

Later, in the dining hall, Ari sat next to her again.

Unannounced.

The bench shifted with her weight, and Lena caught the faint scent of cedar and citrus—Ari’s skin, not perfume. She didn’t speak. Just ate a single blood orange, slowly, tearing the flesh apart with her fingers. Her nails were stained pink by the time she was done.

Lena tried to talk about the reading, the quote, anything—but Ari only responded with a hum.

A soft sound. Not agreement. Not refusal.

Just sound.

Then, as she stood to leave, Ari’s shoulder brushed against Lena’s.

It could’ve been casual.

Except she didn’t move.

She paused.

The fabric of their clothes touching.

Lena held her breath.

Then—Ari was gone. Turning, walking away without looking back.

Like nothing had touched anyone.

But Lena could still feel it hours later.

Not heat.

Not pressure.

Absence.

The exact shape of what hadn’t happened.

Back in her room, Lena unfolded the note again for the tenth time.

The paper had already softened at the corners, crumpling slightly from how many times her fingers had worried it like a worry stone. The handwriting was unmistakably Ari’s—slanted, sharp, like each word had been whispered through a closed door.

The wall only exists if you believe in it.

She didn’t know if it was about the peephole.

Or something else.

Her eyes moved slowly toward the dresser.

It hadn’t been touched since the night of the Club.

But now she crossed the room, barefoot, quietly, as if not to wake something.

She didn’t move the dresser.

She just crouched next to it and placed her hand flat against the wood, where the hole was hidden beneath. She could feel the faint draft again—like the wall breathed. Like it knew.

Lena let her fingers trace the edge of the dresser, then rest against the spot.

She didn’t look through it.

Not tonight.

But she stayed there for a long time, knees curled beneath her, staring not into—but at—the peephole behind the wood. Wondering what it meant to look.

Or to be looked at.

She thought of Ari’s fingers stained with citrus. Of the brush of a shoulder held for one impossible second too long.

Of the bruise that looked like a mouth.

She went to bed still dressed.

Still waiting.

Still not looking.

But no longer pretending the wall was just a wall.

The seminar room smelled like chalk dust and old paper. A rainstorm had moved in just after sunset, and now it thudded against the windows in slow, deliberate taps, like a patient knock that never stopped.

Professor Wren paced as he spoke, weaving Euripides into Sade without pause, linking tragedy to desire as if they were the same animal wearing different masks.

Lena barely heard him.

Not because he wasn’t captivating—he always was—but because Ari sat across the circle, spine arched slightly, pen between her lips again, legs crossed and swaying lazily. Her skirt had a tear up the side that hadn’t been there before. Or maybe Lena had never been brave enough to notice.

Their eyes hadn’t met all class.

But Ari was present. Like static in the room’s wiring.

When Wren dismissed them, the class stirred as one—backpacks zipped, chairs scraped, whispers restarted.

Lena stood to leave.

She didn’t hear footsteps behind her.

Didn’t hear Ari approach.

But as she reached the hallway door, she heard her voice.

Not loud.

Not asking.

Just existing.

“Walk me home?”

Lena turned.

Ari hadn’t moved from her seat. She was bent over her notebook, drawing something in the margins. Her voice had come like breath—deliberate, but not performative. A line offered across a tightrope.

Lena hesitated.

Then nodded, once.

Ari didn’t smile.

She closed her notebook slowly and stood, tugging her coat over her shoulders without bothering to button it.

The walk back would take ten minutes.

Ten minutes between two people who’d never had a normal conversation.

Lena followed her into the night.

The rain had softened to mist by the time they stepped outside, the world smeared in silver.

Ari didn’t bother with an umbrella.

Her coat hung open, the hem dragging against her thighs. She carried her boots in one hand and walked barefoot across the wet pavement like the cold didn’t touch her.

Lena shoved her hands deep into her pockets.

They didn’t speak for the first two blocks.

Their footsteps were the only sound, the town empty at this hour. Just fog, the distant pulse of the sea, and the soft wet slap of Ari’s soles on stone.

Finally, Ari said, “I like when it rains. Makes the air feel like it’s touching you on purpose.”

Lena didn’t answer right away. Her voice felt folded up somewhere inside her, hard to reach.

Ari glanced over. “You think too much.”

“I don’t know how else to be.”

“You’ll learn.”

A pause.

Then Ari said, “You’ve never had someone watch you, have you? Really watch you.”

Lena looked at her. “You mean like… the Club?”

Ari gave a half-smile. “The Club’s just a mirror. People bring their own hunger.”

They passed under a flickering streetlamp. Ari’s hair was damp now, clinging to her collarbone. Her steps didn’t falter.

“Do you like being watched?” Lena asked, almost by accident.

Ari didn’t stop.

“Sometimes,” she said. “When I get to choose how.”

Another pause.

“Sometimes I want to disappear,” she added. “But even then—I want someone to notice I’m gone.”

Lena’s voice was quiet. “Does Wren… tell you what to say?”

Ari stopped walking.

Just for a second.

Then turned toward her, rain fogging the space between them.

“Only when I want to hear it.”

Then she kept walking.

Lena stayed still for half a heartbeat longer, then followed.

Their shadows tangled on the wet pavement behind them, shapeless and doubled by the mist.

The lights in Kett House flickered as they stepped inside.

The old building felt half-asleep, breathing in soft wooden creaks. Ari shook rain from her coat and let it fall onto the floor like a skin she didn’t need anymore. Her feet were dirty from the walk, soles dusted with grit and water.

They climbed the stairs in silence.

At the landing between the second and third floors, Lena stopped.

So did Ari—three steps above, now eye-level.

Lena spoke before she lost her nerve.

“What are you to them?”

Ari didn’t blink.

“To Cal. Nico. Wren. The others. What are you?”

Ari stepped down one stair, closing the space between them. Her breath smelled faintly of mint and rain.

“I’m what they want,” she said softly. “And what they can’t keep.”

Another step. Her face was inches away now.

“And sometimes I’m just the thing they use to see themselves.”

Lena’s throat tightened.

“You don’t mind?”

Ari leaned in.

Her lips brushed Lena’s cheek—not a kiss, not yet. Just contact.

“I want to be used,” she whispered. “But only when I choose it.”

Lena’s breath caught.

Ari’s mouth moved closer, her nose grazing Lena’s, her lips parted—and finally, she kissed her.

It wasn’t sweet.

It wasn’t soft.

It was a press, a claim, slow and full of heat that threatened to melt whatever distance Lena had tried to hold onto.

Lena responded instinctively, hands clutching Ari’s coat. But just as she began to deepen the kiss—

Ari pulled back.

Not far.

Just far enough to say it:

“You’re not ready.”

A pause.

Then: “You will be.”

And with that, she turned and climbed the last three steps, disappearing down the hallway.

Lena stood in the stairwell alone, pulse racing, lips tingling, the air still warm where Ari had just been.

She didn’t move for a long time.

Lena lay flat on her back, eyes open in the dark.

Her hands rested at her sides, fingers twitching against the sheets like they were waiting for a command that never came.

She hadn’t changed clothes. The slip dress clung to her skin, still damp at the hem from the walk home, but she didn’t care. The fabric felt like Ari’s voice—soft, teasing, and too close to ignore.

She pressed her fingers to her lips.

Not with pressure. Just contact.

The echo of the kiss still hummed there. Not the warmth of it—but the absence that followed. The interruption. The pause that hadn’t been a denial, just a delay.

You’re not ready.

But her body disagreed.

It was ready in a dozen ways—tight, restless, aching—but none of it had an outlet. Not tonight.

The room was quiet, but not silent.

The sea outside moved beneath the cliffs like a living animal. The wind tapped against the glass like it wanted to come in.

And then—footsteps.

Slow. Deliberate. Climbing the stairs.

Lena’s breath hitched.

They stopped just outside her door.

She didn’t move.

She didn’t call out.

She just stared at the ceiling as something stood there, just on the other side.

No knock.

No voice.

No movement.

Just presence.

And then—eventually—it was gone.

The quiet that followed wasn’t comfort.

It was hunger.