Page 29 of Ghosted

My apartment is the other way. The gym is three blocks south. My bike is parked behind the business building because campus security gets lazy when it rains, and there’s a coffee place beside the library that only tastes like burnt shit if you order wrong.

So, no.

There is not one solid, rational, normal reason for me to cut across the old courtyard, past the chapel path, and toward a building full of people who think paint splatter and emotional damage count as a personality.

Except Alice Aster is visual arts.

Which is inconvenient.

Annoying as fuck.

And apparently enough to change where I’m going.

I know she’s visual arts because after the warehouse, I looked her up.

Obviously.

Not in a creepy way.

In a practical way.

A girl blinds me mid-fight, points a camera at me like she’s trying to piss me off on purpose, then says my name like she knows exactly what it did to me? Yeah, I’m going to find out who the fuck she is.

That’s not a fucking obsession. That’s common sense.

One search gives me her name, her department, and a few photo credits under campus articles nobody reads unless they have to.

There’s a group gallery from last semester too. Alice stands near the back, half-turned away from the camera, dark hair over one shoulder, mouth flat, eyes bored.

Except she doesn’t look bored.

She looks like she doesn’t want to be found.

Which is funny.

Because I found her anyway.

That should’ve been harder.

That’s what pisses me off most.

Alice doesn’t look like someone the world should get easy access to. She looks like something you have to earn. Something that should stay half-hidden behind a lens, behind black lace, that sharp little mouth and all the quiet she uses like a locked door.

But there she is.

Alice Aster.

Photography focus. Visual arts. A few clicks, and suddenly I know where to look.

Which is not the same as looking for her.

It’s not.

It means I know where she is, and maybe that’s a bullshit distinction, but it’s the one I’m using because the alternative makes me sound like I need professional help and a locked drawer for my phone.

The problem is Alice doesn’t feel like someone who should be that easy to find.

She feels like someone who keeps half of herself tucked away on purpose. A name under a photo credit. A face turned from the camera. A look thrown over her shoulder in bad lighting like she knows exactly how long it’ll stay in your head.