Page 89 of Saint Céline

“I’m just tired.”

“Come over tonight. I’ll order food. We don’t have to go out.”

The offer would have comforted me if not for Vincent’s demands. I pressed my thumb against the edge of the steering wheel until it hurt.

“I can come by tonight, I think.”

“Yeah?”

“Yes,” I say more firmly.

“Good. I miss you.”

The words landed gently and did nothing. That was when I knew I was more tired than sad. Thad deserved cruelty. He didn’t. He had been careless, shallow, occasionally self-absorbed, and far too comfortable with the version of me that made sense inside his world, but he had never been deliberately cruel. Not like Vincent. Not like me.

He was a nice man with beautiful hands and expensive sheets who loved the girl I had built because he had never been asked to see the girl underneath.

And maybe that was the most damning thing about us.

“I’ll be there in an hour,” I said.

“Perfect. I’ll get that Thai place you like.”

“You hate Thai food.”

“I can suffer for love.”

He said it lightly. I closed my eyes.Love. The word should have done something. Anything. Instead, all I felt was Vincent’s voice in my head, low and certain.

Thad only loves the version of you that makes sense beside him at dinner tables.

“I’ll see you soon,” I said, and ended the call before Thad could say anything else.

For several minutes, I did not move. Then I drove back to the dorm.

Sophia was in the living room when I arrived, sitting on the floor with her laptop open while Miss Astoria slept beside her like a small white cloud with trust issues. Anya was stretchedacross the sofa, reading something on her phone, one leg dangling over the armrest.

Both of them looked up when I walked in.